justplainbil

Just Plain Bill

Never Turn Your Back on an Audience

While I was growing up, there were some edicts or admonitions my mother gave me that stuck better that others. One I can remember quite well is when my mother told me when I was very young to never to turn my back on an audience. I’m not sure what caused that to come up. Perhaps we’d seen someone performing somewhere and they were facing the audience.

When I was five years of age, I was asked to conduct the kindergarten rhythm band – a proud group of classmates playing bells, triangles, little drums, sticks, and cymbals. For a little boy, who even at that early age was somewhat of a “pest”, that was quite an honor.

So the big day came, and many parents filled the auditorium. We sat in our little chairs on the stage and then my teacher, Miss Dyer, introduced me to the audience. I promptly came up to the front of the stage and, with the little baton in my hand, proceeded to conduct the performance of our rhythm band with a lot of energy and vigor – with my back to the musicians and I facing the audience.

My fellow students did quite well having to follow the beat with my back turned! When we had an intermission, my mother told me that it was OK to conduct the second half of our program facing the performers – and this one time it would be OK to have my back to audience.

As you may imagine, the lesson learned that day was that this “absolute” edict was really a “situational absolute” – and I never conducted a group of performers with my back to the musicians again.

Funny the things that we remember as we’ve grown up. What’s on your list?