The Power of ENSEMBLE:
How we can build communities through music.
by Kevin Krumenauer
I was a lonely kid. I remember in the early 80s turning the key to my mom’s front door and wishing I’d open it to find a house full of people. But it was just me in the afternoons. I had no siblings, my parents were divorced, and my mom worked a corporate job to support us. I spent after school watching cartoons or playing video games alone.
In the 4th grade, I went to a school that offered instrumental music, and it got me out of the general music class where we sang Guthrie’s This Land is Your Land practically every day. I got put on the trombone by the band director (despite my initial preference for the clarinet). This is when things started to turn around for me. Music very quickly became my lifeline. It enabled me to escape and cope with the huge underlying forces that were at play in my home and social life. And I’m sure there are many kids, and frankly people of all ages, who find themselves at odds with their lives and not having much agency or control. Into this music can come and give an opening and a respite.
When I walked into that band ensemble room in the afternoons, I was no longer just an awkward, husky teen who moved so often that each year was a new school and the experience of being the new kid. I was a trombone player. And I now had a place and a purpose, and people around me who needed me to reach a common goal. For the first time, maybe ever, in my life, I had a sense of community and agency in my life. This is what resided in the power of the ensemble.
Large ensemble participation, such as a band or an orchestra, has the ability to create communal space. This might seem like a simple thing, and it is, but it is also enormously powerful. Sometimes the greatest power lies in the simplest acts. I’ve seen first hand too in my work as a composer, how rehearsal and performance of music creates a regular structured space where community can flourish. The lived music experience does more than produce a finished work of art, as powerful as that is, it creates a goal and the satisfaction in having achieved such a creation. This is the true power of the ensemble performance experience, creating and holding space for growth, both musically and personally by allowing us to reconnect with our humanity. Currently, there is a significant lack of space in society where people can physically come together as a community and engage in a common activity like participating in a live music ensemble. And the pandemic has exacerbated this and underlined the real need for it.
Music is happening right now, but it’s happening without groups coming together to share direct human interaction between the performers. There are limits in teleconferencing technology that do not allow for live music to be made in real time—there’s simply too much delay in the signal. There is a sort-of music that is going forward, but it has no communal element to it. It is individuals recording their portion against a pre-recorded track. This can result in a useful performance of a piece, but the communal aspect of creating something together; the exchange of energies and of emotions that occur through the creative process is lost. This work of community is vital and must be preserved. Societies function better when people feel connected. Creating these connections is vital for good mental well-being.
I see the future of the ensemble as a place that provides a grounded, centered space for music making. Where people of multiple backgrounds can come together to join in the common activity of making sound together. (Let’s face it, the reality is that it gives us a place where we can meet together for a common activity and forget all of our societal trappings.) This is what we need, a space where different people can come together and do so in a non-threatening way. Engaging in music does this because it levels the playing field. Everyone is united by their ability on an instrument, regardless of their background, sexuality, race, gender or socioeconomic status. The ensemble is what we need if society is to survive and thrive.
