Playing music in front of no one

This is part of a conversation between Grammy winning orchestra conductor Jeff Tyzik and journalist and podcaster James Brown. Tyzik shares his intense travel schedule and how he managed to continue it during the COVID-19 pandemic. He also compares working in front of audiences large and small.

JAMES BROWN: At the height of your travel schedule, how often did you go out of town?

JEFF TYZIK: Well, before the Pandemic, I had two years where I was only home ten days a month for a seven or eight month period. So I was really booking it back then. Then the Pandemic hit, and actually, a lot of orchestras closed down during the Pandemic because there was going to be nobody in the theater. You couldn't have people that were all over the country. But orchestras decided they needed to stay relevant, and they wanted to do something. So within the guidelines of social distancing, which affected how many people could be on stage, orchestras got into streaming, so they were trying to still reach their subscriber base by saying, hey, you can now watch us on Friday Night Live. We're going to be doing a live concert.

And we were limited to the number of players we could have on stage because of social distancing rules. So I actually had to write a ton of music for a small orchestra because not a lot of music exists for that. So I'll never forget. So anyway, before I get to that, during the Pandemic, I was traveling and my wife and my manager both said, you're out of your mind because this is before testing, before vaccines.

So I was masking up and gloving up and all the stuff that we find out later, it really didn't make a difference anyway. And I was flying and I was going to Detroit and Dallas and places and we were doing these streaming concerts. So we were playing in a theater, a 2000 seat theater to nobody except cameras and there was no music. So I created a couple of concerts. One was a ragtime concert. And it was the music of Scott Joplin, Jelly Roll Morton, W.C. Handy, all this kind of early jazz which was kind of written for small orchestras. Anyway, that kind of was the nature of the music. So I put together a concert that was very successful.

And then the Detroit Symphony wanted to have this group, Troop Vertigo, which is a circuit group, come and perform for streaming. And they do all these classical masterworks like the Dvořák Symphonic Dances and all these different pieces that are for full orchestra. So I had to take those pieces which are written for full orchestra and condense them so that they could be played by 24 people and still sound real, still sound right, which, I mean, it took hundreds of hours.

I ended up writing a lot of music during that time period. So we would do these concerts, we play this big piece. Piece would finish Dead Silence, nobody in the hall. And then you turn around and there's a camera out there and I'd have to talk to the camera. So then they started letting in, in a 2000ft hall, 50 people. And they would sit like 40ft apart, like all over the hall. And I'll tell you one thing, 50 people, when they're clapping can make a hell of a racket in the 2000 ft room.

So then we play and there would be 50 people and we would be still streaming. And I'll never forget that Buffalo asked me if I would come and help them out because the conductor that they normally use was quarantined and couldn't come. So I went there and did a few weeks. But one of them, some of the restrictions had been lifted and we actually had 250 people in the audience and the orchestra was crying because people were back in the room.

This kinetic energy that happens between the listener and the musicians it hadn't been there for months and months and all of a sudden there were people and it was like, it was unbelievable, the emotion on stage. So that was a pretty crazy time period. Anyway, since the pandemic after that I've cut back a bit, but before the pandemic, it's a long answer to a short question. I'm sorry, but yeah, I was out there that one year, man. I came home and I'd unpacking like five days later I'm gone again.

And then sometimes I'd be gone for two or three weeks at a time. So I'm a little over that, to be honest with you.

JAMES BROWN:  Yeah, I got you. I have a couple of different questions about your long answer there. You've played in front of a 2000 seat auditorium. I'm assuming you've played in larger places. How do you compare being in a packed crowd in front of a packed crowd, a sparsely filled crowd versus no one? What's the sensation in all three environments?

JEFF TYZIK: Well, when you're playing for no one, you're totally focused on the musicians in front of you and you're concentrating on doing what we need to do together to make this music come alive. And you're not distracted by anything else. You're not distracted by any person, by any visual that's going on. It's like you're in a recording studio and you're totally focused on the music. So you can create really great music that way. And the musicians communicate with each other as they do in a full house.

There's a new element, if you imagine here is the orchestra and here is the audience and here is the conductor. I'm in the middle between the orchestra and the audience. And the energy that flows between the orchestra and the audience is just unbelievable. Because even if people are not in a Pops concert, if somebody plays a jazz solo, people are going to applaud during the piece, that kind of thing. But if we're playing some big classical piece, people are going to applaud at the end, not take part. But you can still feel the energy in the room of the listeners. If you are tweaking the listeners, you can feel their emotion, their energy, even if they're not applauding or yelling or something.

So that experience takes it to a whole new level because humans are putting out this ethereal thing called sound and that is touching the spirit and the soul of the people in the room. And there is an energy coming back and I'm standing right in the middle of it. So that is electric. When it's a sparse house, I think there is a tendency when musicians walk out on stage, at first they are like, oh, it's a small crowd tonight for about two minutes.

And then everybody is like, you know what, it doesn't matter if there's one person out there, we're going to play our hearts out for that one person. And then you kind of get to that place where you might think initially you might feel, well, there's not going to be as much energy in the room, but it's kind of a hybrid, sort of between the huge crowd and the nobody. And then you work the energy, the energy is still palpable in that group of people, and sometimes a smaller crowd is even more effusive than a large crowd.

It's hard to pick on it. To me, look, to walk on stage is a privilege, it always has been. To get to walk into a room and create sound and touch the human spirit of whoever's in the room is a privilege to get to do that. So to me, it's always a special experience, but there are these elements that make them each unique.

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