Keith Handy 1.999

Suspension of disbelief vs. being “safe”

The term “Suspension of disbelief” usually refers to our forgiveness of contradictions and inconsistencies in fiction. We generally don’t use it when talking about abstract or experience-oriented art, such as music or animation (i.e. the animation itself, not the story). I think we should be talking about it — the audience’s willingness to experience the art, and not just see or hear it — even if we need a different term for it. As a musician for 25+ years, I haven’t come across a better term yet, so I’m sticking with SoD for now.

Without SoD, you may still get positive feedback on your work, all from people telling you that you “did a great job” and “have a lot of talent”… but never from anyone saying they were moved or affected.

SoD is audience-side, but there still needs to be an artist-side effort to facilitate the illusion for the audience. (This doesn’t necessarily mean making everything as realistic as possible; in fact, it can mean the exact opposite.)

So what responsibility does the artist have here? Here’s a tweet of mine from December:

I think most failure to enable an audience’s suspension of disbelief is not due to sloppy execution; it’s due to being too “safe”.

Safe: the guitarist who plays entirely with his fingers, and emotes nothing with his body or face. If you’re distant from your own music, then who the hell’s going to feel close to it? Safe: a recording engineer who worries more about the noise floor than the intensity or originality of the sound. Safe: the shoestring filmmaker who splurges on the best camera and lighting, but settles for passionless acting, as long as everyone gets their lines right. Safe: anyone who devotes most of his mental energy to the avoidance of mistakes. Safety is the enemy of imagination, and a lack of imagination on your own end means the SoD won’t happen won’t happen for anyone else either. If you want the audience to have an engrossing experience, you have to allow yourself to be engrossed in that experience first, which may look to some like temporary insanity.

This would seem to be an easy thing to explain to people, but sometimes it comes into conflict with deeply held values… as a result, it can fall on deaf ears. In this case you have to acknowledge that someone won’t be coming along on your journey, and just move on. Don’t let these relationships bleed you of your energy. You’ve got moving and affecting to do; get on with it.

Inner worlds and mythology

Lying on my back on the floor, headphones on, listening to a podcast in the wee hours of a weekend morning. Fully awake, yet firmly planted in the familiar inner world where this whole thing started. Not caring whether music is my music or somebody else’s music, since the distinction between “me” and “someone else” is a temporary illusion.

My attention shifts to frustration. I have the urge to share this experience, but I’ve learned that most people in this world criticize and judge in a binary, pass-or-fail way, uncomfortable with any art teetering on the fence between ethereal and half-baked. I want to put some nod to “Careful With That Axe, Eugene” in my Facebook status, but then I remember how flat and two-dimensional it will look to anyone not absorbed in the song.

I realize I’m not actually alone, by virtue of the fact that this is a podcast (and a popular one). But then I also remember how futile it is to seek meaningful human contact in the podcaster’s comments; people tend to have either a capacity to fully lose themselves in music, or the ability to write coherently — rarely both.

I realize one of the things keeping this (or any) music alive today is the mythology surrounding it. Personally, my experience of it is full without laser shows, without Wizard of Oz synchronizations, without smoking pot or adding “Shine On” to my email signature. My journey into the music is no less engrossing for having a realistic, first-hand understanding of the mundane process that goes into polishing a crude idea into a song.

For those who don’t have that experience or understanding, perhaps the mythology fills that gap. Much as I rant against it, why should I? Why fight mythology? It’s as pointless as fighting bootlegging, and has about the same effect.

I can’t think of any immediate practical use for this wisdom, so rather than trying to hammer it into the wrong-shaped hole, I’ll just let it simmer on the back brain for now.