# What ticks you off?



## Morigan (Oct 16, 2006)

I went to a concert yesterday. It was a concert organised by the Canadian Council for the Arts to celebrate its 50th anniversary. They had invited the brightest young Canadian violinists and cellists to play with their loaned Strads. The night looked rather promising, to say the least.

But no. It was a _free_ concert, open to the public.

I got it all : old ladies chocking loudly and opening cough drop packages, endless sneezing and nose blowing, children running around the concert hall, babies crying, little girls shouting : "I WANNA GO HOME THIS IS BORING", people clapping between movements, you name them. I couldn't get a box, so I was caught in the back of the 2nd balcony.

These kinds of things really kill it for me. I couldn't enjoy the music and the evening as well as I would normally have. I just felt like pushing those people over the railing of the balcony!

So, Talk Classical, do you think I'm a crazy intolerant person?


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## Frasier (Mar 10, 2007)

Sorry to hear of your experience.

Nope, neither crazy nor intolerant - just that it was a free concert and from what you said, most attendees didn't know what it was about. They probably welcomed a night out but wouldn't know a violin from a brothel.

It's when such people start paying for tickets that they think about etiquette. Shame, for two reasons:

i) it will encourage the miscreants to think that is normal behaviour at concerts so if they ever do pay, they'll cause upset for themselves and others.

ii) the few budding enthusiasts will be put off for just the reasons you were and may not care to attend the next one.


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## Lisztfreak (Jan 4, 2007)

You've had bad luck, that's all - with the audience, I mean. I attend at least two free concerts per season and the people are always as nice as on a payed one. 
Although I think it's because the people _are_ the same. There aren't many interested in classical music here where I live. 
And I've noticed that the average age of concert-goers is about 60-70 years of age - forget about teenagers and alike. Sometimes I feel like I'm the youngest person in the hall. That's sad.
But on the plus side, no screaming kids and bored little girls here! 

P.S. I'm not especially sensitive, but when some idiots start clapping at the end of a movement, I get a bloodthirsty urge to strangle them with a piano cord obtained from the shocked soloist. :angry:


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## Morigan (Oct 16, 2006)

Lisztfreak said:


> P.S. I'm not especially sensitive, but when some idiots start clapping at the end of a movement, I get a bloodthirsty urge to strangle them with a piano cord obtained from the shocked soloist. :angry:


Hahahaha!! I felt the same I assure you.

I go to *paying* concerts almost every week, I know it's quite different. The only thing that bugs me most of the time is when the whole audience starts clearing their throats in the 5 seconds of silence between movements, etc.

Yesterday was just horrible. I doubt I'll go to another free concert soon.


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## Luximus (Apr 16, 2007)

Ouch...sorry to heard your experience, Morigan. I've been to a few payed concerts, and when you've got a 99% senior audience (I think I was the only teen there, and i saw 1 child) who claps at the end of the movements, your heart feels a little more at ease and you thank the heavens that people aren't clapping in between movements.....or clapping right after a movement. I've yet to go to a free concert(i doubt memorials count) but reading what you've been through made me want to reconsider xD. Don't worry, i'd feel the same way if I were you...crying children are the absolute worst.


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## zlya (Apr 9, 2007)

Apparently, not clapping at the end of movements is a very recent piece of concert etiquette (20th C). In the 18th and 19th Centuries, people ate and talked during concerts. Well into the 19th Century it was appropriate to applaud a movement or a well played section or solo within a movement.

That being said, I did experience a dreadful concert here a few months ago. It was my first concert in Korea, and it was a school concert, nothing professional, just a bunch of students. So everyone was talking, and a man came on the stage and started speaking. I assume he was introducing something, but the lights did not go down, and noone seemed to notice him. The children and conductor came on, and STARTED PLAYING, and still the lights stayed up, and people continued talking to each other in normal volume voices, answering cell phones, etc. The person next to me kept trying to engage me in conversation, which I resisted. She even held her cell phone up at one point so that the person on the other end could hear the music, while shouting (SHOUTING!) a commentary. This continued through the entire concert. The house lights never went down. I could barely hear the music, and the person next to me couldn't seem to understand why I wouldn't talk to her.

I don't know if the shocking (to me) behaviour at that first concert was because the performers were students, or whether it is simply a different cultural approach to concerts. Either way, I definitely prefer modern Western Concert Etiquette.


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## Handel (Apr 18, 2007)

Morigan said:


> I went to a concert yesterday. It was a concert organised by the Canadian Council for the Arts to celebrate its 50th anniversary. They had invited the brightest young Canadian violinists and cellists to play with their loaned Strads. The night looked rather promising, to say the least.
> 
> But no. It was a _free_ concert, open to the public.
> 
> ...


You know what. You had there a perfect example of what looked like concerts during the 18th century (I am only sure for this century). It must have been insulting to musicians and composers.


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## Edward Elgar (Mar 22, 2006)

Morigan said:


> So, Talk Classical, do you think I'm a crazy intolerant person?


Not at all - in my perfect concert hall there would be a sniper on the roof to detect and dispatch any noisemakers! The rifle would be fitted with a silencer naturally!

O.K. - so maybe that's a bit drastic, but if a free concert is ever given, people that don't appreciate classical music that much should be discouraged from going!


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## Guest (May 10, 2007)

....but - what if there were one or two young people there who would never have previously heard a live orchestra and found it spellbinding. These are the converts you need to prevent the average age of audiences from progressing ever upwards.


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## ChamberNut (Jan 30, 2007)

dch222 said:


> ....but - what if there were one or two young people there who would never have previously heard a live orchestra and found it spellbinding. These are the converts you need to prevent the average age of audiences from progressing ever upwards.


Good point, dch!

Last weekend, I attended the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra season finale.

There was a large group of high junior high students (maybe 14 or 15 years old), sitting in the back rows behind me.

During the first half, you heard some of them talking, giggling, whispering and being a little annoying and distracting.

However, that all changed after the intermission. In the 2nd half, the performance was Stravinsky's "The Rite of Spring".......Wow! Complete silence, not a single sound or peep out of the students during the performance. And after the performance was done, and I was one of first people to stand up to give the orchestra a standing ovation (what a performance it was!), the students immediately followed suit and got on their feet also.  It was a very satisfying moment, and I'm sure the music obviously mesmerized some students.


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## Chi_townPhilly (Apr 21, 2007)

Sort of peripheral to the issue, back when I subscribed to Chicago Symphony Orchestra concerts, Warner-Lambert was one of the corporate sponsors (may still be, for all I know- maybe I'll find out next time I make the homeward journey). Well, anyway, part of their sponsorship was that they provided a HUGE bin of Hall's cough drops on site. I'm grateful to have had the opportunity to tuck into some of the product, and lessen the likelihood of distracting neighbors with a loud *hack*! My opinion- as quiet as you are at a church service... quieter still for an orchestra concert.


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## Krummhorn (Feb 18, 2007)

Chi_town/Philly said:


> . . . . My opinion- as quiet as you are at a church service... quieter still for an orchestra concert.


Yah ... that's a laugh ... quiet in church ...  I play in a church ... they do almost everything Zlya mentioned in her Korean concert setting when I am trying to play the prelude. I find it very nerve wracking and discourteous to others who are very intent on listening to the music. The louder I play, the louder the conversation din ... oh well ... guess some things will never change


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## Chi_townPhilly (Apr 21, 2007)

I guess that, for concert-going heaven, you could try the Bayreuth Festspielhaus (if you "win the lottery" and score tickets there). There, coughing's completely out of the question, even clearing your throat will result in the iciest glares, and if you feel a sneeze coming on, you had better suppress it, at the risk of fracturing your ossicles. 

Sorry about your church-performance difficulties, Mister K. Given my imperfect snapshot of that congregation, I don't envy you your parishioners.


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