Following on from applause

[teamsaint]

It's an individual experience , experienced sometimes as a collective experience, since all experience is inside our own minds.

[Beef Oven!]

Discuss.

A concert is something like a communal bathroom or garden that is shared or used by members of a group or community.

Listening to your music in your sitting room (but not a live concert radio broadcast - see above) is not. It's a private solitary thing.

The two things are mutually exclusive and must not be mixed up!

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

A concert is something like a communal bathroom or garden that is shared or used by members of a group or community.

Listening to your music in your sitting room (but not a live concert radio broadcast - see above) is not. It's a private solitary thing.

The two things are mutually exclusive and must not be mixed up!

Quite so. You can be as antisocial and selfish as you like in your own home, but perhaps not in a public concert.

[Beef Oven!]

Quite so. You can be as antisocial and selfish as you like in your own home, but perhaps not in a public concert.

You definitely cannot be as antisocial and selfish as you like at a public concert, that much is true. But by definition you cannot be antisocial or selfish undertaking a private, solitary listening session in your sitting room. As I said, the two things must not be mixed up (this could be the source of your frustration).

[MrGongGong]

As I said, the two things must not be mixed up (this could be the source of your frustration).

Indeed, as René illustrated.


(or maybe I have a 10Kw Pa in my terraced house and am about to undertake a Ryoji Ikeda marathon? )

[Nick Armstrong]

... 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.

Just caught up - dans ma chambre - with the television broadcast of the NYO Mahler 9. Now that was a strange experience - rapturous applause plus a bijou talk-ette from Elder after each movement.

Not at all sure what Gus would have thought...

[David-G]

Perhaps David-G would be prepared to lend you the contraption he wore at the ROH Guillaume Tell, to distracting if hilarious effect. He may even have patented it by now, following my suggestion, as the Regiemask (available in all opera house shops and larger branches of Robert Dyas).

I shall reserve the patent for the new slimmed-down less-obtrusive Mark-2 version which I shall have to work on before the next such production.

[Beef Oven!]

Indeed, as René illustrated.


(or maybe I have a 10Kw Pa in my terraced house and am about to undertake a Ryoji Ikeda marathon? )

[Beef Oven!]

Just caught up - dans ma chambre - with the television broadcast of the NYO Mahler 9. Now that was a strange experience - rapturous applause plus a bijou talk-ette from Elder after each movement.

Not at all sure what Gus would have thought...

Around 1994 my wife, some friends and I attended an Alkan concert on the Southbank given by Jack Gibbons where he gave a reasonable length talk before and after each piece. Many short pieces as well as the concerto, symphony etc.

Of course he addressed the audience communally, rather than going round and talking to people individually. That would have taken too long and the concert was around 2 hrs 45 in the first place.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

You definitely cannot be as antisocial and selfish as you like at a public concert, that much is true. But by definition you cannot be antisocial or selfish undertaking a private, solitary listening session in your sitting room.

My family might not agree.

[french frank]

Of course he addressed the audience communally, rather than going round and talking to people individually. That would have taken too long and the concert was around 2 hrs 45 in the first place.

That, certainly, would be something not to be 'mixed up' with 'going to a concert'. Not necessarily something to be avoided, but only if you didn't mind the interpolations.

Rather like Breakfast: It is constructed to have maximum appeal for those who only want to listen for about 20-30 mins, while busy doing other things. The appeal for those who have longer to listen is considerably lessened unless they want to keep hearing the same news and weather, the same trails, the same exhortations to text, tweet or email in on the current topic. Not to be mixed up with a music programme, and to be avoided if you want a music programme.

The 'communal' idea of concert-going may be an attraction for those who enjoy experiencing other people's reactions to listening, who in fact feel that it enhances their own enjoyment. So be it. That's fine. But enjoying the 'experience' of being at a live concert with others is not to be 'mixed up' with appreciating the music and the performance.

Some people (apparently) feel it's all part of one rich, multi-faceted experience, others may feel that the presence of others is just a necessary evil if you want to hear live music.

[Beef Oven!]

The 'communal' idea of concert-going may be an attraction for those who enjoy experiencing other people's reactions to listening, who in fact feel that it enhances their own enjoyment. So be it. That's fine.

It had never occurred to me that that there was a 'communal' idea of concert going or people who enjoy experiencing other people's reaction to listening, thereby enhancing their own enjoyment. This has passed me by in the considerable number of concerts I've been to over the last forty-plus years.

But enjoying the 'experience' of being at a live concert with others is not to be 'mixed up' with appreciating the music and the performance.

But it will, if you think they can be separated. A concert is a communal experience whether we like it or not (as some people are finding out to their chagrin, it seems)

Some people (apparently) feel it's all part of one rich, multi-faceted experience,

Good luck to them - to me that sounds horrible! But then I'm suspicious of anything that has to have 'rich' and 'multi-faceted' in front of it!

others may feel that the presence of others is just a necessary evil if you want to hear live music.

That's the long and the short of it! How I'd have loved to have had Led Zeppelin playing just to me in 1975. Sadly, others were there (It wasn't that bad, and it had it's plusses).

[MrGongGong]

But enjoying the 'experience' of being at a live concert with others is not to be 'mixed up' with appreciating the music and the performance.
.

It's all part of Musicking IMV (it's worth reading the book)
I'm not sure that your separation always (it obviously does sometimes) makes sense.

[french frank]

Good luck to them - to me that sounds horrible! But then I'm suspicious of anything that has to have 'rich' and 'multi-faceted' in front of it!

Gongers for one appears to consider (IHV) that it's all part of 'Musicking'.

There seem to be different nuances to 'communal'. For some 'sharing the same experience' with all the others is important to them. For others, as I said, the presence of others is a necessary evil. This was Pliable's starting point: that if attending live music concerts, the presence of others is unavoidable, not part of the pleasure of the experience. For Master Jacques, people who find the actions of others distracting and spoiling their enjoyment, they've just got to put up with it because that's the way things are. Those whose enjoyment is spoiled are in the wrong.

[Beef Oven!]

Those whose enjoyment is spoiled are in the wrong.

They are only wrong to believe that anything can be done about it, not in the wrong.