What Live Music Can Teach Us
We can learn a lot from live concerts if we look and listen
The first live music performance I ever attended was by my grandmother.
It was at her home and the only audience was her 5-year-old grandson. Me. She played the piano and loved British Music Hall tunes and US show songs.
The grandmother lesson
My grandmother had a Cockney accent as thick as a 1950s pea-soup London fog and a personality the words stoic and phlegmatic were invented for. Not unlike her grandson.
But she came alive in front of her ol’ Joanna*. The moment she started playing, her face broke into a wide grin, her fingers found a rhythm you wouldn’t have guessed from her manner, and her entire body swayed to her sounds. As did mine.
The piano may have been a little out of tune and she’d hit a few bum notes, but it didn’t matter. The rich emotive sound of a live piano, the spirit from her playing and her visceral joy at playing it for me were better than The Beatles.
I learnt you can’t savour the physical emotion or the shared connection of corporeal joy from a recording; it has to be live and in the moment. Even when the piano needs tuning.
The Faces Lesson, London 1972
The first live gig I paid to see was The Faces in North London around 1972. Rod Stewart was their lead singer. I was 14 and lived about 25 miles outside London. I went with my mates by coach.
Rod Stewart didn’t teach me anything that night but the Faces and future Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood did. While the audience and my mates rocked to the band, I focused on and marvelled at Wood’s guitar playing all evening. The next day, I replicated what I had memorised on the cheap guitar my parents had bought me.
I still play several Faces songs based on what I learnt from Ronnie Wood that night (and later gigs) and it’s something I still do when watching live bands. Live music concerts are my personal guitar and piano lessons.
The Lucinda Williams Lesson — London Feb. 2024
If I went through every concert I’ve been to between The Faces and now, this article would be longer than the entire set of the Encyclopedia Britannica and Harry Potter series combined.
So let’s shuffle forward 52 years to 2024 where I’m still learning from live music.
I saw Lucinda Williams at the end of February 2024. Her personal story is one of beating many types of adversity and her incredible poetic lyrics often touch on the challenges she and others face and defeat.
Her most recent challenge was a stroke that paralysed her on one side and she now has to be helped onto the stage. But a stroke hasn’t stopped her — not one bit.
When you watch her play live, standing with one hand on the mike stand to support herself while performing, you gain a very different perspective of her message of defiance and success against adversity than from a recording.
And her incredible guitarists taught me a few new licks that night too.
The Julia Zenko lesson — Buenos Aires April 2024
Buenos Aires has an amazing music scene. My Porteña wife and I visit family and friends there every year.
We always take in some live music with friends, of course. This year, amongst others, we saw Julia Zenko, a famous Argentinian singer and actress. She played a small venue in the trendy barrio of San Telmo.
Zenko’s passionate Latin songs deal with love, adversity and personal development. She has a deep connection with her audience because of these messages and because of the personal stories she tells between the songs the way Springsteen used to do, and her charismatic upbeat demeanour.
This being Argentina though, there’s more. They like to enjoy their live music (and live music lessons) with food and drink. There’s no standing around in a hall with a watered-down beer and a fatty burger here.
Oh no, you get a table with a white tablecloth, a menu and waiter service. Very cultured.
Don’t tell me heaven is not listening and connecting with a consummate live performer such as Ms Zenko whilst eating a pound of Argentinian steak and sharing a bottle (or three) of Malbec with friends.
The Bernard Butler Lesson — Rough Trade London, May 2024
Bernard Butler is one of England’s premier rock guitarists and producers. So off Mrs M and I went to see him in play at a small venue in the east of our great city.
He played a solo set (where I picked up some new licks) and afterwards, he stayed behind to chat and sign his latest album for us. OK, he had an album to flog but he was playing to the already converted.
He may have written and performed on some of Brit Pop’s greatest hits of the 90s and 2000s with Suede, The Tears, McAlmont & Butler and solo, but Bernard Butler was a gentle and friendly soul. I saw no ego and he stayed on until he’d spoken to every single person there.
If every politician and so-called celebrity were like the engaging Mr Butler, the world would be a gentle, forgiving, friendly and music-focused place.
Butler for Prime Minister and World President.
The London Philharmonic Lesson — London Southbank Centre, May 2024
Although rock is generally my first choice, I love most music, including classical.
Live is more important for classical too and for the lessons it gives. You get to see the violinists swaying together as a single wave, you see and feel the conductor’s passion, and you feel the intensity of everyone working together for a single goal — making stunning music.
To be honest, I’d be the solo pianist but it wouldn’t work without the teamwork from the orchestra.
Passing the live music lessons on
It’s been over 60 since my grandmother gave me my first lessons on live music — what we get from it and what we learn from the artists.
Now it’s my turn with my grandson.
Note: *Joanna is Cockney rhyming slang for piano. Piano is pronounced as pian-ah in a Cockney accent so it therefore rhymes with Joanna.
Have you ever heard live music at the Proms? And standing up? I've never quite understood the appeal of that and would love to read a post on that.