How much attention?

[Don Petter]

I'm not sure that he referred to gnats but he has more than once referred to "us" having shorter attention spans. In the recent article he also said new listeners needed to be 'trained' to listen.

But further, the non stop 'variety' - presenter chat, reading of tweets, news headlines, piece of music, trail, hello Rob, what have you got on Essential Classics to day, plus the rapid change from Bach to Gershwin to Chopin to Star Wars reflects the way television works now, with rapid scene changes so that viewers don't get bored.

Indeed, there's certainly no attempt at such training here - quite the opposite!

[Serial_Apologist]

We have 'invented' the context of the concert hall for playing serious/classical music. It isn't the same as the context for pop/rock gigs or jazz sessions. If we were telling people to shut up, keep still and listen in THOSE contexts, people might have a reason to object.

On the contrary. Good jazz audiences put a large premium on attentiveness, and there is an unspoken (sic) law regarding bass solos. Unless you're talking some pubs where jazz is put on free - but usually there's a "quiet area" nearer the front - or Ronnie scott's where audiences are (or used to be) large expense accounts in suits. According to his trumpeter Dick Pearce Ronnie hated it. You obviously weren't there at the Albert in Bedminster back in the 1980s, where "the look" (eg ) from landlord Ian Storrer was enough.

There seem to be a lot of misconceptions about jazz and its adherents on this forum!

[Flosshilde]

Whenever I've heard the jazz programmes (not JRR) on R3 the audience bursts into applause during performances, usually after someone has performed a solo.

[Roehre]

Whenever I've heard the jazz programmes (not JRR) on R3 the audience bursts into applause during performances, usually after someone has performed a solo.

...which is the way in earlier times (and still continuing in Italy sometimes) opera singers are applauded during performances, drowning out the orchestral postludes completely.

[french frank]

There seem to be a lot of misconceptions about jazz and its adherents on this forum!

Blame the cinema. Maybe I am thinking of 'informal' jazz sessions in pubs, because I said: "We have 'invented' the context of the concert hall for playing serious/classical music". I don't associate jazz 'sessions' with 2,000 seat concert halls and people sitting side by side in long rows.

Bristol South SDP used to meet in the Albert - Ian didn't charge for the room, but I don't know whether the jazz sessions were free or not. Nor whether alcohol was banned ...

[Serial_Apologist]

...which is the way in earlier times (and still continuing in Italy sometimes) opera singers are applauded during performances, drowning out the orchestral postludes completely.

Yes - no marking time while the audience re-composes itself, as the improvisational element in jazz allows.

[Serial_Apologist]

Blame the cinema. Maybe I am thinking of 'informal' jazz sessions in pubs, because I said: "We have 'invented' the context of the concert hall for playing serious/classical music". I don't associate jazz 'sessions' with 2,000 seat concert halls and people sitting side by side in long rows.

Bristol South SDP used to meet in the Albert - Ian didn't charge for the room, but I don't know whether the jazz sessions were free or not. Nor whether alcohol was banned ...

Six squid on the door, from memory. Many of the bands appearing travelled from London or elsewhere, sometimes visitors from the States. Alchohol was served: I write that advisedly - low alchohol sales to jazz audiences (yes!) being, I believe, one cause of short-term residences in pubs being the general norm.

Sorry for taking this off-topic.

[jayne lee wilson]

Ah the vexed question of attention. If I've had no chance to listen and I start preparing a meal around 10 PM, Smooth Classics often goes on ..."a tune, I just NEED a TUNE!" The famous Bedside Tivoli has been a wonderful way of getting to know new music. I'm still trying with Ludus Tonalis, but I've got further listening to half the piece twice a day than if I'd tried to listen through on the Big Rig... all about time and energy really. Music-lover has many meanings.

Some of my best listening is done stumbling down unsleeping from bed at 0630ish, collapsing in the chair with a hot chocolate and pressing play on... this morning it was Schumann's lesser-known Overtures from Dausgaard, day before that Hindemith's Pittsburgh Symphony and Harnoncourt's 1841 Schumann 4....
The semi-conscious brain, headache or not, seems to respond more instinctively to sound and movement. Follows it all better. Sometimes the headache fades...