Phones in concerts

[Serial_Apologist]

I'm sure there is an element of this: the curated life.

I occasionally post a picture of curtain calls on social media. ENO have recently started to encourage this, far too little far too late alas. In my case it is to recommend a production to my few concert-going friends but also to normalise the idea of attending classical events amongst my much larger group of acquaintances who might be classical-curious but never step inside a concert hall or opera house.

This group - educated, otherwise cultured, affluent folk in their 30s-60s - often have some odd conceptions of what these places are like and who they might find there. This incomprehension, from the historical audience for classical music, has been growing for various reasons over the last 40 years. Classical music does need to consider how to renew its audience whilst not alienating the current one and performers. I imagine this what Emma Stenning thinks she is addressing. I think her solution is spectacularly wrong but, like it or not, social media does now play a considerable part in how people now view the world [this forum is of course a form of social media]. Steven Hough offers a great example of how use it to make his point with characteristic wit and elegance. Stenning could learn from him.

An extremely astute assessment of the situation regarding the difficulties regarding how classical music is received in the age of the selfie, which serves as a counterweight to a heavily mediated publicity machine, now infecting Radio 3 without countervailing restraints, that presents a distorted narrative against which the selfie pretends to offer an alternative of direct experience to pass on, one which is in reality an illusion.

[muzzer]

This issue is almost entirely driven by market forces. Audience ‘engagement’ is such a massive ‘metric’ for those running classical venues/concerts etc that they are desperate to permit anything that will raise or maintain ‘brand awareness’. I hear and agree with all of the points made on this thread but if there was a uniform ban on phones at concerts, ditto clapping in the wrong places, which was offset by promotion of the mystique of the experience, you would pretty soon see a change in perception. There are ‘rock’ acts who ban phones, either by confiscating them beforehand or shaming audiences into refraining, and they have only benefited. In the case of someone like Dylan this is in itself remarkable, given the nature of the experience. The current trend for ‘context’, for requiring an audience to absorb so much extraneous ‘identity politics’ by way of background before being allowed to hear the actual piece, is actually degrading their personal individual experiences. No amount of ‘curated’ ‘socials’ will change that. This millennial obsession with externalising every aspect of human experience courtesy of technology is ruining humanity and, as we see all over the world, ushering in a new era of totalitarianism.

[kernelbogey]

That is a very good question. It’s a form of validation isn’t it... ?

I think there's more to it than that. Yesterday I had a couple of hours to kill between two chamber concerts in Winchester and went to do some writing at the library, where I was able to join a few students (probably from Sixth Form College) who were working there with books, laptops etc. There were three girls 'studying together' there; at one point one of them fell off her chair to much hilarity from the three, and indeed the rest of us. By the time she had recovered herself and regained her seat, one of her friends was showing her the photo, or video, she'd taken on her phone of the incident. As Muzzer writes above, this is the new normal.

This millennial obsession with externalising every aspect of human experience courtesy of technology is ruining humanity and, as we see all over the world, ushering in a new era of totalitarianism.

[Ein Heldenleben]

I think there's more to it than that. Yesterday I had a couple of hours to kill between two chamber concerts in Winchester and went to do some writing at the library, where I was able to join a few students (probably from Sixth Form College) who were working there with books, laptops etc. There were three girls 'studying together' there; at one point one of them fell off her chair to much hilarity from the three, and indeed the rest of us. By the time she had recovered herself and regained her seat, one of her friends was showing her the photo, or video, she'd taken on her phone of the incident. As Muzzer writes above, this is the new normal.

Once sat next to a schoolboy at a railway station who was busy editing and sending to his friends all the videos he had shot that day at school, In the history of humanity has there ever been an era where so much much time was spent on the trivial ? I’m not a great conspiracy theorist but May TikTok is a Chinesa attempt to destroy minds i the West as the US seems to think ?

[kernelbogey]

This millennial obsession with externalising every aspect of human experience courtesy of technology is ruining humanity and, as we see all over the world, ushering in a new era of totalitarianism.

My #47 was posted in a bit of a rush and I did not intend to endorse the last seven words of this quote - to me they're a bit of a non-sequitur. I'm pleased to have read more than once lately that some millennials are ditching their smart phones in favour of 'dumb phones', as they are fed up with their self-induced addictions to social media etc and how time-consuming this has become.

[smittims]

I take it a 'dumb phone' is a mobile phone that is just a phone.

I've always disliked the telephone (probably from some Freudian cause) so the proliferation of mobiles, let alone smart-phones, is to me the epitome of the world gone mad. And certainly there can surely never have been so many bad photographs taken as now. Long ago when computers started to arrive in my workplace we were warned about 'garbage in, garbage out'. This was in the days when printers used a roll of paper about 40cm wide and they were already concerned about the amount of waste. Someone gave us a stack of the stuff which for some reason wouldn't go back into the printer,and it served for our sons to draw on for years .

[Roger Webb]

I take it a 'dumb phone' is a mobile phone that is just a phone.

.

I think it refers to those like my little Nokia, it used to do text and speech.......it gave up both, but while fiddling with it I discovered it had an FM radio, I use this with a pair of earbuds for gardening duties.

[kernelbogey]

I think it refers to those like my little Nokia.....

Yes - 'dumb' as opposed to 'smart', that is, not internet-friiendly: no video, no social media, (but no handle on the side to crank it up, either ).

And we thought Apple had destroyed them....

[smittims]

It's curious how some appliances have FM radio but not DAB. My Blu-Ray player has FM radio, oddly. Then of course 'they' don't want us to record, but to sign up to their streaming service. My old LG TV recorder would receive DAB but wouldn't let me record it. My Panasonic DVD recorder lets me record DAB but won't let me edit it to cut out the chat .

[Serial_Apologist]

Yes - 'dumb' as opposed to 'smart', that is, not internet-friiendly: no video, no social media, (but no handle on the side to crank it up, either ).

And we thought Apple had destroyed them....

Those little phones which have been replaced by phones that can do every damn task I can't get my fingers or brain round are often being described as "brick phones" - maybe they're for people like myself, as thick as a brick.

[Serial_Apologist]

It's curious how some appliances have FM radio but not DAB. My Blu-Ray player has FM radio, oddly. Then of course 'they' don't want us to record, but to sign up to their streaming service. My old LG TV recorder would receive DAB but wouldn't let me record it. My Panasonic DVD recorder lets me record DAB but won't let me edit it to cut out the chat .

I must check and see if mine does - thanks for the tip! Many years ago I had a sort of Walkman which could record from its fm radio onto blank cassettes. One day I managed to record the first part of the then-current afternoon jazz programme while walking home from the bus stop about a quarter of a mile away. As soon as I got in I switched the cassette onto my hi-fi and continued recording. It turned out that the AAA batteries on the "walkman" had been on their last legs, disconcertingly resulting in the pace and pitch of the first part of the recorded programme increasing and rising as if time had itself speeded up. Peter Clayton's announcements sound garbled, as if delivered by Minnie Mouse on speed!!

[Sir Velo]

It's curious how some appliances have FM radio but not DAB. My Blu-Ray player has FM radio, oddly. Then of course 'they' don't want us to record, but to sign up to their streaming service. My old LG TV recorder would receive DAB but wouldn't let me record it. My Panasonic DVD recorder lets me record DAB but won't let me edit it to cut out the chat .

There are easy, free to use softwares (sic) which allow you to record and then edit live streams.

[Roger Webb]

There are easy, free to use softwares (sic) which allow you to record and then edit live streams.

If you download the VRadio app you can listen to just about every radio station in the world.......and record! but not in the original bitrate - I haven't measured it but it sounds like mp3 128k, but I find it very useful - I have a Chromebook permanently connected to the DAC in my preamp from the USB C of the C/book (although this re-samples to 48k) and just tap the record button if the phone rings, or something, and come back later....it even allows you to archive material, but only at the lower bitrate.

[Sir Velo]

Of course, knowing the copyright laws, I've never recorded from a streaming service...

[Roger Webb]

Of course, knowing the copyright laws, I've never recorded from a streaming service...

Well of course!.......and I almost never burn it to disc and sell it on eBay 😌