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Let’s Pause for a Moment

“How do you do it, Ed?” I asked.

Ed Stivender and I were walking down Jonesborough’s picturesque Main Street last week during his stint as our teller-in-residence.

“Do what?” Ed asked.

I tried to explain.

“You know, the part where you ask the audience for the names of folktale characters and their favorite sayings and, then, you make up a story right on the spot.”

“Oh, the improv?

“Yes. How do you do it?”

“Well, Jimmy Neil, it’s the harmonica.”

Then I remembered.

Several years ago, Ed told me about attending his first National Storytelling Festival in 1976.  It was a time of discovery for Ed. He was eager to see other storytellers, watch them perform, and learn from them. 

Ed said he was looking for clues, for rules, and he found fellow storyteller Doc McConnell.  Doc was having a great time, telling stories, talking to people—that combination of lying and laughter that Doc seemed to do so well—and Ed watched him closely.

“What I discovered,” Ed says, “was that Doc was only doing part of the work.  His pipe was doing the rest.  Doc was saying funny things but only half the time, and the other half of the time the audience was laughing, waiting for Doc’s next wave of humor.  What he was doing was keeping them relaxed—drawing on his pipe, doing something obviously very normal and human—while he was preparing for his next lines.

“I came back home to Philadelphia,” Ed continued, “and though I may have tried the pipe, it wasn’t too long afterward that I was playing the harmonica.  I had learned the harmonica growing up, playing ‘Oh, Susannah,’ performing for my family on Sunday afternoons.  And now for me, the harmonica distracts the audience while I’m creating the story, working on my lines, in my mind.”

But, for listeners, it’s more than that.

A well-orchestrated pause, properly timed, gives listeners a moment to contemplate, to see and feel the images, to soak in the telling. And time to laugh. For tellers and listeners, these well-timed, well-delivered pauses just may be the most important moment in the story.