Choral Evensong service halted by buskers mid-way at Bath Abbey

[MrGongGong]

Surely part of the "problem" is that the folks who busk partly do it BECAUSE they don't want to do their music in a regulated and contained manner. The church has always run things by creating more and more rules. The folks who simply think that everyone should follow the (church) rules miss the point somewhat.
It's not "childish" to want to have a different type of life.

It's a bit funny that the chap who inspired the building of the Abbey in the first place spent a lot of time talking to large groups of people and apparently had the charisma to deal with these kinds of things.

So can we have the measurements of the sound levels ?

I suspect that there is a fair bit psychoacoustic phenomena going on here as well. Sounds we find unpleasant in the environment will appear to be disproportionately loud.

[Flosshilde]

I expect so. Was it Heavy Metal? The story said 'singing and playing guitar through an amplifier'.

I doubt it, but I was answering your general point about amplification & music.

[jean]

It's not "childish" to want to have a different type of life.

No, but it is childish not to recognise that your freedom to have that life may conflict with some one else's to do what's important to them [sic], and it's especially childish to refuse to go and exercise your freedom somewhere else for the fairly brief periods when conflicts may occur on the grounds that you don't like being told what to do by anyone, ever.

[jean]

Or possibly being told what to do by their parents/other adults, irrespective of the school.

I'm assuming that in raising your children, you avoided telling them what to do.

How did it work out?

[MrGongGong]

No, but it is childish not to recognise that your freedom to have that life may conflict with some one else's to do what's important to them [sic], and it's especially childish to refuse to go and exercise your freedom somewhere else for the fairly brief periods when conflicts may occur on the grounds that you don't like being told what to do by anyone, ever.

Is that what is happening here ?
I'm not sure (I mean i'm REALLY not sure) ?

One of the buskers I heard interviewed was very upset by this partly because she said that she was a Christian.

It would be interesting to really know exactly how loud the outside sound was inside.
In my working life i've had to deal with these kinds of things many times and it sometimes so i'm curious to know.

[Honoured Guest]

The Abbey has no authority over the buskers. It is resorting to bleating and whining in public because it has no actual power to affect the buskers' activities. It is the Abbey that is behaving childishly.

[MrGongGong]

The Abbey has no authority over the buskers.

Indeed

Maybe this could be the start of the disestablishment of the CofE

OR

What would Jesus do ?
(request they play "Enter Sandman" ?)

[Honoured Guest]

What would Jesus do ?

Indeed! He'd be very unlikely to have much interest in organised religion, and almost certainly none in choral evensong!

[jean]

Is that what is happening here ?
I'm not sure (I mean i'm REALLY not sure) ?

Of course it is - and it is very naive of you to think otherwise.

One of the buskers I heard interviewed was very upset by this partly because she said that she was a Christian.

Yes, I heard that too - but the interview didn't go on to explore exactly what aspects of the affair particularly upset her, or whether she shared HG's privileged information that Christ himself would find Choral Evensong so offensive she'd be doing Him a favour by disrupting it.

[Honoured Guest]

... HG's privileged information that Christ himself would find Choral Evensong so offensive she'd be doing Him a favour by disrupting it.

Let's not be childish. As you know, that's not what I said in #68.

[french frank]

I doubt it, but I was answering your general point about amplification & music.

And I was responding to YOUR point about instruments 'designed to be used with amplification'. I was under the impression that without amplification [some?] such instruments could hardly be heard at all, unlike, say, an acoustic guitar which is NOT designed to be used with amplification.

A string quartet playing outside the Abbey would make less noise than one guitarist with amplifier and voice mike with the volume turned up: http://youtubemp3.club/playvideo/zJjY5lEWOZjSUJmQsZVV (Bristol city centre)

[vinteuil]

... one of the comments to the article in The Guardian supplied by MrGongGong in his #51 seemed to me to sum up the situation briskly and accurately -

"It's pretty simple really. Buskers can move and play somewhere else. The Abbey has a fixed location."

How say you, Gongers?

[jean]

Let's not be childish. As you know, that's not what I said in #68.

No? Very well then, how about

Or whether [the busker interviewed] shared HG's privileged information that Christ himself would almost certainly have no interest in Choral Evensong, so that it wouldn't matter if she disrupted it.

[Honoured Guest]

Indeed! He'd be very unlikely to have much interest in organised religion, and almost certainly none in choral evensong!

No? Very well then, how about

Or whether [the busker interviewed] shared HG's privileged information that Christ himself would almost certainly have no interest in Choral Evensong, so that it wouldn't matter if she disrupted it.

Choral evensong is a living historic practice which developed in the institutional church, centuries after Jesus's life. "Matter" to whom, and in what sense? As GongGong muses, the "disruption" probably principally exists in the obsessively attuned minds of the Abbey insiders. How does the Abbey react to gulls "disrupting" its activities?

[MrGongGong]

Of course it is - and it is very naive of you to think otherwise.

There's no "of course" about it at all IMV

... one of the comments to the article in The Guardian supplied by MrGongGong in his #51 seemed to me to sum up the situation briskly and accurately -

"It's pretty simple really. Buskers can move and play somewhere else. The Abbey has a fixed location."

How say you, Gongers?

(Easily sorted that one http://www.bisonplanthire.com/bath-plant-hire)

I don't think that it's necessarily that simple
HOW loud is it inside ?
We don't know really.

Having dealt with awkward cathedral/ church (and some utterly wonderful as well!) folks before I can easily see that the Abbey folks might (I said "MIGHT") be flapping about imagining that they somehow have the authority to tell folks what to do.

Why don't they get a PA and broadcast CE to the folks outside ?

Didn't that Jesus bloke say something about being like children ?