# Coughing at concerts - what's the cause?



## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

I was just listening to a cello concerto and the number of coughs, especially throughout the slow movement, were just infuriating. It really does seem like people just cough more than usual at concerts.

So I looked around on the net and came across a few articles. This one is interesting and offers some "research" concerning the rate of coughing and the possible causes.

This one is based on the same source, but has input from a concert pianist on possible reasons.

I found it interesting that it was suggested people cough more during concerts of modern music. Wagener (or Wagner...one of the newspapers spells it such) suggests it is to show disapproval and cause minor disruption, but conductor Colin Davis suggests it is because of boredom (and perhaps tension).

Either way, it gets on my bloody nerves.


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## Vox Gabrieli (Jan 9, 2017)

I always had a hunch it was because the listener was bored. For instance, I never hear a cough in the Shostakovich symphonies or any other major symphonist. A lot of piano sonatas I hear a lot of coughing. Almost never in a Wagner opera. This could make a nice TC chart on coughing. I might just make that!


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

I might start attending Wagner performances without my cough mixture...


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## Tallisman (May 7, 2017)

What kind of twit coughs because he's bored or uncomfortable? I can understand it in a Schoenberg concert but...

(okay that's the last Schoenberg joke. I'll give poor Arnie a rest )


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

As annoying as the coughing in the concert hall is, as I get older and crankier I've realized there is something even worse: plastic candy wrappers. Ironically, it is entirely possible that some of these are from cough drops.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

fluteman said:


> As annoying as the coughing in the concert hall is, as I get older and crankier I've realized there is something even worse: plastic candy wrappers. Ironically, it is entirely possible that some of these are from cough drops.


Never thought of it that way. What this means is that when coughs annoy you, you can hope that the noise of cough drop wrappers will follow.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

eugeneonagain said:


> I was just listening to a cello concerto and the number of coughs, especially throughout the slow movement, were just infuriating. It really does seem like people just cough more than usual at concerts.
> 
> So I looked around on the net and came across a few articles. This one is interesting and offers some "research" concerning the rate of coughing and the possible causes.
> 
> ...


It's one of the reasons I don't attend concerts all that much anymore. It's not just that people cough, it's that some don't make any attempt to muffle them. One can bury one's mouth in a tissue or elbow.

Unfortunately, it affects live concert recordings also: There is a wonderful Beethoven #32 with Trifonov at Carnegie Hall, a pretty resonant venue, on YouTube. It's like the opening of the Arietta was composed for piano and cough. Fwiw, I think it is worse with American audiences. European audiences not as much and I've always been impressed how quiet German audiences are on live recordings.


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

What happened to cough drops from a little paper bag?


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

I think it was Beecham who suggested the gentle application of a warm steamroller to their throats.


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## Klassik (Mar 14, 2017)

DaveM said:


> Unfortunately, it affects live concert recordings also: There is a wonderful Beethoven #32 with Trifonov at Carnegie Hall, a pretty resonant venue, on YouTube. It's like the opening of the Arietta was composed for piano and cough. Fwiw, I think it is worse with American audiences. European audiences not as much and I've always been impressed how quiet German audiences are on live recordings.


I've heard coughing concertos from European live recordings as well. As we know, many of these live performances were done during cold & flu season. That does not help matters especially in more northern climates. Environmental factors inside the hall due to the HVAC system might influence coughing. Maybe the audience does not have water or cough drops like they would have at home. There might be some psychological factors as well as started in the OP. Anyway, live recordings are not my preference, but sometimes the best performances are live recordings and you just have to deal with the background noise.


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

When I was a child I went to a concert with chamber music that was recorded and broadcast on radio. I coughed extra much and loud deliberately to have a chance to be on radio and I was.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

OP: Very simple: BOREDOM!!!


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## Klassik (Mar 14, 2017)

hpowders said:


> OP: Very simple: BOREDOM!!!


It actually would be interesting if we heard yawns during a live recording. Has anyone encountered this? :lol:


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## Portamento (Dec 8, 2016)

Smoking, perhaps? Even classical music isn't completely clean...

























You get the idea. Put 200+ of them in one room and it's a coughing palooza!


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## Oldhoosierdude (May 29, 2016)

I attend local concerts several times a year. I notice it more at the pause between movements. More annoying is the inevitable boob that doesn't silence their phone.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

I'm guessing that dust particles in the air might have something to do with it.


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## Portamento (Dec 8, 2016)

elgars ghost said:


> I'm guessing that dust particles in the air might have something to do with it.


or the Russians. You never know these days.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Show me an audience with no one but serious music lovers, and I will show you a hall with minimal coughing.


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

I think it's time they sold dextromethorphan at the kiosk. Or perhaps electric shock seats that activate upon coughing, aversion therapy.


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## Klassik (Mar 14, 2017)

hpowders said:


> Show me an audience with no one but serious music lovers, and I will show you a hall with minimal coughing.


I would, but all those concert halls went out of business due to a lack of customers! 

I wonder if college performances have less coughing than professional ones. You'd think that the young people would be less likely to cough. Of course, you might hear them using their phones, but it's not like old people don't have phone issues either.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

There are worse things than coughing at a concert. Far worse. Therefore, be sure to leave your hippopotamus at home. 




Mahler never allowed hippos at his concerts for this very reason.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Cause and effect:

Cause:anger at being dragged here!! Effect: pneumonic coughing.


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## Krummhorn (Feb 18, 2007)

I have noticed through the years that concert halls are notoriously dry ... totally void of any humidity. Perhaps at the request of the performing orchestra for preservation of their instruments (?).

Very dry conditions, at least for me, cause me to cough. Some concert halls do not allow bottled water to be taken into the theater.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Concert goers: Are these mostly dry coughs or is there sputum in the majority?

Just trying to collect some anecdotal evidence.


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## classfolkphile (Jun 25, 2017)

Krummhorn said:


> I have noticed through the years that concert halls are notoriously dry ... totally void of any humidity. Perhaps at the request of the performing orchestra for preservation of their instruments (?).
> 
> Very dry conditions, at least for me, cause me to cough. Some concert halls do not allow bottled water to be taken into the theater.


 I agree; this, I think.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

It's certainly a mixture of things. One notion is that it's more pronounced at Classical concerts since they are so quiet in nature. Also, I think the thought of trying to avoid it makes people do it more.

And boredom as has already been suggested.


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## Oldhoosierdude (May 29, 2016)

Could be worse. Could be excessive gas passing.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Humans are not good at doing nothing. If you aren't actively listening at a concert, or at least watching the violin bows go up and down, there's no other activity to distract you from that tiny little itch that you'd otherwise ignore. The only reason there isn't even more coughing at concerts is that most people don't want to annoy others. We can only imagine the amount of suppressed discomfort the average audience contains.


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## Antiquarian (Apr 29, 2014)

It's been my experience that coughing is a result of an itchy throat, and the more mature one gets the more this becomes a problem. So with a maturing audience in the seats, coughing becomes a issue. Whenever I feel a cough coming on, I rely on this concoction:

*Antiquarian's Anti-Cough Remedy and All Occasion Panacea*

2 parts Whisky (Blended is preferred here, as single malt should never be wasted on this)
1 part Honey
1 part Lemon juice

I hide a small flask of this in my jacket in case of emergency whenever I feel that I might cough. It makes less noise than unwrapping those cough drops. It is effectual not only in the concert hall, but also in lecture halls, auditoriums of all sorts, or even a library.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

hpowders said:


> OP: Very simple: BOREDOM!!!


It seems to me that if boredom were the cause of coughing, what we'd hear more of than coughing would be snoring. But I can't recall ever hearing snoring on a concert hall recording.

Still, I often access contemporary, avant-garde, John Cage like music, so I can't be sure if the noises I hear are superfluous coughing, or part of the music!


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## apricissimus (May 15, 2013)

I really don't think that people cough any more or less during concerts than they do any other time or place. You just notice it more during concerts because of the circumstances (an acoustically good hall where the sound will travel and most other noises surpressed, aside from the sounds of the musicians).


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

apricissimus said:


> I really don't think that people cough any more or less during concerts than they do any other time or place. You just notice it more during concerts because of the circumstances (an acoustically good hall where the sound will travel and most other noises surpressed, aside from the sounds of the musicians).


True - the church and the library (before the 'silence' rule was revoked for the latter) spring to mind.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

SONNET CLV said:


> It seems to me that if boredom were the cause of coughing, what we'd hear more of than coughing would be snoring. But I can't recall ever hearing snoring on a concert hall recording.
> 
> Still, I often access contemporary, avant-garde, John Cage like music, so I can't be sure if the noises I hear are superfluous coughing, or part of the music!


Well, I've surely heard snoring at concerts. The worst noise of all is the loud sounds of hearing aids-so high-pitched and loud.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

elgars ghost said:


> True - the church and the library (before the 'silence' rule was revoked for the latter) spring to mind.


In my library one still has to as silent as can be, otherwise you can go.


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## David Phillips (Jun 26, 2017)

If you listen to old live recordings the coughing is much worse than today. Some Furtwangler Bruckner symphonies from Berlin and Vienna are ruined by loud, uncovered hacking that's just unbelievable. It's funny but you never hear performing musician's coughing.


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## jenspen (Apr 25, 2015)

Could there also be sympathetic coughing like sympathetic yawning? Did anybody else cough while reading this thread?


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

Pugg said:


> In my library one still has to as silent as can be, otherwise you can go.


I wish it was the same here - the library in my town now is more like a community Day Centre. It has a nursery/crèche area, a local corporation advice/payment counter and also tables where you can take refreshment. As the library is open-plan I would imagine this incongruous mix would make for a miserably noisy experience if one simply wanted to go there to read, browse or study like what the place was originally intended for.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

elgars ghost said:


> I wish it was the same here - the library in my town now is more like a community Day Centre. It has a nursery/crèche area, a local corporation advice/payment counter and also tables where you can take refreshment. As the library is open-plan I would imagine this incongruous mix would make for a miserably noisy experience if one simply wanted to go there to read, browse or study like what the place was originally intended for.


I can tolerate a little coughing at a concert more readily than some of what assails my ear in libraries nowadays. Libraries were once sanctuaries for the mind: sacred spaces. It pains me to learn that the UK is going the way of the US.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

I missed the boat: opening cough syrup concession kiosks at classical concerts.


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## Klassik (Mar 14, 2017)

hpowders said:


> I missed the boat: opening cough syrup concession kiosks at classical concerts.


Don't you need like three different forms of government ID just to buy cough syrup now? I'm not sure if concert halls are equipped to deal with such things. Besides, someone might try to make meth in the bathroom. 

STI: Meth lab explosions as part of classical music, yay or ney? :lol:


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

Pugg said:


> In my library one still has to as silent as can be, otherwise you can go.


I need to move to that town. The one here is like a Victorian fairground these days. Previously there were signs forbidding mobile phone usage, but they mysteriously disappeared.

I don't know why it's still called a library because they sold off two thirds of the stock. No doubt it has been gravely affected by the internet.


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## Pat Fairlea (Dec 9, 2015)

Krummhorn said:


> I have noticed through the years that concert halls are notoriously dry ... totally void of any humidity. Perhaps at the request of the performing orchestra for preservation of their instruments (?).
> 
> Very dry conditions, at least for me, cause me to cough. Some concert halls do not allow bottled water to be taken into the theater.


Yes. My first thought on seeing the OP was "Air conditioning"!


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## Casebearer (Jan 19, 2016)

Probably only understandable what's happening here for Dutch people. A great sketch, hard to explain.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

hpowders said:


> I missed the boat: opening cough syrup concession kiosks at classical concerts.


What's to stop you setting up your own medicine show outside the venue?


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

One of the trials of attending our local ensemble playing HIP baroque music is that their concerts are always held in churches - usually, therefore, there's age-old dust crouching in the interstices of stone pillars, ready to spring into your throat at the most beautiful musical moment, so that you miss it in your frantic attempt to hold your coughing fit back. 
Better death than ruin it for the rest of the audience! 
Then, when the piece ends, and, puce-faced and teary, you've just about got it under control, just before the clapping starts, there's another small noise, like the crackle of dry twigs. People have wondered what it was. 
After a survey conducted among retired vergers, I am now at liberty to reveal it:
It's the giggle of Mephistophilian imps in the aumbries. They've been revelling in the miasma of rage & despair that the age-old dust created.


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## Don Fatale (Aug 31, 2009)

hpowders said:


> I missed the boat: opening cough syrup concession kiosks at classical concerts.


You're onto something. Coughs are mostly viral (in the traditional sense), so there can be lots of coughing if something is going around, whereas sometimes there is no coughing at all. So yes, the concert hall should be aware if a lot of coughing is expected and be prepared to offer something medicinal, tissues and perhaps even announce guidelines on cough etiquette.

We all need to cough at times. It's a matter of how it's handled.

Guide to cough technique in concert halls: 
1) Can it wait until a louder moment? Please try to hold fire.
2) Make hand into a tight fist, place other palm at the end of fist, blow into thumb and forefinger circle as if on a trumpet... and cough, don't vocalise! Huge difference compared to an open cough.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

elgars ghost said:


> What's to stop you setting up your own medicine show outside the venue?


I'll consider it, thanks.


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## apricissimus (May 15, 2013)

Ingélou said:


> One of the trials of attending our local ensemble playing HIP baroque music is that their concerts are always held in churches - usually, therefore, there's age-old dust crouching in the interstices of stone pillars, ready to spring into your throat at the most beautiful musical moment, so that you miss it in your frantic attempt to hold your coughing fit back.
> Better death than ruin it for the rest of the audience!
> Then, when the piece ends, and, puce-faced and teary, you've just about got it under control, just before the clapping starts, there's another small noise, like the crackle of dry twigs. People have wondered what it was.
> After a survey conducted among retired vergers, I am now at liberty to reveal it:
> It's the giggle of Mephistophilian imps in the aumbries. They've been revelling in the miasma of rage & despair that the age-old dust created.


Is coughing during the performance not HIP? Just tell people that audience member's coughed in the baroque era too.

Anyway, I've always heard that there was more audience interaction back then than there is now.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

How come most of the coughing is during "slow movements"? 

Simple answer: boredom.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Don Fatale said:


> You're onto something. Coughs are mostly viral (in the traditional sense), so there can be lots of coughing if something is going around, whereas sometimes there is no coughing at all. So yes, the concert hall should be aware if a lot of coughing is expected and be prepared to offer something medicinal, tissues and perhaps even announce guidelines on cough etiquette.
> 
> We all need to cough at times. It's a matter of how it's handled.
> 
> ...


Maybe I am, but from many years of concert going, the pneumonic attacks seem to predominate during the slower sections of the music. I really think it's boredom-related. Some may have viral infections, but many coughers seem to be "healed" say, during the final movement of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony.

Slow movements: coughing

Fast movements: silence

Miraculous healing?


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

Today I was in a concert that was being recorded for a future issue on CD. The orchestra did its best, the coughers in the audience did their worst. At times it sounded like bursts of machine-gun fire. I have two explanations for it. One is the ordinary human viciousness, the kind that makes teenagers paint graffiti on clean new walls. Some people just never outgrow it, even in their old age. And of course they all knew the concert was being recorded.

The other explanation is a little more esoteric. I think sometimes some people just get too overwhelmed by music. Here they are, with their little puny selves, seated in the middle of a raging storm of a symphony. The cough serves as a means of self-affirmation, a signal of "*I* am still here and *I* will be heard too!" Of course it happens unconsciously. That is also why the coughs are the strongest during the quiet parts - during the loud parts they will not be heard so well.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Obviously, if one really has to cough, it is hard to hold it back. But there is no excuse for not trying to muffle it. The people that really bug me are the ones who do a full-throated cough without doing it into a hand or elbow.


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## Agamemnon (May 1, 2017)

The people that bug me are the people who go to a concert while suffering pneumonia which is not a good idea... But I often think this is the reason: most people who go to classical music concerts are very old and very old people tend to be sick and need to cough every minute. At the same time, if you focus on not coughing you feel every tickle - real or imagined - in your throat so then it's very hard not to cough!


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

Very old? Very old people usually don't leave the house much at all. Many live in nursing homes. I doubt any 'very old' people are attending classical concerts; at least I've never seen any and I go to quite a lot of concerts. I see plenty of younger people coughing.

Sometimes people can't help having a cough; especially asthma sufferers. If such a person is also a music-lover it's a real challenge. There are, however, also quite a lot of people among audiences who either smoke or used to smoke. That's very much self-inflicted and any coughing issuing from that means everyone else has to suffer listening to these fools coughing.


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## cimirro (Sep 6, 2016)

not a new habit/rabbit


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## Pesaro (Oct 4, 2017)

The orchestras and other performers can always hand out free cough drops before the music starts.


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## Flavius (Oct 7, 2017)

I suspect neurotics cough because of a compulsion, either to reject being regulated, or because of stress, fearing an inability to control themselves. Often overwrought females, or sickly people unconcerned whether they infect others. There should be ushers specially authorized to eject them (the overwrought, of course, with extreme tact).


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Flavius said:


> I suspect neurotics cough because of a compulsion, either to reject being regulated, or because of stress, fearing an inability to control themselves. Often* overwrought females*, or sickly people unconcerned whether they infect others. There should be ushers specially authorized to eject them (the overwrought, of course, with extreme tact).


That sounds like something a certain president of a certain country would say...  (Sorry, couldn't restrain myself.)


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## Flavius (Oct 7, 2017)

Dave M, re comments on concert coughers: tongue in cheek, ol' boy, though compulsive coughers are an irritant. I avoid concerts, and public gatherings, anyway, preferring to catch the fervor indirectly through the performers on disk. I detest crowds, whatever the occasion. As for the abomination of a 'certain president of a certain country', I regret that anything I might say could be so misunderstood, although I've often been attracted to thin, overwrought females. Fortunately I didn't marry one, but for a relatively short time to a Montessori teacher in full bloom.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Flavius said:


> Dave M, re comments on concert coughers: tongue in cheek, ol' boy, though compulsive coughers are an irritant. I avoid concerts, and public gatherings, anyway, preferring to catch the fervor indirectly through the performers on disk. I detest crowds, whatever the occasion. As for the abomination of a 'certain president of a certain country', I regret that anything I might say could be so misunderstood, although I've often been attracted to thin, overwrought females. Fortunately I didn't marry one, but for a relatively short time to a Montessori teacher in full bloom.


I was pretty sure it was in jest hence the smiley. I share your preference for recordings over attending live performances.


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## PlaySalieri (Jun 3, 2012)

I think anyone who cares about music and has respect for other will do all that is necessary to avoid coughing at the wrong moment. It puts me off going to concerts - all the coughing during the performance. I was at the ROP in the early 90s - suddenly had a wicked itch in my throat - I had tears streaming down my face but I did not cough - but boy I could be heard at the interval coughing my guts out in the gents. I did take in a pack of cough sweets for the second half and was ok.


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