The evenings for the past few weeks in my house have been filled with our first read-aloud of The Hobbit. Our oldest had read it last year as a free choice book in English class, but for the other two kids it’s the first exposure to Middle Earth.
The interesting thing is that my oldest hated it when he read it to himself, but he’s really engaged in our family reading. And I think that it speaks to the way certain books work much better in certain formats.
I think The Hobbit is better when read aloud. I think it’s not even close. And while I think a re-read to oneself can connect in a similar way, I think it’s hard to connect to Tolkien’s writing on the page.
Other works of art work best in certain formats, too. Jacob Collier’s stage shows are said to be tremendous, but they seem to be completely different from his wildly adventurous albums. The Singers Unlimited didn’t even attempt to perform live: their art was wedded to the recording medium. But on the flip side, I think that James Taylor thrives on a personal connection to an audience, with a live band interacting and making music together.
Certain choral pieces call for rich, reverberant spaces, while others require a more acoustically dead space. Some pieces can work well for an audience of 100, but others need many hundreds in the room to connect. Even certain standing arrangements can make a difference in the effectiveness of a piece.
I know that my kids will have a strong positive impression of The Hobbit because they are coming to it in its best form – read aloud.
When I select a piece I love for my ensemble, I want to take just as much care to deliver it to the singers and the audience in its best form.