Does it Matter Where We Begin? Or, On the Art of Preparation and Preluding

"In all things success depends on previous preparation, and without such previous preparation there is sure to be failure."(Confucian wisdom, The Doctrine of the Mean, trans. James Legge)[1] Does it matter where we begin? What could this question possibly be asking for? As an anxious question, it usually meets with a simple retort: we have to begin somewhere, so does it really matter where? Perhaps, however, I'm making a false start and should ask whether it matters not where, but how, when, or with what we begin--although, just by considering these alternatives, at least I've made a start. I already feel a bit like the white rabbit instructed by the King of Hearts to "begin at the beginning, and go on till the end is reached--and then stop." But Alice quickly enters my world to prevent me seeking too many adventures in Wonderland. Don't descend the path of puzzle and paradox, she warns me--just stick with the Confucian wisdom: that the most successful beginning presupposes a preparation from which it derives its sense as a beginning in the first place.[2] My address today regards the idea of preparation, the idea of getting ready as when one says "ready, steady, go." As others write of the sense of an ending, I join those who write of the sense of a beginning. But whereas others say that the beginning makes sense given what follows as the middle and end, I ask what the preparation contributes to making a beginning the best beginning it can be. Many insist that a beginning must make sense, for if it doesn't, there's little inclination to pursue matters further. The beginning must grab us, put us in the right mood. Yet if getting in the mood presupposes a preparation, shouldn't the preparation count as a part of the beginning, or even be reckoned as the real beginning itself?[3] My topic today is the preparation required of a public address, be it of a keynote address as here, or of a musical performance as delivered to an audience in a concert hall. If I may tease you straightaway with a real situation--consider what happens before we hear the first notes of Beethoven's Eroica, a third symphony whose own most decisive opening chords have been so much noted and revered that one might think it impossible that anything could come prior. Yet, before these opening chords, don't we hear a breath attending the gesture of the conductor's upbeat? Or the last coughs or rustles of candy papers from an audience that hasn't quite settled? Or the last beeps from the many electronic devices that are switched off, though always just a bit too late, giving rise to frustrated shushing sounds all around? And before the first chords, don't we hear a broad range of noises coming from a public finding their seats, flipping through their programs with small gasps of pleasure or fear when they're made fully aware of what they're about to hear? And aren't we offered what is sometimes quite a considerable din from the orchestra warming up, either by practicing their parts imminently to be performed or for a rehearsal the following day? And doesn't this noise become yet another noise when we hear the ensemble leader arriving to our applause to tune the instruments now in a more orderly way, so that when our last applause finally accompanies the conductor onto the podium, we are ready to hear the first chords in what suddenly becomes for us a perfect aesthetic silence?[4] I tried by my description not to suggest that there is too much rhyme, reason, or etiquette observed either by the public that constitutes the audience or by the ensemble that constitutes the performing body. I described the situation to convey an atmosphere less of preparation and more of a near-meaningless social din. I did this to bring attention to what was once much more the case--before the nineteenth century and those decisive Beethoven chords--when a practice of explicit preparation justified if not every noise of the occasion, then more than seem to be justified today. …