Following on from applause

[teamsaint]

Chatting through the Fidelio Overture, and then reverential silence when the Schoenberg pc and DSCH 8 come on? I don't think so.

but I was grumbling about folk audiences.( And S-A was about Jazz audiences)
Norms in the concert hall are much more rigid, but the complaint in the article at the top of the thread was about unreasonable over enforcement of the norms.

Nobody has dealt with the beer in milk cartons issue yet.

[french frank]

I think my use of that term was

I was really wanting to make the point that the word 'reverential' is often used, as if silence denotes some sort of reverence (and the word usually implies that such 'reverence' is also something to be challenged). I don't think YOU need to defend YOUR use of the word.

I didn't mean to suggest that people shouldn't sit or stand silently, quietly, impassive, only that their expectation that others should do the same might be either inappropriate, or not applied by them uniformly , for all performers, for example.

Which raises the issue that has been raised once or twice before: the assumption that if people want to remain still and silent, no one is stopping them. What is becoming, for interesting reasons, an increasingly commonly held view is that it's 'inappropriate', even perhaps selfish, for those who wish to remain still and silent to expect others to be so.

This is flawed: people do not remain still and silent because they wish to remain still and silent, but because they wish stillness and silence to reign. In this they are thwarted, if others wish to move or make a noise, which shatters the stillness and silence. So if either side is going to succumb to 'noise rage' it will be the people who want silence.

And this isn't something that applies exclusively to audiences at classical concerts. Imagine a library where someone is trying to concentrate on their study and the person next to them has their headphones on and is jigging about slightly to the tssk-tssk-tssk of their iPod. How are the freedoms of both sides to be respected? If they can't be, what is to happen?

[Flosshilde]

I'd happily invite my favourite string quartet to play for me in my own home, without the nodders and swayers!

Aren't string quartets among the worst culprits? They're often nodding at each other, & if they play standing up they're like reeds in the wind!

[Beef Oven!]

I was really wanting to make the point that the word 'reverential' is often used, as if silence denotes some sort of reverence (and the word usually implies that such 'reverence' is also something to be challenged). I don't think YOU need to defend YOUR use of the word.

Which raises the issue that has been raised once or twice before: the assumption that if people want to remain still and silent, no one is stopping them. What is becoming, for interesting reasons, an increasingly commonly held view is that it's 'inappropriate', even perhaps selfish, for those who wish to remain still and silent to expect others to be so.

This is flawed: people do not remain still and silent because they wish to remain still and silent, but because they wish stillness and silence to reign. In this they are thwarted, if others wish to move or make a noise, which shatters the stillness and silence. So if either side is going to succumb to 'noise rage' it will be the people who want silence.

And this isn't something that applies exclusively to audiences at classical concerts. Imagine a library where someone is trying to concentrate on their study and the person next to them has their headphones on and is jigging about slightly to the tssk-tssk-tssk of their iPod. How are the freedoms of both sides to be respected? If they can't be, what is to happen?

Have you been to a library lately? Noisier than Walthamstow market.

[MrGongGong]

This is flawed: people do not remain still and silent because they wish to remain still and silent, but because they wish stillness and silence to reign.

Are you suggesting that folks do this because they want to make others to do the same?

[french frank]

Are you suggesting that folks do this because they want to make others to do the same?

No.

[Serial_Apologist]

Aren't string quartets among the worst culprits? They're often nodding at each other, & if they play standing up they're like reeds in the wind!

That's to make up for the absense of a conductor: when and in what way to proceed is down to the musicians communicating this, either a nominated leader or to each other.

[french frank]

Have you been to a library lately? Noisier than Walthamstow market.

Not usually in the rooms set aside for study or reading.

And there are many areas in life where people are expected to sit still and be quiet. A study of the reactions of a school group being taken to see Othello asked, among many questions, 'What do you remember most about your visit.' One answer: 'People giving us dirty looks' and indeed, the young people (I think 15-16) said they 'didn't feel welcome'. Now, whose fault is it this time?

As Pascal said: "All of humanity's misfortune stems from one thing alone - the inability to sit quietly in a room." We're getting there: people find it increasingly irksome to sit quietly concentrating without wanting frequent distractions. In children, that's understandable …

[vinteuil]

As Pascal said: "All of humanity's misfortune stems from one thing alone - the inability to sit quietly in a room." We're getting there: people find it increasingly irksome to sit quietly concentrating without wanting frequent distractions. …

... I think Pascal wd have thought that 'going out to a public concert' was in itself a 'distraction' to be eschewed...

«Tout le malheur des hommes vient d’une seule chose, qui est de ne savoir pas demeurer en repos dans une chambre»

... to know how to be 'at rest' is a competence that has to be acquired.

[Darkbloom]

A study of the reactions of a school group being taken to see Othello asked, among many questions, 'What do you remember most about your visit.' One answer: 'People giving us dirty looks' and indeed, the young people (I think 15-16) said they 'didn't feel welcome'. Now, whose fault is it this time?

I remember going to see Othello at the National. It had Simon Russell Beale as Iago so it must have been around 15 years ago. It was full of schoolkids obviously being dragged reluctantly to see a performance of a set text. The first two or three acts they were restless, laughing in the wrong places and generally displaying all the signs of boredom. Curiously, the longer the performance went on, the more engaged they became. By the end, and the final scene with O and D (I remember it as being particularly upsetting in this staging), the whole place was dead quiet and they had clearly been drawn into it and had really 'learned' something after all. I think the difference tends to be that older people are more tolerant of the second-rate and go through the motions of appearing interested when they clearly aren't, while young people are far less inhibited in this regard. When an artistic experience is really something people will always respond, however young they are, given sufficient intelligence and sensitivity.

[jean]

...I think the difference tends to be that older people are more tolerant of the second-rate...

But that's not what was happening on the occasion you describe, is it?

I'd say that older people are more prepared to wait until they're sure before labelling something second-rate - and more likely to be mindful of the fact that others present may disagree.

[teamsaint]

But people often go to experience arts that they fully expect to be only " second rate", ( whatever we mean by that)but still follow the norms of behaviour for the context.

[Darkbloom]

But that's not what was happening on the occasion you describe, is it?

I'd say that older people are more prepared to wait until they're sure before labelling something second-rate - and more likely to be mindful of the fact that others present may disagree.

No, certainly not. My point was the I don't think that there is a problem with young people being unable to concentrate if a performance is sufficiently absorbing. When you get older (this is certainly true for me) you have probably seen so many things that half the time you are simply comparing what you have seen in the part to what you are seeing now, rather than fully opening yourself up the experience. When I said 'second-rate' I should have said 'routine', which is inevitable in any art form at any time in history. Only occasionally do you get something truly outstanding, and then you are set on the road for a lifetime of discovery, hopefully. If you are lucky to see a great performer then the chances are that you will be hooked for life. My love of opera began from hearing John Tomlinson live, for example. For all the talk of 'access', I think we really need to just make sure that people give of their best as artists, so that even the most diminished of attention spans will be engaged.

[french frank]

As an answer to Gillian Moore's 'New Rules' for concert-goers (see OP), the ever reliable Mr Pliable says:

"But, in my view, she is quite wrong in surrendering to the Facebook mindset. For practical reasons, live classical music - like air travel - can only be experienced in the company of a lot of other people. But appreciating great music is essentially a solitary experience that depends on direct transmission from composer through musician to listener, and this solitary experience is a very brittle one that is all too easily fragmented by intrusive distractions. There always have been, and always will be, unavoidable distractions such as coughing. But today these are being overshadowed by avoidable intrusions such as mobile phones and gratuitous applause, which we [are] told to tolerate in the name of reaching new audiences."

He says that it seems that the audience is there now not just to be an audience for the performers, but to be an audience for the audience, for each other - to make them feel good by being there sharing the experience with them. But … not everyone does feel that.

He points out that the most polite way for such as he [him?] to be polite to those who irritate him is to stop going to live concerts … QEF - not?

[MrGongGong]

As an answer to Gillian Moore's 'New Rules' for concert-goers (see OP), the ever reliable Mr Pliable

If you read his/her comments underneath I would politely suggest that s/he is talking out of somewhere other than the usual place.
Going to concerts isn't "essentially a solitary experience" at all, it never has been. Which is NOT to say that going to hear The Philharmonia at the RFH is the same as going to see Metallica.