Yumi Kendall:

Hello everyone, I'm Yumi Kendall.

Joseph Conyers:

And I'm Joseph Conyers.

Yumi Kendall:

And welcome to Tacet No More, a podcast where we are no longer silent, asking the questions that need to be asked and saying the things that need to be said about classical music.

Joseph Conyers:

Tacet No More is an optimist's playground and landing pad for positive discussions about our belief in the power of music to better humanity. And we will invite voices from all sectors to inspire us in the work we do on and off the stage.

Yumi Kendall:

Joe and I have been friends for nearly 25 years and have over 40 years between us as professional musicians. We've had the best of conversations. Would you join us?

Joseph Conyers:

Welcome back everyone to episode four of Tacet No More season two.

Yumi Kendall:

Here we are.

Joseph Conyers:

Yes, we have had some really, really good conversations, Yumi. I've enjoyed them so much.

Yumi Kendall:

Yes.

Joseph Conyers:

The conversation I had with you at the very opening, opened the door to the Black Orchestra Network, fantastic. And then the very engaging conversation we had just the last episode with Frank Machos and Michael O'Brien.

Yumi Kendall:

That went on for a very long time. That was like the edited down version that y'all heard.

Joseph Conyers:

And it just, doing this podcast, it's really, I almost feel like it's a great excuse to just talk to some of our best friends and minds in the industry. I mean, looking back and reflecting on all the different episodes of last season and our fantastic guests. There seemed to be like a throughline, kind of this sense of purpose in all of our guests, whether it was Vijay, Katherine, Karen, even working with our students, talking to the students of the fellows of NOI, creating this sense of purpose. And it's neat how it's the music, and our love of music that is the shared experience that we have, but is not necessarily the only thing that keeps us going. Instead, it seems to be something greater than. Yumi, what is this thing that's giving us this sense of something to walk towards?

Yumi Kendall:

Wow, that was such an eloquent connection to our next guest, Dacher Keltner. Dacher and I met actually through the Philadelphia Orchestra CEO, Matías Tarnopolsky, who when he first came to the orchestra in 2018, said, I read your bio, you've got to meet Dacher Keltner. I know him from Berkeley, where of course Matías came from, and the connections came from there. And Dacher flew to Philadelphia after we had some phone conversations to interview me for part of his book that has just come out called Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life. And a lot of our conversation with Dacher today will be focused on this topic of awe and connecting to what you were saying, Joe, about purpose and offering this idea of awe to all of us as one possible avenue to finding our own purpose, creating our own purpose, creating community. What might that mean for each of us? And to help us give language to some of the questions that we may be asking ourselves, you as our listeners, to folks in the professional sphere already, to students thinking about or folks already on the brink of a professional career, longtime veterans of the symphonic orchestra sphere, listeners who are just fascinated with what we're talking about here as human beings, because this is part of the human experience, music and awe.

Joseph Conyers:

Yeah. And having read this text now, I do wanna point out that chapter seven, Ms. Kendall makes an appearance in the text.

Yumi Kendall:

And so does the Philadelphia Orchestra.

Joseph Conyers:

And the Philadelphia Orchestra, which is also very, very cool. So it's neat to see how that meeting back in 2019 actually, yeah, you ended up as part of this really beautiful text that talks about this almost the indescribable.

Yumi Kendall:

This topic of awe. So Dacher Keltner is the founding director of the Greater Good Science Center in Berkeley, California, and a professor of psychology there as well. He is the host of the Greater Good Science Center's award-winning podcast, The Science of Happiness. And he's also one of the world's foremost emotion scientists.

Joseph Conyers:

Wait, wait, say that again.

Dacher is an emotion scientist.

Joseph Conyers:

An emotion scientist. I will definitely be asking him about that.

Yumi Kendall:

Shall we unpack that a little bit? He's a prolific author of more than 200 scientific publications and six books, including the one we're talking about today called Awe. And we are so excited to welcome Dacher to our show.

Yumi Kendall:

Dacher, it's so great to see you. Thank you so much for joining us on our podcast.

Dacher Keltner:

Oh, I just got goosebumps seeing you again, Yumi. So it's nice to see you and nice to see you, Joe.

Yumi Kendall:

And we can't wait to hear more about those goosebumps. So one of the things that we do on our podcast is a positive psychology activity called One Good Thing in which we share something recent in our own experience that is meaningful or good, and it helps bring connection and a sense of shared space and good vibes to the podcast, to this space and also for our listeners and inviting them to also be thinking about One Good Thing in their lives to bring the positive experience to this space. So I will go ahead and start with one good thing and I'll invite Joe to share something. And if you're willing, Dacher, that would be wonderful. Are you willing to join?

Dacher Keltner:

Yeah, absolutely.

Yumi Kendall:

Thank you. Let's see, so my one good thing. I've been so appreciative to get to spend more time outside, and it's November now here in Philadelphia, and the air is crisp. The leaves are the most glorious, radiant, golden yellows, bright oranges, vibrant reds. The maple trees are just on fire with their gorgeousness, and they set against the bright blue sky. I feel like there's a sense of vibrancy even as the colors change and representing the seasonal changes here at this, at least at this latitude. And it just makes me feel very grateful to be able to experience those colors and that fresh crisp air and to be able to experience the simplicity of the seasonal changes. And that's my one good thing.

Joseph Conyers:

Awesome. For me, I don't know, that's right, yes. I thought about that. For me, and I don't know when this is gonna air, so this might be dating a little bit, but the Philadelphia Orchestra just got back from a European tour. We played in four cities, multiple concerts in each city. Luxembourg, Paris, Hamburg, Baden-Baden, Germany. And Dacher, I often have to pinch myself just being a member of the Philadelphia Orchestra, but playing Rachmaninoff, it was an all Rachmaninoff tour. So playing Rachmaninoff on repeat with the Philadelphia Orchestra throughout these major halls of Europe was just really rewarding and filled my soul in so many different ways. And I mean, I've always loved Rachmaninoff. I auditioned to get into Curtis on Rachmaninoff.

Yumi Kendall:

Cello Sonata probably.

Joseph Conyers:

That's right, it was a cello sonata. When we were at school, one of our best concerts while we were students was the Second Symphony of Rachmaninoff conducted by Hans Vanck. It was an amazing concert and then now to be playing Rachmaninoff with the orchestra that Rachmaninoff liked the most throughout Europe was just an amazing thing. So I'm so happy I was able to have that experience and it will live with me for a very long time. But for me that's my one good thing because I'm still kind of on a high off of that experience.

Dacher Keltner:

Good stuff.

Yumi Kendall:

Beautiful. How about you, Dacher? Is there one good thing you can do?

Dacher Keltner:

Well, no, no, it's so interesting, you and me, how powerful these exercises are, especially when you do them together with people you care about or admire. I was presenting data on the science of happiness to this group that I will work with. And one of the findings, and this is from a study of Danny Kahneman, is that spending time with friends is like the best thing you can do, you know, in terms of social connections. And, and I was like, wow, you know, I'm missing my daughters, they're 26 and 24, and kind of moving into their own lives. And so, very intentionally, I had these great moments with two friends Friday and Saturday. And just like, just for you know, we're all 60 years old, and we were just very thoughtfully reflecting that friendships are sacred, you know, and just feeling that, and going on a hike together and sensing, you know, it's often underappreciated how important those friends are. In particular, one, I remember we were hiking in this beautiful hill trail and we looked at this ravine with these oak trees and just stopped and we're, you know, like, friendship, really, it's the real thing. So being with friends.

Yumi Kendall:

That's so beautiful. Absolutely. I think that's often how Joe and I feel in terms of our friendship. And then now getting to share this space with you two again, Dacher. In our preamble, we've given an introduction about you, of course, and your work. And actually, I would love to follow up on what Joe, you were talking about with Rachmaninoff, with playing this very famous core repertoire of the classical music world. And I was wondering, in your work on awe, what happens when we're repeatedly doing the same thing? Again, and for somebody like Joe or me, playing Beethoven Five over and over again. Somebody like Joe is going to experience moments of awe regularly with the same experience, with the same walked path, so to speak. And there are other people who are also in a professional orchestra playing at a high level, the same beautiful music who will either never experience awe or who will much less often experience or even know about this vocabulary. And I kind of wanted to hear your perspectives on any one of those three. And in particular, is there a kind of immunity to, like can one become immune to awe? Kind of like with other endorphin induced states, like is there a limit to a runner's high, the natural endorphin rush that I know I experience very regularly with playing the same amazing music?

Dacher Keltner:

I mean, these are some of the deepest questions about awe, you know, the feeling of encountering vast mysteries in music or nature, divinity or visual design and all kinds of things that can bring us awe. The first question is really important because there are awe interventions coming. We devote parts of our lives to realms of awe, be it music or being with people who inspire us morally. And what we found is we don't become inured to awe, that it tends to grow on balance with time. We've done a couple of studies where people repeatedly are asked to access mental states of awe, you know, healthcare providers, elderly people in another study, and the awe grows over time. And so that's really interesting, unlike a lot of experiences which tend to habituate. And then you're-

Joseph Conyers:

And Dacher, sorry, sorry to interrupt, but could you explain that more? Yeah. You said the awe grows over time. What does that actually mean?

Dacher Keltner:

It totally surprised us. One of the studies was called the awe walk study. And elderly people, 75 years old or older, once a week they did this walk where we asked them to go find awe on the regular walk. And I had expected like a lot of positive experiences that their experiences of awe would sort of diminish over time because they're like, okay, now I'm going to find awe again, I'm getting kind of bored, you know. And the opposite happened, which is at the end of the eight weeks, the last awe walks they took were very filled with awe. And I think that's one of the amazing things about Awe walks, the more you reflect on it, build on it, build a conceptual framework for it through experience, it just gets richer, right? It takes you to new places. So, I think that's, you know, you know this intuitively when you talk to aficionados, right? You talk to somebody who loves crossword puzzles or music or wines or basketball statistics. And the more they learn about that domain, the more awe-inspiring it gets. And what a great property of this emotion is it grows with mystery and knowledge.

Yumi Kendall:

That's amazing. It actually reminds me, the way you were talking about how it grows, it reminds me of the way neuroplasticity works. And the more we exercise a particular passage, even there's research in excellence and, and the sort of 10,000 hours rule, but it deliberate practice ideas with, with our domain anyway. And the more you practice a particular passage, the more it moves into like from system one to system two, like Daniel Kahneman-style filing vocabulary that that neuroplasticity, it's like it by repeating the experiences of awe and familiarizing yourself with this emotional state, the same way someone in our profession will be practicing our instrument incessantly. If we're emotionally connecting ourselves this way, that's actually working the same. Is it working the same way? Like the neuroplasticity, we're actually creating those pathways in our brain to become more athletic towards awe. Is that what's going on here?

Dacher Keltner:

Well, we don't know. You know, I mean, the neuroscience of awe is very young, but I think it's going to grow really quickly. So we don't know, but to your point, and musicians, like Joe's sort of sense from Rachmaninoff is very apropos, which is if you have this awe mindset of thinking about, like in our interview for the book, Yumi, thinking about, I have a lifetime of playing this composer. This music has been part of different of my stages and development in my life, my existence, and playing it now is located in this vaster set of experiences that are united by the music, and it becomes remarkably meaningful. And so the challenge with any kind of repetitive part of a career or relationship or a spiritual or contemplative practice is to make sure you're situating your experiences in these larger narratives, right? Where you're like, oh, here I am, talking about awe with Yumi and Joe, and I've talked about awe with all these other people, it's all part of this vaster experience. And that's when life gets really meaningful, is to connect it to the vast layers of meaning in our lives.

Yumi Kendall:

This is beautiful.

Joseph Conyers:

No, I love it. I think it's great. I reflect on my own, I was talking about Rachmaninoff, but Yumi and I were talking before, and it's really true. And I was thinking about my own path with, for example, my favorite composer, although I spoke a lot about Rachmaninoff, is Brahms. And when I was in high school, I didn't like Brahms very much. I thought he was like, okay. I know, it's weird. But in my life journey, and this is, it's almost based on what I'm hearing you say, Dacher, it's almost like having a growth mindset in this awe world. If you are open to receiving more, it's like the folks you said, going on the walk, they actually see more, even though it's the same walk and they experience more and they uncover more because they're open to receiving that. And I think as artists, that's something that fills us. Like we're open to learning more and going deeper and going deeper and finding more and more meaning. It's our own transcendental journey in discovery.

Dacher Keltner:

And you know, focusing on the awe in music, like in my conversation earlier with Yumi, one thing is, with respect to growth, is there's always this mystery in awe. You know, you're always going to find some element of mystery in Brahms or for me looking at data, etc. And that just fires up the imagination and off you go into intellectual emotional growth. The other thing that comes forward in your story Joe is like, is, you know, one way to really find awe in things you do a lot of is to, is to think about the origins and the deep narrative of what you're doing, right? Just to step back and say, you know, here I am, I'm playing Brahms. I've played this 82 times. It started when I was 16. And look at what experience in life gives me, right? It gets so rich over time. And that's where the mindset work is really helpful for us. Because those are frames to any experience that can just be powerful and magical as your example illustrates.

Joseph Conyers:

Can you talk to us more? I mean, I'm gonna go backwards just a little bit just for our audience to understand a little bit more about you and your work and the science behind your work because you are literally an emotion scientist, which I find fascinating. An emotion scientist. Sounds like the coolest job ever. So talk to us about being, what it's like being an emotion scientist, and are you like, I mean, I assume you're all constantly talking to people, but do you like just run into random people on the street, like, to test their levels of certain emotions that they have on a certain day? Talk to us about that.

Dacher Keltner:

Yeah, I know. Whenever I tell people that, they're like – can you read my dreams or can you read my mind? Oh yeah, I can read your mind, you know, so give up on that hope, you know? Yeah. You know, it really, in some sense, the science begins with Charles Darwin, who describes all of these different emotions in the expression of emotion in men and animals in 1872, and he makes a couple of important points where he says, like, these emotions are vital to our social lives and our artistic lives. Darwin is really interested in musical emotion and listened to classical music to sense what the emotion was. And so Darwin really lays out this framework that says, we've evolved these emotions. They're good for us. They do specific things. And then the contemporary science of emotion that I'm part of that really is only 30 years old or so runs with that formulation and says, hey, we can measure emotions, we can look at their face and their voice and their physiology and their brains. And then we can start to gather data that tell us why we have the emotions and it really zeros in on a couple of things. One is they do specific things for our social lives. Love connects you to people in long term partnerships, gratitude, binds you into trading relationships with friends. Awe, is all about your community, right? When I find awe in music, it's telling me like, this is my community. And then the second thing emotions do is they change how we perceive the world. They surface big ideas about life, right? Awe is all about, you know, like we've been talking like, man, everything that I do is located in a bigger system or narrative or pattern of meaning that I that awe, you know, when we feel awe out of nature, you're suddenly aware of like, oh, you know, there's this ecosystem here. And I'm a part of it. And look at all the magical things that are happening in this ecosystem. So emotions, we can measure them, they do good things for us. And that's really the story of the science that brought me as an emotion scientist to awe, which is my favorite emotion.

Joseph Conyers:

I love it. I love it. And this is the first episode of our second season of Tacet No More. And one of the things, just reflecting on over the last season, was this kind of sense of purpose that was a throughline with all of our guests. In reading your texts on awe, there seemed to be a correlation between the awe itself, the community it creates, and that community having the sense of purpose because of this awe. Can you talk to us more about that? Because I feel like if we can unlock that, Dacher, and the power that we have in music, that we really have a chance at changing the world.

Dacher Keltner:

I agree.

Yumi Kendall:

And symphonic, the collective experience on stage in what we get to do daily.

Dacher Keltner:

Yeah, I could not agree more, Joe. If you look at the data right now, we are in a meaning crisis. You know, slightly younger people than you guys are, they don't quite know what the point of the work and life is. They don't feel a sense of community. They don't understand the bigger picture of their lives. It's a real struggle right now. You know, and when you think about climate crisis and polarization, et cetera, loneliness, and awe is about purpose. It is the emotion of meaning. Feeling awe and music is in some sense the most profound example. It's still a scientific mystery why you can go hear music. And we have narrative data that speak to this, as did Yumi's interview. You hear a piece of music, why you like Brahms, Joe? And it's like, this is it, right? This, I know my purpose in hearing, feeling this music. I understand the point of my life or my work. And I want to share it with people, I want to be, as Yumi said, in community, experiencing this together. And that's the pathways to awe of dance and music and contemplative practice like prayer and meditation have these properties to them where you're like, I feel like I know why I'm here, right? And what like, you know, I don't think it's an exaggeration to say right now we need this more than ever, right? When you look at how we're doing as a world and music and awe are a pathway to it. And I hope, you know, I think there's a lot of conversations now about how awe and music and the arts and things like meditation can get, can be a response to these crises we're feeling.

Yumi Kendall:

That makes me think about some of the things that Joe and I have talked about and we've heard from students and folks on the brink of a professional life in orchestras and thinking about how we welcome in the audition process and once a new person is in, gets into and goes through that rigorous audition process. Are there interventions that we could create or already out there that might help folks who are just coming in to understand the awesomeness of playing in an orchestra, that collective experience? We're in community all doing the same thing. There's so much reflection in your book on collective effervescence and moving together. Even our string, our bowings are in the same direction. So it's like a physical dance with our instruments that are dancing together physically, that resonated with me with your research on collective effervescence. And I'm wondering if there aren't already interventions out there for the sort of newcomers or in their quote unquote onboarding experience. And even for folks who are long, longer in the tooth in the symphonic sphere, because we're doing this, what other people would call repetitive activity, even though it doesn't feel that way if you don't call it that to yourself, but it is. And I'm wondering if you can think of anything that's already out there or things that we might welcome the newcomers to do.

Dacher Keltner:

I mean, to me, that was the... And I write a little bit about this and drew inspiration from Rachel Carson. Like, she has this wonderful essay, How to Teach Your Child to Wonder. And that essay was the basis of interventions that we've now published on, one being the awe walk study that I described. But we also just published after the publication of the book, a study with healthcare providers who are like musicians. Really competitive environment, really stressful, high demands, highly technical people, a lot of repetition in the work. What we did, and I'll just expand on this, is one minute a day we just said, pause, start breathing deeply. You know, put aside your checklist in your smartphones and let your mind wander to what's vast around you and even a little mysterious. And so when I look at YouTube, I'm like, wow, I spoke with Yumi four years ago, had this amazing conversation. Now she has a child. It just becomes, once you open your mind to the bigger things that you're part of, right? And just that one minute reflection led our health care providers to feel awe and do better in terms of mental health over eight weeks. And then you can expand. So somebody joining an orchestra, building on this mindset of awe, you can be asking them, what are the patterns of behavior that you observe as a symphony plays? And just follow that as you're playing. What is the bigger story of your life that this moment is part of? Why are you here? You know, where did this begin? You know, it's just like Joe asking me like, what the heck's an emotion scientist? Like, how'd you get here? And I started to think like, God, it really was reading Charles Darwin when I was 30. That's 30 years ago. Wow, this is amazing. So there are simple prompts, simple mindsets of bringing awe into the really tough work of being part of a symphony that I hope this science will inspire people to use.

Yumi Kendall:

It already has.

Dacher Keltner:

Yay! Well, you guys are easy.

Joseph Conyers:

Well, my next question is, what does that look like externally? So we're talking about internally in the ecosystem of new members in the orchestra. What does that look like externally? Because I'm always looking for the opportunities for the institution. It's very, in our work, Dacher, it's very easy to house everything in our hallowed halls where no one sees it, it's these experiences for a select group of people of society who know about it and unfortunately, our profession has been very comfortable with that being the case for a very long time.

Dacher Keltner:

For a thousand years.

That's right. But to me, what you study, particularly in awe, it's such a treasure trove of possibilities.

Dacher Keltner:

I agree, thank you.

Joseph Conyers:

For what we are and what we can do. What does that, how does that manifest itself in, I mean, just particularly from the outside looking in our world in that way, what are we missing?

Yumi Kendall:

What can we do?

Dacher Keltner:

That's right. Yeah, no, you know, I mean, and this is one of the most, you know, we're testing this a bit with Carnegie Hall. I did this with Nate, with the Sierra Club, like the amazing thing about awe. The amazing thing about awe is that there are these treasure throws of awe that are easy to find. Nature, fall leaves, like Yumi said, people who are morally inspiring, right? And morally courageous, art, music. And obviously, you know, certain sources of that have been places of privilege. And we don't reach out to the community. It's a central problem with art museums. And so we've got to bring people in. That was true of the national parks.

It's interesting to note, and now it's not, right? The national parks have..

Joseph Conyers:

That is correct.

Dacher Keltner:

Yeah, they have brought people who wouldn't, or for whom nature was dangerous 50 or 60 years ago, it was dangerous to be out by yourself if you're an African American man in nature, but we're changing that. We're just breaking down the boundaries. So we've got to bring people into these treasure troves of awe and not make them so privileged. And then I think that, you know, I think that with the, my hope with, especially the work in music is as we build, and I hope we can collaborate with you, a treasure trove of ways to find awe in different forms of music and get them out to communities, right? People are listening to music all over the place. All forms of music can bring you awe, be it hip hop or punk rock or John Adams or Brahms. Find what speaks to people, give them the tools to find the meaning we've been talking about through music. That's easy to do and is really needed right now. So this is one of the big surprises of doing this book, is awe is accessible and it's cheap. It's inexpensive. Everyone's listening to music, now let’s build out a conceptual infrastructure where they can to listen to it and find that meaning that Brahms gave you, no matter what the music.

Joseph Conyers:

How do we fight technology in that process? How do we, particularly the younger generation, how do we fight the devices? How do we fight the instant gratification that unfortunately our society has gotten so used to that they become numb to these experiences of art?

Dacher Keltner:

Yeah, well, they, and on balance, I think that that's true. And I think that that will be a design challenge for the next wave of Spotifys and Googles and YouTubes and Pinterests, are they willing, and I think they will be, to build in these mindsets that allow people, you know Spotify's a great example, it's an amazing platform, or you know, it's amazing. I can listen to music from anywhere in the world right now, but we do it thoughtlessly. And so we have to think about building in these awe tools and these contemplation tools, mindset tools to be more intentional in getting music to move us and making sure it gets us to the real thing too, the live experience. There's no substitute.

Joseph Conyers:

I want to follow up on what you were saying and I forgot what you call them, the interventions.

Dacher Keltner:

Our mindset tools or?

Joseph Conyers:

The mindset tools. And Dacher, maybe this is all like copyright material that you're selling off to.

Dacher Keltner:

No, not at all, not at all.

Joseph Conyers:

Because what could be an example of a mindset tool that Spotify might use or an orchestra might use or because I love, I love how you talk and make what we do so accessible because you're open to everything. You didn't say just classical music. You said, what is the thing that brings people to their all? That's the thing. And yeah, it gets me excited.

Dacher Keltner:

Yeah. Well, it was a, it was a real challenge because we know the health and wellbeing benefits of all. And my lab worked on that. Better cardiovascular function, reduced inflammation, better concentration, poor kids going to poor schools like I went to, doing better in school, just on down – less stress, less depression, awe is good for you. Question then is, what do you do? And I think music is a perfect illustration, which is you can listen to a piece of music, right? Or look at a painting and you can look for, you can shift your attention from small things to vast things. So I listened to when I – Scherezade 2.0 that you guys played, I would listen to individual sounds, notes and then connect it to the vast pattern. And suddenly I'm like, wow, this is vast. You can, um, locate the experience you have, be it looking at a forest, looking at a painting, listening to a symphony and think about the broader, uh, broader system that it's part of. What is my life history of music, right? What is it about John Adams and how what he I've listened to before and who he inspired as an early minimalist composer, which I did for listening to you guys. And suddenly, just like you reflected earlier, Joe, that momentary experience is part of this whole lifetime of experiences and you feel awe. You can look for contrasts is a good way to feel awe in paintings or music. Edmund Burke, the great philosopher wrote about that. So we developed a course for teachers that teachers learn these little mindset exercises to get kids to find awe, whether they're listening to music or learning, you know about, you know, tide pools, or, you know, studying math – they all are connected to these bigger forms of knowledge and experience. And that's the key is to connect yourself to larger things than you.

Joseph Conyers:

And I mean, you mentioned teachers, but to me, sorry, Yumi, I know I got. This will be my last.

Yumi Kendall:

No, no, have at it. I mean, this is this is amazing. First time meeting.

Joseph Conyers:

You mentioned teachers, so education. And it sounds like education plays a role. It's not and it's not educating in a way that's talking down, it's to your point, it's almost like a good, maybe like a good therapist or a good, someone who opens your mind. They aren't constraining you, they're actually allowing you to think bigger and have a more open mind. And I think, again, going back to the Brahms, for example, the reason I didn't understand Brahms when I was younger is I didn't understand the form as well. I didn't understand the harmony as well. But as I went through school and I opened my mind to harmony and counterpoint and all these wonderful things now. I mean, literally there's, I was talking just today in a lesson about Brahms three, third movement, the trio which is to me one of the most divine things written. I mean, in music that comes to the ears, it's just stunning. And every single time I hear it, I'm like, it doesn't get any better than that. Like it literally, it just, it can't, and I could hear it over and over again, and it's wonderful. And my excitement, hopefully, would get someone else excited about wanting to find that too.

Dacher Keltner:

Yeah, wow, your face was so alive with awe, Joe. I have to, I started getting the face, and it was, and I got goosebumps. Yeah, you know, I mean, this is the key in some sense, you know, is to, you know to think about teaching within education, musical education, find the awe-inspired teachers, we can do that. But then to return to these ways of having students and people who come to listen to your symphony approach the experiences with thinking about what the mysteries are there, or what the magical combinations of elements that are unexpected, or the bigger patterns of meaning that music conveys to you, which is a very hard problem scientifically. And once you, and as Jane Goodall said, the key to awe is to get outside of yourself and to start to connect your consciousness to the feelings of music or whatever the source of awe is. So it's, your enthusiasm tells us there's a real opportunity here to rediscover what you guys know and have lived for decades, which is, this is awesome music or nature or art or math, what have you, and figure out ways to expand people's experience in them.

Yumi Kendall:

Yes, the world is wide open with even more opportunity now. I wanted to ask about, are there cultural differences in experiencing awe? I know from the fabulous 13 emotions or distinct experiences study that you authored, I think it was back in 2020. And we, we talked briefly about that. But that was a Chinese and US based population of about 3000 people. But what, yeah, what about the cultural, are there cultural differences in experiencing awe? And can you speak to that idea at all?

Dacher Keltner:

I mean, that, you know, that music study from 2020, and thank you for the amazing summary of it, Yumi. That one's amazing, which is, you know, I will feel these amazing aesthetic emotions like mystery and awe and love and terror in music, much like a Chinese individual, even when I'm listening to Chinese traditional music that I don't understand. I haven't heard the tones and the instruments and it moves me. So that tells us there's something very profoundly human about music, which is why the romanticist wrote a lot about music as the source of the sublime. More generally, yeah, awe does vary a lot across cultures. We've studied about 30 cultures, more hierarchical cultures, like China, there's a lot more fear that that starts to blend into awe, right? They're hierarchical, they're worried about judgments, the self, the critique of the self. And and awe is blended with fear more so than say, in the United States. Cultures vary a lot in where they find awe. You know, some cultures have a lot of art that produces awe. Other cultures, very religious focused. Other cultures, Western European cultures tend to be more nature focused. So that's interesting. And then, you know, there are cultural differences in the sociality of awe that for highly collectivist cultures, awe just makes you very aware of the density of your social networks, you know. You have an awe-expiring experience in Japan of a teacher, and you're aware of, like, God, I'm part of my community and my ancestors, and this is who I am. And in the West, it tends to be a little less so, right? So lots of big differences. But I'm struck at how music has this very evocative, potentially more universal power to bringing us all.

Yumi Kendall:

That's amazing. And actually, the Philly Orchestra was the first orchestra to go to China back in 1973. Wow.

Joseph Conyers:

We have members over there right now.

Yumi Kendall:

Yeah, there's some representatives over there right now reflecting on that 50-year anniversary. But also for our listeners, how is awe experienced? What does that feel like and how does it manifest? In your book, you talk about the vagus nerve and there's the physical manifestations like goosebumps you referenced as well. But how one might know that they're experiencing it, like, yeah.

Dacher Keltner:

Man, you know, that's such a, you think it's a simple question, it's a very deep question. Edmund Burke, this great Irish philosopher said, you know, knowing when you're feeling something and relying just on words, like, oh, I feel awe, you know, is not necessarily, you know, we don't, it's hard. I mean, these are complicated emotions and it's even more complicated when you get to something like, you know, awe in response to music. Music's hard to describe, awe is hard to describe, but that's where science is useful and that is a central structure through this book, Awe, which is, and I took a cue from the spiritual journaling. People started writing about spiritual experiences a long time ago, seven, eight hundred thousand, two thousand years ago. They're writing often about ecstasy and awe and it tends to return in experiences of music and nature and moral beauty and the like, which is – you encounter a vast mystery. This piece of music is vast in my phenomenal experience realm. It's mysterious, I don't fully understand it. You're on your way to awe. Then awe quiets the self, the self starts to fade to the background, you don't hear your voice of yourself that much. Then your body gets into the act and you feel these tears and chill. I love how people cry at concerts, you know, they're just like, oh. And that's part of this opening of your physiology of vagal tone, tearing up, oxytocin release, goosebumps is a parasympathetic autonomic response, this rush of awe, the body electric that Walt Whitman was interested in. And then it gets really interesting and almost spiritual, which is you become aware of big things you want to be part of. You know, when I walked out of Scheherazade listening to you all play, I was in this rainstorm and I had, I was grieving the loss of my brother and I suddenly, this is what music and awe does. I saw the harmony of the rain and the footsteps and the people jumping into cabs and humanity. And I was like, I want to return to being part of humanity, you know, out of this grief, what experience can do that for you? It's transcendent. So that's the unfolding. Vast mysteries, smaller self, feelings of opening in the body, and then this awareness of like, I'm part of something big, and how grateful I am to be part of it. So it's a wonderful unfolding, and I think science was needed to get us to that understanding.

Yumi Kendall:

It just deepens our understanding and our experience of this because naming, even if it's difficult to name, and identifying and sort of defining these words, it helps us understand our own experiences. And then it also helps us in our role here in Tacet No More is also about opening opportunities for other folks to get to experience awe. So it's really about the generosity of that spirit. It's like the experience of awe and opening ourselves up actually then opens us up to everybody else in sharing about awe as well, like the layers of that.

Dacher Keltner:

No profoundly and collective effervescence is the best example of that. People's movements during music, their dance, at a football game you're all cheering together, politics you're at the rally, right? And man, suddenly it's like, I'm one organism with these 10,000 people. I don't know who they are. But we're all sharing this spirit and we need more of that. So thank you for providing it to those people who listen to you.

Joseph Conyers:

I think the last question I have is it sounds like when speaking of awe, there all these experiences and all these levels are interconnected. You, you, you list them out in the book. And I was wondering, is there a hierarchy on…because moral beauty apparently gets the award according to – moral beauty, because you said that's the one universally around the world that most folks connect to. It's this moral beauty concept. Is that by design, like by our experiences on the planet, or is that something that can be manipulated in some kind of way? Does that make sense?

Dacher Keltner:

Yeah, you know, so that's such a... of all the conversations I've had about awe, no one's asked me that question, Joe, and it's a spectacular question. There are, you know, we talk about the eight sources of awe, moral beauty, spirituality, nature, music, art, visual art, big ideas, moving together, life and death. And they often come together, right, in great moments of awe. Religions are great at bringing these sources of awe together. You go into a cathedral and it's got a lot, moral beauty and visual stuff, and we're moving together with ritual, etc. Symphony experiences are like that, right? Oh, I hear the music, it's beautiful visually, we move together, I have a big idea about life. And so I think that the great cultural institutions and the great moments in history often have a lot of awe coming together, a great political rally, we will have some visual stuff and some music and some chanting and motion and big ideas and and a sense of life and death, right, all coming together. And that's our challenge as creators of institutions is to bring as much of it to people's awareness as possible. And you guys do a good job. You know, I think there are places where the classroom needs more work on this. Art museums are interesting. It's surprising how bored people get in art museums. But there's all this opportunity to make people aware of the great sources of awe.

Joseph Conyers:

I love that. Thank you. That's a very inspirational.

Dacher Keltner:

Thank you for the question. I never, haven't received it yet.

Joseph Conyers:

That's great.

Yumi Kendall:

This has been, this has been absolutely amazing and awesome, needless to say, to get to reconnect with you and to hear your thoughts on this and particularly through the lens of our Tacet No More set of questions and our, our listeners and our beloved orchestra world that we're so deeply committed to and helping expand our opportunities. And we're just so grateful to have you share your knowledge and wisdom with all of us. Thank you so much, Dacher.

Dacher Keltner:

Well, I'm coming back at you, Joe and Yumi. Yumi, in the book, refers to, I asked her, what in the world is the experience of awe like in music for you? And she said, it's like a cashmere blanket of sound. And I use that quote a lot in audiences around the world. And it always gets oohs and ahs. And just a little heads up, we are very interested in the practical ways we can get people to find awe in music. So I think there's a partnership opportunity here to work with musicians around the world, to teach the world how to find this awe in music. And so let's do it.

Yumi Kendall:

Thank you so much. It's been great to be with you.

Joseph Conyers:

Thank you. It's a pleasure to meet you and thank you for the book. I mean, it's so funny when you started talking about religions have kind of figured it out. Yeah. Having grown up in the church, when I was reading your text, I was like, wow. So yeah, the church really did figure this out. Oh, did they? Check, check, check. So anyway, it's just been amazing. And yeah, I'm really excited about having met you and hopefully it's not the last time we get to have a conversation.

Dacher Keltner:

I feel the same. Thank you.

Yumi Kendall:

Thank you, Dacher. Bye.

Joseph Conyers:

Bye.

Yumi Kendall:

That was amazing! I haven't seen Dacher for years now. And to recap with him and then to get to go into this conversation with Tacet No More content and thinking about our listeners and the students we've spoken to, the feedback we've gotten about the next generation, about the opportunities of experiencing awe at the individual level for us and how we can help the next generation look forward to committing their life to a beautiful thing.

Joseph Conyers:

Reminding us why we do what we do. Again, going to this purpose. I think in the day-to-day, it's so easy to get lost. I mean, we just went through a negotiation ourselves. And it's easy to get lost in the technicalities and the lawyers and the, of running the business.

Yumi Kendall:

It's the business end of things, absolutely. And it's necessary.

Joseph Conyers:

It's necessary. But we should always be reminded that's not the purpose. Exactly. The purpose goes beyond that, and should, to me, allow for these conversations to take place in a way that's where we're hand in hand, not going against each other, which is very, very sad, I think, in what we do. But I cling on to the inspiration, and that Dacher just left with us, because now I'm all revved up. Because yeah, you do see it. To me, it's almost like an equation, like a science equation, and we have this, and we have this, and we have this. How then can we have this, a world where everyone has access, a world where everyone can share these experiences, a world where everyone's, yeah, we're talking about one good thing earlier, but the things we identify, the things we pay attention to, no matter what they are, we can see the greatness in that. I mean, I can get super over the top where we're talking about looking at this, I don't know, this can of Coca-Cola I see in front of me, and then the molecules that make up the can of Coca-Cola, and the atoms, and the electrons in those atoms and like going down to that, to the granular small level to the vastness of we're but one little speck. We aren't even an electron in this larger universe. As our solar system. So it's overwhelming and awesome. But to me it's exciting. Cause I think when we start talking about the world in this way, it gives us a sense of shared purpose. Because we're sharing, as Dacher would say, we're sharing in this kind of existential-like, beautiful, transcendental thing that we're all a part of. It's not just them or us or the whole, we're all a part of as human beings. And that's something that we can celebrate. And I'm just excited about what we can come up with.

Yumi Kendall:

I love that. I'm reflecting on that Dacher said, you know, awe is cheap and accessible, right? It's for everybody. And it's a choice. Once we know how to use that muscle, it's like a muscle. You choose to use it. You choose to be open to this experience and you can find awe and have those beautiful inner experiences. And then for us on stage, this collective experience, I'm inspired by the collective experience on stage. I even remember when I was in school and getting the nosebleed seats above the stage in the third tier of Verizon Hall here and I got to see the swaying of the physicality of the music, particularly in the strings, because the bows move similarly in the same direction to create this visceral, alive energy that just pops, explodes into the hall. And so thinking about that, what Dacher refers to is that collective effervescence, which other experiences are like in the mosh pit or doing a wave at a baseball game. You know, it's not about being exactly with other people in row 256, section B102. It's you're in a surging motion together and it's super fun. And that's what it's like getting to play with the Philadelphia Orchestra within an orchestra experience like that, in a community orchestra, in our youth orchestra growing up in a string quartet, whatever it might be. 20 chamber music, that's right. I was gonna say, singing in a choir. So when we're open to that, and make a joyful noise. That's right. And show up and make a joyful noise. And so when we're open to that, it's so beautiful to be thinking about that. It's not that you get more used to something and therefore like hedonic adaptation is in positive psychology, you don't diminish your experience and therefore need to increase the intake more in order to get the same result experience. Awe increases the more it's like a muscle the more you use it the bigger it grows the stronger it becomes and it becomes more familiar in our in our in ourselves and I guess he said he was saying they were still studying the neuroplasticity of all of that but it really reminds me of that the way the studies are showing about excellence practice and how we achieve that. That's why of course we practice so that you don't have to think about it in front of you. You can think about the music because your fingers know where to go. Yeah. But well, most of the time. And of course we shouldn't rely on muscle memory. We need to be really aware of what's going on. But the point being it, it, awe is about that choice and using that choice regularly and what that choice can do for us.

Joseph Conyers:

Yeah. And then to me, I mean, as you were saying to me, that it lends itself to peace. Because like, it is that high. We can ask him that next time.

Yumi Kendall:

We have the runners high.

Joseph Conyers:

The runners high. But it is that high, and then we can just sit there and be in that space. You mean we are so blessed, fortunate to do what we do. And conversations like this just makes me want to do more and allow other folks to experience it as well. And yeah, I'm more encouraged than ever to do what I can to make that happen.

Yumi Kendall:

Likewise. Here we go, season two.

Joseph Conyers:

Thanks for listening. Let's stay in touch. Email us your comments and suggestions to info at tacetnomore.com.

Yumi Kendall:

And go to tacetnomore.com to sign up for email updates from us.

Joseph Conyers:

Yumi Kendall:

While you're there, we invite you to post your One Good Thing using the hashtag OneGoodThingTNM. And we'll share your joy with our followers.

Joseph Conyers:

Tacet No More is produced by me, Joseph Conyers, Yumi Kendall, Andrew Meller, Lindsay Sheridan, and Brenda Hernandez-Jaimes of Ellas Media.

Yumi Kendall:

Any views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the speakers and do not reflect any entities with which they are associated.

Joseph Conyers:

In our next episode.

Vijay Gupta:

I was a Suzuki kid growing up and my parents drove me to lessons first near home and then sometimes traversing hundreds of miles in a week in upstate New York to take me to my lessons. And then there came a time where my parents basically said, no, you're going to be a doctor. And I realized that for them, that decision came out of a place of fear, right? Because they saw how difficult it is for us to live fruitful, meaningful lives as paid artists. It’s an incredibly difficult thing to do.