<\/p>\n
Compliments<\/p>\n
They have two parts, one essential, the other optional. The essential is your personal reaction. (\u201cWhat a treat!\u201d \u201cI was swept away.\u201d) It can even be ambiguous (\u201cI don\u2019t know what<\/em> to say!\u201d); but if this is a way of finessing that you didn\u2019t like it, be sure no hint of that comes through. Remember that hiding things is tough; for as you\u2019ve just been reminded by the performance, \u201cEverything is obvious.\u201d<\/p>\n The optional is something specific (\u201cYou had that piano in overload.\u201d \u201cI\u2019ve studied that fugue, but you showed me how a Bach fugue should<\/em> be played.\u201d \u201cYour chord-voicing was a revelation.\u201d)<\/p>\n You don\u2019t have to be knowledgeable. One of the compliments I treasure most came from a lady who simply said, \u201cYour Schubert slow movement took me up to Heaven!\u201d; another came from a touring virtuoso who said of another program, \u201cEvery note was in its proper place.\u201d (In this case, it wasn\u2019t so much the words as whose mouth they came from.) And never<\/em> fake what you don\u2019t know. Performers are professional receivers of comments, and to fake musical knowledge with them is like faking the Second Law of Thermodynamics with a Caltech class.)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Ownership<\/p>\n Bear in mind that your compliment gives you no ownership stake in performer or performance. Do not say: \u201cYour Mozart was very good. I couldn\u2019t help thinking that playing in time would have made it even better.\u201d Nor, \u201cI\u2019d like to talk to you seriously about your Schubert.\u201d Nor, \u201cThe Moonlight Sonata was very good, very good, but not like Horowitz.\u201d I admire the flutist who was greeted backstage by a complete stranger who leaned in and said, \u201cYour Bach interpretation was all wrong. We should discuss it.\u201d She smiled brilliantly and said a warm, \u201cThank you\u201d while using one hand to \u201cswim\u201d past him to the next person in line.<\/p>\n So, yes, do go backstage and say a word; you\u2019ll help the performer through another day of an arduous life. But keep in mind that he or she may be exhausted physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. Don\u2019t take apparent or actual lack of attention to you and your words as disdain, condescension, or rudeness. The performer\u2019s tired! Lying If you go backstage after a concert, you compliment the performer. If this requires lying, you lie. If you can\u2019t compliment honestly, and can\u2019t lie, don\u2019t go backstage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/boykonpiano.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1861"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/boykonpiano.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/boykonpiano.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/boykonpiano.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/boykonpiano.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1861"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/boykonpiano.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1861\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1862,"href":"http:\/\/boykonpiano.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1861\/revisions\/1862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/boykonpiano.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/boykonpiano.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/boykonpiano.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![](\"\/Mordent.svg\")
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