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"Mamaaaa...! A to G?"
"Hmm." My mother chops through a carrot. "F. I'll take an F."
"Flat, natural, or sharp?"
She points to the ceiling with the knife. "Sharp?"
"Okay, but minor or major?"
My father interjects from the living room. "No sad music. Major, please."
And with that, I am off, reveling in the task of improvising a song on the family upright. Black notes skip through the treble in my right hand, eliciting gasps of amazement. A soft landing of bass trills in my left hand causes my father's jaw to drop.
The reaction of a receiving public still stands as an important motivator, although I gradually shifted focus over my life to arrive at a startling conclusion: Incredibly enough, the audience does not exist to validate me and my charms! Drat.
Ostinatos and arpeggios hurled every which way dazzle and delight while impetuous matador-like stamps on my footstool lend some extra panache. I suspect there is nostril-flaring, all bullish. And my mother weeps at the grand finale, clutching her kitchen towel in blissful maternal fulfillment as waves of majestic F# major chords bless our humble household. I bow to the collective cheers of "Gabriela!" ringing, a one-name entity. Like Cher.
My big brother, of course, just rolls his eyes from behind his comics. Well, no reaching him, but it doesn't stop me from trying, and the 88 keys on that piano there has gots my back, you hear?
Clearly, as a young girl so keenly aware of her audience of three, I wanted to be a part of my family's auditory landscape just as they were a part of mine—there was no escaping the grinding of glass in the hands of my mother, the stained glass artist; nor the sound of a typewriter beaten into submission from the studio of my father, the writer; nor the swish of wooden sticks and swords from my brother in the backyard, the martial artist.
What is any human activity without an audience, however small the numbers? And wasn't I their audience as they were mine?
Fast-forward a few decades: I'm now a full-time composer with far more than just 88 keys at her disposal. And I've not changed very much, I'm afraid. The reaction of a receiving public still stands as an important motivator, although I gradually shifted focus over my life to arrive at a startling conclusion: Incredibly enough, the audience does not exist to validate me and my charms! Drat.
Rather, my years of formal training, traveling in Latin America to better know my Peruvian heritage, and concertizing have all shown me that with so much competing for our time and attention in a world vast beyond belief, a person in the business of presenting original music needs to cultivate a serious code of responsibility.
In other words, one had better be sure that what he or she has to say is darn well worth the performer's time in the practice room, the listener's time in the performance hall, a writer's time at the desk, and many others.
My audiences now are bigger and often anonymous. How to account for those, for instance, who download my music in the privacy of their home? I cannot ask for their input, as I did with my parents, nor can I listen in on their own creative endeavors.
Curiously enough, though I've moved from an audience of intimates to audiences of many, I've noticed that I've taken ever more personal subjects for my music, likely bolstered by the fact that no one has yet suggested I'm a charlatan and perhaps I should consider selling vacation packages?
Rather, I feel ever more galvanized to take the direct route—vulnerability on my part seems to open my audience's collective heart. It's an exhilarating feeling, similar to sharing a secret with a potential new beau.
When I witness choirs at work, I'm also struck by the sheer visual of a group of people singing while facing the seated audience. There is an implied dialogue between the two bodies of humanity, as if these two partners are listening to one another.
Yet, one doesn't want to feel promiscuous either, revealing too much. It's a delicate balancing act, achieving just the right connection to the audience. And so, I've tested the waters in a number of ways, composing music inspired by such subjects as the contents of a humble museum outside of Chimbote, Peru, or the frighteningly ubiquitous tiny shrines along Peruvian highways in memory of accident victims, or my uncle Machi's dying breath.
I've also experimented with a wide range of genres, loving how the specificity of words in songs, for instance, goes right for the emotional jugular. For this reason, vocal music has a special place in my heart.
When I witness choirs at work, I'm also struck by the sheer visual of a group of people singing while facing the seated audience. There is an implied dialogue between the two bodies of humanity, as if these two partners are listening to one another. And as the composer witnessing the culmination of the music-making process, the actual performance, I almost feel I'm eavesdropping.
My mother gets more nervous than I do at my concerts, and my father gets worked up to read the occasional bad review. Generally speaking, though, audience reaction to my work has been unbelievably positive, movingly so. What zings me the most is when perfect strangers come up to me after a performance with a certain light in their eye, and they blurt out a personal confidence, wanting to connect. It's an emotion I well understand.
"Hey, I've been to Macchu Pichu!"
"My wife died last month. I miss her like you wouldn't believe."
"I'm going to pick up the flute again... Not that I'll ever be able to play what you wrote!"
"That... was Latino?"
"Do you want to get a drink? We're going out for Chinese!"
"You wouldn't... give me your autograph, would you?"
It's an amazing life, to be in service of others this way. I geek out daily, collecting stories to tell in music, and honing my musical chops to tell those stories better. Although I would still write and play if my audience were to disappear (like a terrible Twilight Zone episode), I would definitely feel the loss. In fact, I would feel gutted.
My safety net is twofold—remembering that as a storyteller, I am also an audience to others, and furthermore, that I'm fully creative if I have an audience of just one.
I think this has been my sensibility since I was a little girl, trouncing my poor spinet to parental accolades, and I'm not sure that such a fundamental reason for why I compose will ever change. It's carried me far and to marvelous places. And honestly, between you and me? There is a lot of listening left to be done. Onward!
This article is adapted from the special audience issue of The Voice, Spring , 2011, "The Face of Today's Audience."
