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About this quote

What does it mean?
Talking during the overture helps the audience identify tunes before the opera starts, adding humor.
In plain terms
Talking early helps the audience know the music before the show begins.
What can you take from it?
Engage early to recognize themes before the main event.

Where it applies

  • theater performances
  • concerts
  • social gatherings

Putting it to work

  • encourage pre-show engagement
  • use humor to manage etiquette

Questions to consider

  • When does noise help art?
  • How do we engage with music?

Another view

Talking usually distracts rather than helps in formal settings.

More from Ralph Vaughan Williams

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  2. The attitude of foreign to English musicians is unsympathetic, self-opinionated and pedantic. They believe that their tradition is the only one (this is specia…

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  3. The business of finding a nation's soul is a long and slow one at the best and a great many prophets must be slain in the course of it. Perhaps when we have sl…

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