In a world where you have to obsessively study everything in order to make the right decision, music is one of those things that I’ve never really studied, I’ve just enjoyed. I don’t know how to read music, I don’t know all the correct terms, and I’m not embarrassed when I’m discovering “classics that everyone should know” when I’m 40. I listen to music because I like it and enjoy it, and because it is one of the few things in life that for me, at least, is a simple matter of taste. I just spent two weeks researching a god damned oven, for chrissakes.
Having said that, two things came up today that I am curious about. The first is a running debate on Performance Today, where they are wondering whether the recent trend of clapping during symphonies is a good thing and should be encouraged. Why is this a big deal. Why did people, in the past, not clap?
Second, was listening to DUQ this afternoon, and a Boz Scaggs toon was played and referred to as a “jazz standard.” What makes something a “standard?”
Sorry to sound like complete unwashed barbarian, but I’m curious.
Stuck in the Funhouse
Oh silly, that’s the Obot section.
Bobby Thomson
Standard = widely known. Obviously there’s a lot of room for interpretation, especially as you drill down into various niches.
Or if you’re Jimmie Buffett, songs you know by heart.
Shygetz
My understanding was that a “standard” is a song that every two-bit hack coming up in the genre learns how to play.
Lev
A standard is just a classic, iconic song that gets covered a lot, right? Like My Way or Luck Be A Lady or something like that.
HumboldtBlue
You don’t clap in the middle of a symphony because it’s not finished. It’s not a rock concert or a stump speech, it’s a holy symphony and interrupting the musicians could result in a tear of the fourth dimension.
The only reason I was ever given is because “that’s the way it’s always been.”
As for a “standard’ I would assume songs that become very popular become “standards” of a genre, like “Fly me to the Moon” or “Gasbag Willy and Thundering Flatulence” … ok, I made that last one up.
Plus, who cares? My two gay buddies are all acting gay and shit, hugging and laughing and hugging all happy and clapping.
Sad_Dem
I’m with Bobby. A standard is a song that’s widely known. Jazz musicians at a gig who have not played together before are expected to know, say, “Take Five,” “Well, You Needn’t,” “God Bless the Child,” “Take the A Train,” etc. I remember hearing that when the Allman Brothers got tired, they’d play “My Favorite Things” in Coltrane’s style so that the audience would stop hootin’ and hollerin’.
john b
clapping in the middle of symphonies only became uncommon at performances when symphonies were no longer consumed by the masses. they became a sort of church service at some point in the 20th century. there are lots of accounts of ovations in the middle of debuts of the symphonies and particularly concertos for impressive technical feats of a soloist.
a conductor of mine had concerts that were geared for children every once in a while (not a kids show per se, but a kid friendly concert). and he would encourage the kids and parents to clap whenever. these days at pro symphonies, it’s often seen as rude (or something?) to clap even between movements for fear that you might ruin the moment for someone i guess?
anyway, the no clapping except at the end of symphonies phenomenon is a much newer thing than most people realize.
Howard Y
Clapping during symphonies? Like…clapping during the actual performance? Or clapping during the pauses between movements? Typically, for classical music, you hold applause until the end of the piece.
cleek
in addition to all the other correct answers, a standard is something every competent musician is expected to know how to play, and one every listener is likely to know.
it’s one of the foundations of jazz: musicians can freely improvise on it because they know it, and audiences can follow and appreciate how the musicians deal with it.
Bill Murray
Might not clapping have to do with goofing up a recording, or the broadcast in the past?
beltane
Clapping during symphonies? Back in the good old days the only sound you’d hear was old people coughing and crinkling their Hall’s wrappers. Annoying.
cervantes
A jazz standard is just a popular tune that jazz musicians like to play. Usually it’s because it has interesting chord changes, but it may be just be that the tune is good to improvise on.
People don’t clap during symphony orchestra concerts because it’s “high art” and you don’t want to disrupt the excessive purity and wondrousness of it all. They have a lot of stick-up-the ass kinds of customs in the symphony. Probably be good to let them go.
Scott P.
In 19th century Vienna, there were professional groups of applauders known as “claqueurs” who would attend concerts and applaud, or refrain from applauding, at particular moments. Turns out you can manipulate a crowd into clapping or not clapping by coordinated activity. Thus, getting the approval of the claqueurs was essential as they could literally make or break the premiere of a new piece.
kommrade reproductive vigor
What about a really loud fart? Is that ok?
J.W. Hamner
Clapping between movements strikes me as really bizarre if that’s what you mean… the conductor has to stop the orchestra and wait for people to finish before continuing… it just seems like it would screw up the whole flow of a symphony. If we’re talking about clapping between symphonies or parts of a program then I don’t have a problem with that and can’t remember… since it’s been at least 5 years since the last classical performance I’ve seen… whether it was standard.
Omnes Omnibus
Personally, I would say clap only between movements and between between pieces. Also, don’t start the clapping if you don’t know if the orchestra is between movements or not.
ChrisZ
People don’t clap at symphonies because they think symphonies are better than other kinds of performance and so it’s more important to be able to hear it well. There may be some merit there, since there is usually a lot more going on with an entire orchestra than with a single pop band, but mostly it’s snobbery.
Joe Max
I’m a recording engineer, and I record the Berkeley Symphony Orchestra when they perform at UC’s Zellerbach Hall, so I see symphonies and other concerts regularly.
What’s considered polite is to applaud when the conductor takes the stage, and perhaps a short bit of polite clapping after, if the conductor speaks to the audience before beginning the music.
But it is considered bad form to applaud in between movements of an orchestral piece. This is where the issue is, I think. Unless you’re a regular listener to classical music, it can be difficult to tell when the entire symphony is over, or if it’s just the pause between movements. This is where the “newbies” make the mistake of clapping, probably raising the ire of the snooty classical music snobs in attendance. I’m guessing that’s what the article was talking about.
The proper way to tell when applause is appropriate is that the conductor puts down his or her baton and turns to face the audience. This is the cue for applause. If it’s just a pause between movements, the conductor will remain facing the orchestra. This is not the time to applaud, but it is the time to cough, sneeze, clear your throat, or shuffle noisily in your seat – things you should strive very hard NOT to do while the music is playing.
I can’t imagine no clapping at all at a classical concert. The ovations at the end of the show are often quite long (as in five minutes or more) especially if the conductor presents the 1st Violinist (which is common), who then turns to the orchestra, who stand to acknowledge the applause, sit down again, the conductor exits, then returns, bows again, signals the orchestra to rise again, and so on. Sometimes if there was a featured soloist or section, they stand for their own round of applause.
Skipjack
My interpretation of a standard is what the others have said about it’s ubiquity, coupled with it being sung. For instance, while there are many tunes that every jazz musician knows very well, if they almost always are instrumental they aren’t a standard, for instance “Take the A Train”. So basically it’s got to be something that drunks used to call for in lounge bars at the end of the night, like “My Melancholy Baby” or “One for My Baby (and One More for the Road)”. Think Ella Fitzgerald but not necessarily Louis Armstrong.
Fun factoid news item, singing “My Way” in karaoke in the Philippines may get you stabbed: Sinatra Song Often Strikes Deadly Chord
eta: that is, while a standard may be widely played instrumentally, what makes it a standard is that it’s well known for being sung, if that clears it up. Also, I may not be right :)
cathyx
Along the same lines, what makes some rock “classic” rock? And who designates it as classic?
Just Some Fuckhead
Cretins clap. We sophisticates silently mouth “bravo” and clutch our hearts.
I was at a Ronnie Milsap concert a few weeks ago up in the mountains and when he sang America The Beautiful everyone stood up. What the fuck? I spend a couple hundred dollars on good fifth row seats and I can’t use them because a bunch of no-nothing rednecks think America The Beautiful is the fucking national anthem?
sjcumbuco
Here’s one to enjoy, Grateful Dead from the legendary Spring of ’77:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMyaTJF_pLg&feature=related
Adam Lang
Clapping during symphonies was always explained to me as discouraged for two reasons.
One, if you have a lot of applause between parts, it tends to ‘clean your palette’. You don’t still have the last few notes of the ‘pastorale’ section drifting through your head, when something comes in fortissimo allegro, hard enough to make you jump in your seat. Or even more subtle things, where the last movement was in a major key and the next movement starts out ambiguously but eventually resolves into that key’s relative minor… basically, with applause in between movements, you lose the effects of the previous movement. It’s fine for separate pieces, fine for some multi-movement pieces where the movements aren’t written to be interestingly interdependent, but bad for pieces that are.
Two, for a similar reason, conductors like to be able to choose how long the pause is between movements. If your audience is applauding, you can’t.
From my personal experience, there’s also a third, which is that people do sometimes mistake pauses in the music for the end of a piece, and start to clap, even if it isn’t between movements. This can seriously crimp an orchestra’s sense of style. One I played tympani in, we had this happen, and we didn’t even pause… it was just in the middle of a tympani solo, where I was doing a roll. And someone decided the piece was over and started to clap, and we had the audience clapping while the violins came back in and we all just sort of ground to a halt. It was actually a pretty unpleasant experience. And it’s a lot more likely if you’re clapping between movements in a long piece, for obvious reasons.
J.W. Hamner
@Joe Max:
What he said.
schtum
A symphony usually has 4 movements, and the orchestra pauses for a few seconds between them. Not clapping during the pause says that you’ve been to a few of these things before, and know that you’re not supposed to. Clapping says you won your tickets at the office picnic raffle.
The piece isn’t over until the last movement is over, so it makes sense to reserve your applause until then. Excessive applause between movements could also delay the start of the next movement. But mostly, it’s just tradition.
MAJeff
When I was in college, the NYPhilharmonic came to town, with Erich Leinsdorff conducting. They were doing, I think, Smetana’s “Ma Vlast.” (might have been a Tchaikovsky symphony; everyone does Tchaikovsky when they go on tour.) Some folks started to clap after one of the movements, but things kept going.
In between pieces Leinsdorff turned to the audience and said, “If the piece moves you to applaud, you should applaud.”
Generally, you don’t clap in between movements because the “song” isn’t over yet. It’s a whole piece.
My favorite booing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxyBxbGF-Qg
Brachiator
People used to clap at the end of each movement, then it fell out of fashion, and now is something more done by the people who don’t know all the “rules” concerning “appreciating” classical music.
Hell, when Beethoven first conducted some of his own works, the audience would not only clap, they would make him conduct a favored movement again.
It’s not just about the popularity of a song. I guess in pop and rock music, doing a remake or a cover of a song is looked down upon. In jazz, where interpretation and improvisation is king, how a musician deals with works of his or her great predecessors, is how you prove yourself as an artist.
And certain songs, from My Funny Valentine to St James Infirmary, have become iconic. Their beauty never fades. Ella Fitzgerald may have done one of the most beautiful versions of Someone to Watch Over Me ever, but there are other worthy versions. Their beauty never fades.
By the way, Linda Ronstadt acquitted herself quite well with an album of standards.
Louise
I’m a classically-trained violinist and I waver — almost day-to-day on this “no clapping between movements” thing. On the one hand, the piece is not finished. The silence between movements might play an important part in one’s experience of the whole piece. On the other hand, squelching someone’s appreciation of music is just bad business. I’m also a from-birth jazz fan, and there are many times at symphony concerts that I’ve wanted to applaud and holler for a particularly good french horn solo.
The one thing I’m sure of is this: I’d like everyone in the audience to follow the same rule. Clap or don’t clap — but this tentative, petering-out clapping between movements is just sad and annoying.
ION, the previous definitions of “standards” seem on point. Often covered, must-know.
kdaug
FREEBIRD!
Sad_Dem
Never mind the clapping, what is it about classical music audiences and the throat clearing and coughing? Between the movements it can sound like a bunch of old people dying. Whoops, answered my own question.
garage mahal
Vince Guaraldi of Peanuts fame, said he didn’t want to just write hits, he wanted to writes standards. To me it means a song that any jazz musician must hear at one point, and attempt to play, and lives on forever. But with Guaraldi, it’s virtually impossible to duplicate. He was so fucking talented and gifted, and just downright cool.
debbie
Recent trend? They were arguing about this clapping/no clapping back in the 1970s. Interesting, though, that there’s plenty of clapping throughout an opera.
Catsy
Nothing I can really add to the clapping or “standard” discussions. Beaten into glue.
I’ve never really been one to seek out new music. I like what I like, and if I happen across something else that I find I like or have something recommended to me, I pick it up. I think part of this comes from the fact that I’ve never been able to tolerate listening to music radio–I’m not willing to sit through five songs I dislike and a whole lot of commercials in order to get one song that I do.
As a consequence the vast majority of my collection consists of 80’s rock, metal, concept albums, symphonic rock/operatic metal, electronic, and anime and movie soundtracks. Along with completely random songs from just about every genre that for one indescribable reason or another I like even if I hate the rest of the genre.
I don’t much care for the Beatles or a lot of other groundbreaking artists that were before my time, and a whole lot of jazz, particularly improv-heavy jazz, just sounds to me like random notes with no coherent progression or theme tying them together. I can recognize the skill of the musicians and their contributions to musical history in the case of some, but I don’t enjoy listening to it.
'stina
It’s not just symphonies, it’s also chamber music. I always understood that you don’t clap because the piece isn’t finished yet.
I once clapped at Juliard String quartet performance and the world didn’t end. But I’ve never done it again.
I go to chamber music a lot, and clapping very rarely happens between movements, in my experience.
tom
The whole idea of not clapping between movements of a symphony or concerto is an affection from the early 20th century. Before then, people clapped between or even during movements. Mozart wrote his father that he knew his audience liked a piece because of the applause after the movements.
Alex Ross, the music critic for The New Yorker, and IMO one of the best critics in the business, wrote about this issue. Apparently, Leopold Stokowski is to blame.
Linkmeister
@Brachiator: Three albums. With Nelson Riddle conducting.
DougJ
A standard is something that is in one of the “fake books“.
EDIT: It doesn’t just mean “a classic”. It’s got to be something you can play in a jazz context. There’s stuff you wouldn’t expect — at least one Cyndi Lauper song, for example.
J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford
@kommrade reproductive vigor:
If I eat enough French onion soup I can fart Yankee Doodle Dandy.
Stuck in the Funhouse
I guess Opera isn’t exactly symphonies, but I love to watch replays of Pavarotti in his prime, when the whole hall was up clapping and cheering when he hit the climax notes. Pure electrical energy.
Randy P
I agree with Joe Max. I think the symphony thing is talking about clapping between movements. Same thing is true for anything on a program which is presented as a set, like a group of five etudes or something. You’re not supposed to clap until the entire group is over. They have different moods and the idea (I guess) is that you’re supposed to appreciate the entire thing as one complete work of art, not a bunch of separate unrelated things.
Long, long ago there was a great movie called “The Competition” (so long ago Richard Dreyfuss was young) about a concerto competition. It did a nice job of portraying the kind of people who have spent their lives practicing piano for 10 hours a day with very little human contact. There’s a funny scene where one of the competitors is in the audience sitting in the middle of his family, listening to another performer. As the first movement ends, he throws out his arms to both sides to halt his family members who were all about to clap.
kommrade reproductive vigor
@cathyx: A good question. I noticed about 20 years ago a song’s progression to “classic” status accelerated. I think during the first 20 years of my life it had to be a song that had been around a long time and was still fairly popular. Now it’s more like the band is very popular and has been around for a while (so all of their songs are “classics”) or, the radio station wants to call a song a classic, so they do.
Violet
It seems like a standard is a song that was a popular song in the 1930’s or 1940’s. Everything else is not a standard.
So, using the Jimmy Buffet example mentioned above, “Margaritaville” was a very popular song, is currently known by a lot people, at least at a level so that they can sing a line from the chorus, and yet it’s not a standard. Neither are Beatles songs or Rolling Stones songs. They’re “classic rock” or even “oldies.” But not “standards.” Early Beatles songs are easy to sing along to, and are even played in piano bars and so forth. But they’re not considered standards. Ditto Elvis songs.
It really seems like a standard is a song that was popular pre-Elvis, or thereabouts.
Jewish Steel
Yes. Folks used to clap and then stopped clapping sometime in the 20th century.
Musicians won’t ever think you’re a cretin if you clap at the “wrong” time. They’ll think you like the music. That makes them happy.
Adam Lang
BTW: A well-known piece that contains a transition that I think would be ruined by applause between movements would be Pictures at an Exhibition.
Listen to the Promenade through, and then a little pause, and then Gnomus. Stately, flowing music, very dignified, and then a pause, when you’re thinking, ‘oh, that was nice’, and then WHAM! Done right, you can actually make people jump a little in their seats, and you’re doing it on the cello, for God’s sake, which is hardly known for its percussive qualities. It has nowhere near the impact if you’ve listened to 30 seconds of clapping in between.
DougJ
@Violet:
I think “Something” may be a standard.
scav
@Joe Max: I think it’s exactly this erudite distinction between the when it’s “proper” to applaud and when it’s not distinction that is breaking down. It’s increasingly seen as an erudite, studied, pretentious, jargon-like tell between the self-appointed “ins” and the “outs” of some obscure cult and elite crowd instead of having anything meaningful having to do with actually enjoying the music / performance. Or it’s just that the banal habit of applauding everything voraciously and indiscriminately has made it to the halls and stages where people still wear black suits and bow ties while hugging violins. Your pick.
Josie
I am a classically trained violinist and singer. I’ve performed in more concerts than I care to count in my lifetime. Joe Max is exactly correct in stating that the only time to applaud is when the conductor puts down the baton and faces the audience. Any other time is rude and distracting for the conductor and the performers.
ET
I always thought standing ovations for plays was reserved for the best of the best but now it seems to have become common (at least in D.C.) to give standing ovations for plays even if it was only so so. So I can see why people clap at the symphony over things that they didn’t know they shouldn’t – they don’t know the etiquette because most people aren’t familiar with classical music much less hearing it in person.
Ed Drone
Boz Scaggs? Jazz? If you can’t imagine Zoot Sims playing the song, it ain’t jazz. And I can’t.
And to call it a ‘standard’ is the cherry on top of the peculiarity, I’d say.
Ed
Violet
@DougJ:
It’s a good song, lots of people know it, but is it a standard? Dunno…
There’s always the exception that proves the rule, etc., but list the standards, see when they were actually popular on music charts, and the bulk of them will be 1930’s-1940’s. At least that’s my take.
Southern Beale
Clapping *during* symphonies used to be a no-no. You clapped at the end of a piece, not at the end of the movement. Always there are a few people not familiar with the music who start to clap at the end of the movement and then, embarrassed, stop immediately. It’s a snobbish thing, “oh, they didn’t know the Bach well enough to know when to clap.”
So if people are clapping at the end of movements now, meh. Good for them. You like it, you clap.
Now, are they clapping in rhythm to the music? That’s just fucking weird.
RJ
Did I miss the info on the best stove to buy?
I fell in love with one at the store (double oven, fast heating burner), only to find it panned by reviewers (too many electronics quick to break, expensive to repair).
Brachiator
@Violet:
John Coltrane’s Afro Blue is a standard. This is a 60s original, not a 1930s or 40s tune.
The “Great American Songbook” loosely refers to 30s and 40s and even some 20s songs, often from musical theater or those written by Cole Porter, etc.
Randy P
@tom:
Nice link. I like the letter from Mozart, especially this line: “… and sure enough there they were: the shouts of Da capo”
So not only do you have the audience clapping between movements, a big no-no in classical music today, but you have cheering and shouting. And what they’re shouting is basically “Do it again!” In proper Italian musical terminology. The only equivalent today is “Bravo!” (and if you are snooty enough, “Brava!” for female performers). But that is carefully reserved for after the performance, in the place where you’re allowed to clap.
The world has really changed. Can you imagine an audience shouting that today (in English or Italian), or even more having the symphony respond by actually doing it? There’s sort of a tradition of “Encore!” which also means “again” but is treated as a request for something additional. And that’s never really spontaneous. Somebody who does an encore probably walked into the hall intending to do it.
Skipjack
As for classic rock, I think people now often confuse classic with nostalgia. That’s its own market, but I think it’ll take over the classic rock one.
Also, I want to adjust what I said about “Take the A Train” not being a standard, since it does have lyrics of course, but most people don’t know them since again it’s almost never sung. But I guess it is a standard, for being so widely known.
“If you take the A train, you’ll find that you can get to Harlem in a hurry…” which is true since it doesn’t stop between 59th and 125th streets and I suppose it didn’t then.
zwoolf
I think it becomes a standard once it’s been covered by everyone from Cab Calloway to William Hung.
Becca
I’m a musician but not an orchestral one. I know many orchestral musicians though, and while the not clapping between movements may be motivated by snobbery (not saying that it is), a lot of orchestral musicians (ones I know) find it disorienting. For me, that’s enough to refrain from clapping. Playing any genre of music requires concentration. Playing classical music requires its own kind of concentration, and I think the applause “rule” is generally a good one. That said, orchestral musicians would rather that you continue to support the orchestra, buy tickets and applaud between movements than not support the orchestra and not buy tickets. Like most of us, they like to eat and live indoors.
Jay B.
My favorite classical affectation is that they call the rump orchestra that plays pieces from a mere 90 to 150 years ago “Pops”. Finger on the pulse, I tell ya.
I find classical music gorgeous, moving, uplifting and entirely stifling to watch live.
Ed Drone
@J.A.F. Rusty Shackleford:
There once was a young man from Sparta….
Ed
pickledjazz
Clapping during the symphony is not usually done simply because the overall musical idea has to expand and develop, eventually ending with flourish. It is like a conversation which has manyfold ideas to be expounded until the final point hits home, and therefore it is not usually interrupted with clapping in the middle.
A standard is literally a tune that has been worn well enough to become part of a musician’s repertoire and also had a certain form AABA e.g A being the first verse, A being the second verse, B being the bridge and A being the repeat of the first verse. The melody also was based on a certain type of chord formation.
The jazz masters wrote a lot of standards and most musicians included them in performance….e.g Satin Doll, How High the Moon, As Time Goes By and a waelth of other golden oldies. Therefore, all the ole time favourites are considered standards.
Litlebritdifrnt
When my DH gives High School band concerts there is a little “how to” guide in the program, you know turn off cell phones, no leaving the auditorium when the band is playing and “please do not applaud between movements of pieces, please wait until the end of the piece”. The problem arises of course when you have an audience that consists mostly of farmers, car mechanics and general blue collar folks who have no idea what constitutes a “movement” and do not understand that the “clue” for when the piece is over is generally when the conductor a) turns away from the band and faces the audience, b) acknowledges individual soloists by having them stand before c) asking the entire band to rise for the applause. We have some uncomfortable moments sometimes but none of us are musical snobs so it is generally ignored.
You do get some insufferable snobs at proper symphony performances though, I remember going to one at our local Community College once and there was a twat in the back that thought he was so sophisticated that he should laugh at the “musical jokes” that were in the piece. By the end of the performance I wanted to go back there and throttle him.
DougJ
@Violet:
Frank sang it a lot, that should mean it’s a standard.
It doesn’t show up in the top 1000, though.
Interesting — only a few top 1000 standards from the 70s and later, two Stevie Wonders, Send in the Clowns, and stuff I don’t know.
(link)
Skipjack
@Violet: I don’t know if “Something” is a standard, but Sinatra used to sing it in concert all the time. He claimed it was his favorite Beatles song, though he may have just been trying to stay hip. I don’t know if other jazz singers do it as much. If they did, I’d argue it is one. I do think there are standards from later than the 40’s, like “The Girl from Ipanema” is from the 60s, and it’s not even strictly jazz, but I do think it’s a standard.
edit: beaten!
Violet
@Brachiator:
Yeah, I think the definition in jazz, which was John Cole’s original question, may be different. I kind of took the question and ran with it into the more general use of the word standard, which seems to encompass what you said:
I’ve seen those songs also referred to as “standards” when performed in venues such as piano bars or other sing-a-long type locations. It’s odd to me that “standards” seems to encompass such a narrow slice of time. What about the great songs of the 1890’s? Why not the 1960’s?
scav
@Randy P: and what about all the things they did at the opera etc. that had nothing to do with the music? Flirt, chat, blah blah blah and then only really pay attention during some current top of the pops? It didn’t exactly have the subtle aura of church services it can get now.
TMI: anything later than Mozart is past my general area of enjoyment and I even dabble in Ars Nova and Machaut and earlier so I’m distinctly non-standard issue here.
Fugue
Clapping during symphonies? Nothing makes me more igry.
MAJeff
@ET:
The standing ovation thing is a pet peeve of mine. I ain’t standing unless the performance was outstanding. At a classical concert, tears are a minimum requirement.
Randy P
@Jay B.: It’s not the age of the piece, it’s the “serious” factor. Which is of course an open invitation to snobbishness. It’s kind of the same as the distinction between popular fiction and literature. I grew up thinking Steinbeck was great literature but then I heard a few years ago that he’d fallen out of favor with academics English departments.
So a Pops orchestra will play popular 1890 songs but they’ll also play movie soundtracks from this year. And a “serious” orchestra won’t play the movie soundtracks in a “serious” concert, but they’ll play brand new commissioned music. Which is kind of artificial when you realize that movie soundtracks are actually where a lot of the best classical composers are doing commissioned work these days. Outside of films, there isn’t a huge market for new orchestral pieces.
Redshift
@cathyx:
The term “classic rock” was invented so the 60s generation could ignore music those damn kids were listening to while pretending they weren’t the kind of people who would listen to an “oldies” station. :-P
Violet
@DougJ: @Skipjack:
Wouldn’t surprise me. Or maybe he just liked it.
Sad_Dem
“Time after Time” might be a standard because Miles Davis plays it. And I’d agree that the songs that appear regularly in fakebooks are standards.
DougJ
@Skipjack:
“The Girl from Ipanema” mos def a standard.
Standards are awesome. I’m having a great time just looking through the top 1000 list on that site. There are others, too, that are not on this list.
HumboldtBlue
I once won $50 bucks at a karaoke contest at the Edokko lounge in Pearl City because I sang the lyrics and even added my own 64-bar scat improv smack dab in the middle.
Of course, my top competition was a visiting Korean businessman who could barely croak out whatever Madonna song he had chosen.
But I rocked, I surely did rock!
Litlebritdifrnt
@MAJeff:
Ditto. It has become almost required to stand and it is now a herd mentality, “ooooooh everyone else is standing, perhaps I should too even though I thought the performance was mediocre don’t want to appear to be missing something”. I even stand by that at my DHs concerts, if the band did just well I will applaud, if they did poorly they get a sort of “golf clap”. I think the last time I was compelled to jump to my feet at the conclusion of a piece that they played was when they hit it out of the park with Julie Giroux’s “Crown of Thorns” which is a very difficult piece for a High School band and they were just stupendous, by the end of it I had tears streaming down my face and was on my feet.
ETA – link to Crown of Thorns
http://juliegiroux.www2.50megs.com/crown.html
mcd410x
What’s up with people sitting during rock shows these days? Have we really gotten that lame? Am I really going to stop dancing and sit down because you asked?
(Answers: IDK, Yes. No.)
dj spellchecka
quite a bit of a ways off topic…..brian may of queen explains where that “stomp, stomp, clap” in we will rock you came from http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128935865
and for you sinatra fans, dig this trainwreck a big band “rat pack” rewrite of “mrs. robinson” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnOJG_uQi6Y
ps
sure looks like laughin’ lenny’s “hallelujah” is just about a standard, don’t it?
HumboldtBlue
Also, one of the funniest posts John ever put up was when he was trying to figure out what song he had just heard on the radio (It was A Train) and because he liked it he wanted to find a copy.
He didn’t have the song so he just typed out …. bah, bah-bop-bah-badda … and before I could even comment four other folks had already informed him. The rest of the thread was other commenters incredulously wondering how you could figure out a song from just the syllables.
Redshift
@mcd410x: What rock shows? I was at Green Day last night, and the only people sitting were in the handicapped row (where Ms. Redshift was sitting because of knee trouble.)
Nice multigenerational crowd, too.
grimc
What was the Scaggs tune? He did an album of jazz standards in the early 00’s, so maybe the announcer was referring to that and not something Scaggs composed.
The Other Chuck
Been to two seasons of the SF Symphony, and the etiquette is really quite simple: when the conductor lowers his baton, short polite applause is customary. This happens between movements with an obvious break, but not during lulls in movements or movements meant to run into each other. When the conductor turns around, then of course you give full ovation.
They’ve done recordings while I attended, and those times they simply announced ahead of time to hold your applause between movements.
The Opera, for all its dressiness, is far more loose about it: the audience there has been known to applaud and yell bravo/brava/bravi right after particularly virtuoso performances in the middle of an aria.
Just Some Fuckhead
My rule of thumb at “events” is you stay politely mindful of others around you. At a Charlie Daniels lawn concert, we got there a few hours early to get a nice spot down near the front. About twenty minutes into the concert, two enormous ladies with a small child carrying a violin muscled into the thin walkway between us and the people in front of us and camped on our feet for the entire concert. Someone stepped on the poor kid’s violin and broke it.
I missed damn near an entire NASCAR race after my 5-year old daughter fell asleep on my lap because the bubbas in form-fitting sleeveless T-shirts in front of us thought they had to stand up every time someone made a pass.
People suck.
bobbo
Ooh, look Generally hate the HRC, but they are holding Target’s feet to the fire. (Sorry, OT, but for some reason I couldn’t get into comments on the Prop 8 thread.)
tom
@Litlebritdifrnt: Agreed. I don’t do the standing O thing unless the performance is truly exceptional.
I do think however that the whole concert-going culture is way too formal. There is no reason for musicians to be dressed in tuxes and gowns and audiences in suits and dresses. And all the “rules” about when to applaud and so forth erects barriers to the experience when people should be encouraged to go and welcomed when they attend concerts.
arguingwithsignposts
Can you fix the previous thread? strikethru fail. Also, as for clapping, I’m clapping always through Les Miserables. Not classical, but still.
jl
The commenters above who say all the applauding rules for classical music are late innovations, sprung from pretentious artsy fartsy BS are correct.
Sitting like a dead person through classical concerts, and then applauding like a simpering ponce only when the conductor tells you it’s OK by some occult and snootily pretentious and hermetically obscure freaking gesture, are bad habits that developed along with the idea that classical music was some kind of quasi religious experience.
It is the sort of thing that happens when an art form dies as a living and developing part of popular culture.
Mr. Cole has stated that he is not religious, so I do not understand why he has any interest in the phenomenon at all.
I done served my time in HS and University orchestras in the wind section and I do not like all this snootiness in classical music. Jazz, blues and pop still have a healthy attitude towards audience behavior. I do not like to go to rock concerts and don’t play it so don’t know what they do there.
It is worse after composers like Wagner, Bruckner and Mahler, who decided that the movements should go on forever.
I suppose it is best to follow convention with regards to clapping. For bathroom breaks, getting quick drink, or stretching your legs, do what feels best. Especially when you aren’t particularly interested in what you are hearing.
Edit: musicians above who report disturbances in their ability to play due to audience auplause, are IMVHO, overly delicate.
TuiMel
@DougJ:
Yesterday might be.
Sad_Dem
@DougJ: Yeah, if one doesn’t know “Girl for Ipanema,” “Watermelon Man,” “Cherokee,” and “Stardust,” maybe one should keep the day job.
The Other Chuck
@tom:
Maybe it’s the whole California relaxed dress code thing, but I go to the symphony in pretty much normal businesswear: slacks, tie, jacket, and there’s not a raised eyebrow in the crowd when I’m mixing during intermission. Sometimes I wear my leather jacket (a nice one, not a biker jacket) and I still blend in just fine.
The Opera crowd seems to be a lot more formal, so I break out the nicer suit. Still, only I’ve worn a tux there was to the opening night gala.
Skipjack
@HumboldtBlue: That is awesome. That is all.
Actually, somewhat related to what people were saying before regarding classic rock, with karaoke becoming so large I’d bet that certain songs will take on “standard” status if they haven’t already. As in, everyone sings them in karaoke. Songs I’ve heard that fit this include GnR “Sweet Child O’ Mine”, and somehow R. Kelly “Ignition”
Then there’s the phenomenon of people singing their own songs in karaoke, which is not just Jewel, but say this guy, Derek Holt from the Climax Blues Band singing “I Love You”:
“The only time I’ve ever performed that song live in America, I went to Florida last year (2005) to Clearwater with my family, and I ended up in a karaoke bar. It’s called Big Ben’s, it’s like an English pub. My wife and I sat down, the reason we went to the pub was because we dig liver and onions and a pint of real English beer. So we went down there and sure enough there’s karaoke on, and the karaoke book gets put onto your table. We were sifting through it, and I’m looking at Climax Blues Band. Couldn’t Get It Right wasn’t even in the book, but Climax Blues Band I Love You was in the book. So my wife called the guy over. She said, ‘This song I Love You,’ this guy here was in The Climax Blues Band and he wrote it and he sang it.’ And the guy said, ‘Never.’ Anyway, I went up on the stage, and of course as soon as I opened my mouth and started singing it, it was obvious it was me. I was him. And the place went wild. I never bought a drink again the whole night. That’s the one and only time. In fact, I’ve got a photograph of it with my little girl. She came up with me and helped me sing it. She’s only 10, but we stood there and everybody got up and danced and as soon as it finished everyone was like, ‘Bloody hell, where’s the limo?'”
jeffreyw
I stick to the classics.
The Other Chuck
@jl:
Keith Jarrett is notorious for this. Far as I can tell, he’s really a cranky bastard who hates the audience.
jl
@jeffreyw: May I burp after eating that? Or would that disturb the high art of fantastic flapjacks?
Jewish Steel
I too am a classically trained musician.
One of the best gigs I ever played was @ a prison. Not only did the audience clap when ever they felt moved but also clapped to beat time when they thought we were rocking.
Tempo can kind be of elastic in classical pieces so we felt ourselves rushed along in spots where we were used to easing off the gas.
But it was awesome and everybody had a great time. We felt connected to the audience and they totally dug the music.
Anybody who wants to enforce silly bourgeois rules of etiquette and propriety (that in historical terms have only recently become the norm, btw) is probably less interested in the music and more working through their class anxiety issues.
Linkmeister
@HumboldtBlue: Was that the long-gone lounge on Kamehameha Highway opposite the watercress farm?
bookcat
Great questions! I’m glad you asked. This is one of those instances where I always meant to find out these things but never did. So I applaud you for daring to seek knowledge. This is how many learn, they just never say.
Litlebritdifrnt
@The Other Chuck: I think it depends what the occasion is. Years ago I took a contingent of crusty old Royal Navy Warrant Officers to see Midsummer Nights Dream at the Edinburgh Playhouse. We got a box. I insisted, cause it was the whole experience that we all got dolled up, they were in tuxes and I was in an evening dress. We did the whole deal, champagne in the lobby, waiter service to us in the box. We had an absolute ball, and as an aside the said crusty old Warrant Officers who were convinced that they were going to absolutely hate Shakespere were literally hugging their sides with laughter at the RSC’s version of MSD. They LOVED it.
Conversely me and DH went to “Shakespere on the Green” in Wilmington last year and we had a picnic basket, a chilled bottle of wine, and we were dressed in jeans and t-shirts.
I think the venue is the key, and whether or not you are in the mood for “putting on the ritz” so to speak.
Skipjack
@The Other Chuck: Man, Keith Jarrett makes so much damn noise himself he distracts me. I’m sorry to hear that he’s a delicate flower.
Triassic Sands
As Tom and others point out, the practice of not clapping until a work is complete seems to have begun in the early twentieth century. However, just because it hasn’t always been that way doesn’t mean it isn’t better.
I agree with Adam Lang that some pieces of music will definitely suffer if there is applause between movements. Since opinions on that may vary, it seems like a waste of time trying to decide which music is and which isn’t disrupted by premature applause. It’s much easier to simply refrain until the work is finished.
It isn’t usually difficult to figure out ahead of time when a work will be finished. With the possible exception of world premieres it’s pretty easy to find out about how long a given piece of music will last and how many movements it has. Occasionally, two movements will not have a pause between them, so just counting movements may not be foolproof.
It may be snobbish to look down on someone who claps after a movement, but I don’t think it is snobbish to prefer that audiences wait.
MAJeff
@The Other Chuck:
The Opera, for all its dressiness, is far more loose about it: the audience there has been known to applaud and yell bravo/brava/bravi right after particularly virtuoso performances in the middle of an aria.
I do that at orchestra concerts. I have a music degree, so I know when the piece is ending, but last season’s SPCO performance of Honegger’s Pastorale or a couple seasons ago when the BSO did Mahler 6, the end had my on my feet yelling.
It tends to be a matter of timing. I don’t cheer after the second movement of a symphony, but I’ll yell at the end. In opera, the standard is a different one, and arias are when you do it.
Yeah, it’s somewhat arbitrary and, as others have noted, historically contingent. But, if the shit moves you, let the performers know!
stormhit
@jl:
Yes, the conductor putting his hands down is terribly obscure. There’s no way anyone but the snoobiest of insiders could possibly ever figure out something as subtle as that.
bookcat
Awesome. I’m going to do this from now one. Randomly.
kommrade reproductive vigor
@bookcat: You’re not supposed to applaud until this blog post concludes.
matt
@ET: @tom: For many the standing O is a faster way to get up to leave.
jl
I know most of the multi movement pieces I hear well enough, or have played them myself, so the clapping rules don’t bother me, even though I think they are silly.
But, Cole, if this is a practical problem, the solution is simple. You just decide not to be among the first group of people to clap.
But if you need help on proper eye rolling, thoughtful ceiling gazing, rapturous demeanor, and looks of appreciative prissiness, during musical Art of the Highest Order, then I cannot help you.
Clapping last can be used to advantage for musical snoot purposes. You just glance around like the performance really wasn’t up to your own very high private standards, then you join in the clapping of ignorant masses as a polite gesture, event though it is an imposition.
And finally, always remember that much classical music is actually better than it sounds (to paraphrase Mark Twain).
HumboldtBlue
@Linkmeister: That sure sounds like it, I was there in … ’87-’90. The service was horrible (the only time I EVER complained about wait staff was after a night we stopped there and got service that absolutely sucked) but they had a good selection of beer on tap and the mixed drinks were dirt cheap.
jinxtigr
No no- you clap, and then every SIXTEENTH beat you shout “HEY!” :)
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
What makes something a “jazz” standard? I’m only familiar with two Boz Scaggs songs and they were hits on the pop radio in the 70s. I’d sooner call them rock with R&B influence than jazz, but maybe I’m being pedantic.
susan
“A tuxedoed performer came on stage, sat at a grand piano, opened the lid, occasionally turned some music pages but otherwise sat as quietly as possible for 4 minutes and 33 seconds, then rose, bowed and left. And that was it.”
As Mr. Cage left the stage, the audience applauded with enthusiasm.
Dead Ernest
@kommrade reproductive vigor:
Between movements? Risky.
burnspbesq
@The Other Chuck:
“The Opera, for all its dressiness, is far more loose about it: the audience there has been known to applaud and yell bravo/brava/bravi right after particularly virtuoso performances in the middle of an aria.”
I saw Florez in “La Fille du Regiment” at the Met last winter, and after the last high C the place just went into orbit.
DarrenD
As a longtime lurker (2~3 years +) I’ve got to add my two cents here since this is part of what I do for a living.
When and when not to clap really depends on where you are and what you’re listening to.
For example, in classical music, it’s generally considered very rude to clap after someone finishes a solo…unless it’s a vocalist solo in an opera.
In my (relatively limited) experience from performing in parts of Europe (France, Switzerland, Italy) it’s not uncommon for people to give applause between movements and was something we (the performers) were warned about ahead of time.
Sometimes people will even clap along in time with the music sometimes, and even then it can sometimes be appropriate. This happens all the time for bands that are playing a rousing Sousa march. If they’re not clapping in time, well, any musician worth his salt will tune it out.
But I digress.
If the performers are any good, they’ll provide the audience with cues as to when it’s appropriate to applaud. This generally involves the conductor (if there is one) lowering the baton and the performers putting down their instruments.
The way I was taught, if your audience is clapping in the “wrong” spots it’s because you’re not doing a good enough job showing them when they should.
Anyway, if you’re going to clap, don’t do it half-assed. I find that lukewarm applause to be much worse for my concentration than thunderous applause. If they’re clapping THAT loudly for you, you must’ve done something right.
MikeJ
@matt: I thought a standing o was what you got in the alley while the other band is playing.
Adam Lang
@Dead Ernest:
Linkmeister
@HumboldtBlue: It’s now a Firestone Tire place.
jwb
Already a lot of comments here, which I haven’t read, but the answer to clapping: people stopped clapping after movements when symphonies started being presented to audiences as complete, organic artworks. It was a gradual process, but was well on its way to general adoption already in the nineteenth century. It was also a product of people paying specifically to go to concerts to listen to a performance of music (rather than hear music incidentally while dancing, or watching the theater, or attending the opera, or eating and gambling, or visiting the brothel, etc., etc.). But throughout the nineteenth century you read accounts of audiences demanding orchestras encore particular movements of symphonies, for example. You also read accounts as late as the 1910s of people attempting to shout down pieces they didn’t like; actually you can read such accounts as late as the 1960s, but by that point few people cared any more.
As far as I have been able to determine, “standard” had its origin in music that was generally taught in learning to play an instrument, music that therefore any trained musician would be expected to know how to play. It was distinguished from music à la mode, fashionable music, popular music, the ephemeral music of the day that dance bands, musical hall and theater musicians had to keep up with. Usually this sort of music also had a distinctive manner of playing associated with it. This terminology then seems to have gravitated to the Tin Pan Alley “Evergreens,” the popular songs that remained in circulation decades after they were first written (and most of which are still reasonably well-known).
burnspbesq
@Bruce (formerly Steve S.):
Boz recently discovered the Great American Songbook. He’s a good interpretive singer, but not at the Sinatra/Bennett/Johnny Hartman/Joe Williams level.
Kurt Elling is probably my favorite among current male jazz singers, and Jane Monheit my favorite among females.
srv
Fuck, if people a clapping at the symphony, I’m going to start randomly whistling.
If I were king, other than open hunting season on leaf blower operators, my second dictate would be to make punching whistlers at rock concerts a requirement. Take that shit to the ballgame.
Randy P
@susan: And oddly, other people perform “4:33”. But the last time I saw it performed, it was in high school (a club of classical performers who used to meet monthly to perform for each other), “arranged” for quartet, and the group only got through about half of the allotted time before cracking up.
I know there’s lots of pretentious claptrap about how the piece consists of the sounds the audience makes, but frankly I have a hard time thinking of this as anything but a prank. Was Cage paid to “compose” it?
burnspbesq
@HumboldtBlue:
Try this one.
Dodadodadadah … Baaah dum.
Kincade Webb
I noticed someone mentioned Alex Ross above. Go read his book “The Rest is Noise”. It talks about the clapping question and I recall it was Mahler who first wanted no clapping until the end. The whole book is great. Read it!
Dead Ernest
@Adam Lang: Well yes but, that ‘fart by definition’ can only exist after it has proved to have been a fart.
Since movements can be variable in their frequency it won’t be until after the fact that you will be assured of what you’ve had.
And that’s why I say, …risky.
srv
And another get-of-my-lawn thing. People going to concerts and chatting on their cell phone all through the concert. WTF! Standard operating procedure now.
Shit, last metal concert I went to, people in the front trying carry on a conversation over the performance. I mean, WTF on god’s earth possesses someone to go early to a Combichrist performance to get up front and have a chat?
Too bad they didn’t see me clear the way for the mosh pit behind them.
Let’s do that, mosh pits for the symphony.
Jeff
Back in the 18th century, clapping, or showing appreciation was not only allowed, but encouraged. It was common for favorite movements to be encored, and often symphonies and concertos were not presented all at once, but sometimes piecemeal, with other pieces in between. The concerts could last up to 3-4 hours long.
matt
@Dead Ernest: A rather metaphysical description of the risk of the gambled and lost fart.
SiubhanDuinne
Yeah, it’s interesting. Applause after discrete “numbers” in opera (arias, duets, the occasional chorus) — just fine. Applause after bravura solos in ballet, also fine. And jazz has been well-covered.
But, call me a snob, call me elitist — I am really uncomfortable with breaking up a unified piece of music with applause. I like the transitions, and the contrasts, and the occasional shock value. Symphony, string quartet, sonata or song cycle: the composer meant it to be a “whole,” and I am inclined to respect that.
In truth, you can almost always tell what’s appropriate by watching the body language of the conductor or performer(s).
Now: could we talk about the seemingly obligatory standing ovations that occur at every recital, every concert? They were once reserved for truly extraordinary performances, but now they seem to be a kind of “oh, the music finished, guess it’s time to stand up.” Of course also, too, a lot of audience members might just be wanting to slide out early and beat the traffic, and all the other sheeple think it’s the start of a Standing O, so they do too.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
@burnspbesq:
Interesting, I wouldn’t have predicted that, but then I wouldn’t have predicted Rod Stewart either. Speaking of whom, I really can’t stand his interpretation of “standards”, but that’s just me.
MikeB
As a jazz musician myself, I think there is a distinction to be
made between “standard” and “jazz standard”.
A “standard” would be a tune that, as others have pointed out,
a professional musician would be expected to know, and would
play at a cocktail party or while accompanying a cabaret
or nightclub singer. Most of these tunes would be famous songs
from movies circa the 30’s and 40’s (Cole Porter, etc), but some
would be more recent pop tunes and Broadway hits.
Sinatra repertoire is a good example.
A “jazz standard” however, would be any number of the above
tunes chosen by jazz musicians for interesting chord changes
lending themselves to improvisation, plus a large number of original tunes written by jazz musicians for jazz albums. These original tunes would not be recognized by the general public.
A proficient jazz musician would be expected to know both
types of “standards”.
patrick II
It seems to me that the disapprobation of applause at a symphony has to do with the silence serving the same role in musical art as negative space does in visual art.
Gary
Now that you’ve mastered clapping at symphonies and chamber music, it’s time to progress to the even more complex rules for clapping at song recitals:
Only clap when next song is by another composer, unless there is a set of one-song-per-composer, then you only clap at the end of the set.
Certain pieces are traditionally applauded anyway, the Erlkoenig for example.
The program is often printed with different spacing between items, to give clues where the performers expect applause if the audience so desires.
No applause during a song cycle, with certain traditional exceptions.
Applause is generally kept to a polite level except at intermission and at the end of the performance and during encores, when it’s OK to let go.
There will be a maximum of three encores to applaud unless the performer is a diva on a farewell tour, when anything goes.
Those are the basics.
Dead Ernest
@matt: Hi Matt – yes it is – which somehow please me.
I’m not a fan of the term ‘brain fart’ but it this case I guess perhaps my comment to Adam might have been one.
Lysana
@Randy P:
Cage was a master at creating non-music and convincing people it was music. In short, a con man.
Dead Ernest
PS: Matt, I like your –
A thesis title any university library would have a hard time keeping in the stacks.
EnfantTerrible
Applause, even cheering, at the end of arias is considered de rigeur at opera performances, and this can lead to culture crashes when symphony orchestras do concert performances of opera. Several years ago, the local orchestra presented Verdi’s Otello as a concert performance. After the soprano playing Desdemona sang an especially beautiful solo in Act II, the opera groupies burst into applause, even though the music hadn’t stopped and was moving along. The symphony crowd shushed them. :-)
Gin & Tonic
@The Other Chuck:
I once stood outside of a Keith Jarrett concert for at least an hour, along with the rest of the audience, in the cold, because he had decided that the piano was not suitably in tune, and his designated piano tuner would only work in an empty hall.
cynn
A “standard” is a crossword puzzle clue.
jrosen
I spent 40+ years making my living playing the violin and keyboard in symphony orchestras (starting in 1959) and in that span it has been customary not to clap between movements. When this custom began I don’t know, but historically it hasn’t always been that way…there are some reports on the premiere of Beethoven’s 9th that had audiences clap at moments during the playing. Then even today, audiences clap at the end of a flashy concerto movement (e. g. Tchaikovsky Vioin Concerto) and nobody minds.
As a player, I know that sometimes you want a “pregnant” silence to reign after a slow movement, or that sometimes you want to go directly from one movement to another for dramatic contrast. (3rd to 4th movement of the 9th is a very good example. The hushed ending of the 3rd is shattered by a very dissonant hullabaloo to begin the 4th…and anything that breaks the connection destroys an important part of the experience.) Symphonies written in the 18th century are less likely to suffer from the interruption because in general they are less “organically” connected, but once you get into the Romantics (Schumann, Brahms, and especially Mahler) there’s no question but that the movements form a connected whole and that applause breaks the emotional continuity. Again speaking as a player (now more as a soloist or chamber player, or cinductor, which I also do) when I finish one movement I’m makiong a mental transition toward the next, maybe adjusting an instrument, setting a new mood and tempo in my head and applause just disturbs concentration. I’d rather it be held to the end…where I hope there will be a lot if it!
Different contexts, different customs. In a jazz club, it’s usual to have applause when a soloist finishes his/her choruses, wjile the rhythm section is still going.
Why? I dunno… that’s the way it’s always been (not!). But that’s the way it is now.
jrosen
@#125
Yes, I find it ridiculous also when a mediocre performance (and I’ve been part of many of them) gets a “standing” ovation…Tanglewood is rife with that.
From the stage there I once saw a guy sleeping in the 3rd row, through a flute concerto that was played a quarter-tone sharp and with the all expressive qualities of a factory whistle (JamesGalway if you must know) and he…the napper…was the first one on his feet at the end. I think that many do it because they want to convince themselves that the high-priced ticket was worth it. (I shouldn’t be too snarky, though, those people paid my salary and pension, after all). Andrew PIncus, the music critic of the Berkshire Eagle put it well (I paraphrase) “Promiscuous standing ovations are like promiscuous sex; if you do it for just anybody it doesn’t mean much.”
priscianusjr
“Why did people, in the past, not clap?”
Because it spoils the transition of mood from one movement to the next. You wait until the whole thing is over. Probably today, many people in the audience don’t even realize that three or four movements actually comprise “one thing.”
However, in the really old days, the audience used to applaud any time they felt like it, not only between movements, but even after a cadenza.
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07035/758706-42.stm
I am nevertheless a child of my times — which, alas, seem to be passing.
Dave Edwards
It’s my understanding that the custom of not clapping in the middle of a performance (i.e., between movements of a symphony or even after arias in opera) can be traced to Richard Wagner and the mid to late 1800s. Wagner, who considered himself to be an arbiter of artistic propriety, dictated that audiences should not interrupt the performance of his “music dramas” but should wait until the end of an act. Americans, eager to adopt the “high society” conventions of Europeans, naturally took it to the extreme.
David Brooks (not that one)
The simple answer is simple. A symphony is a complete work of art (as is a concerto). It may not be too easy for the occasional listener to detect, but the different movements hang together in a single piece of dialectic, even if the movements of a Mozart or Haydn symphony sometimes seem interchangeable.
That said: there are some symphonies (and concertos) where one movement is so simply fabulous, and stands alone, that it seems bizarre not to applaud (first half of Mahler’s 8th for example, and several piano concertos I can think of). Then there are cases there the composer has deliberately engineered a sublime transition or contrast, where spontaneous applause is common but utterly ruins the dramatic effect. The space between the third and fourth movements of Tchaikovsky’s 6th symphony may be the most celebrated.
Personally, I rarely interrupt a multi-movement work, but I am sometimes perplexed at that restriction I have placed on myself: at times it seems like an unnatural restraint of emotion.
Then there are false endings: Haydn created some on purpose and the audience often amuses itself by applauding at what turns out to be the middle of a movement. And there are gestures like in Tchaikovsky’s 5th, which sound exactly like a typical Tchaikovsky ending unless your ear is good enough that you can hear it’s in the wrong key and can’t possibly be the end.
It’s a minefield, I tell you.
donr
For the love of God, don’t you dare applaud at the end of the first act of Wagner’s Parsifal, either. Of course, the act is two hours long, without interruption, so afterwards you might well be rushing out anyway to attend to the body’s needs.
Zeke
@burnspbesq: Come on dude, that one’s too easy. But then, I suppose you are about to pithily tell me that you don’t care, right?
burnspbesq
@Zeke:
So, what is it?
Zeke
@burnspbesq: I was trying to be coy about it in the second sentence of my post. It’s So What.
russell
cleek and especially MikeB nail the “standard” question.
And in contrast to classical music, in jazz it’s both polite and expected that the audience applaud after solos.
Regarding Cage, he definitely had more than a little prankster in him, but he was also dead serious, and about as far from a con man as you can get.
For one thing, con men get money.
Regarding 4’33”, the highfalutin’ crap about how it was supposed to be about making the audience aware of the sounds that happened to be occurring around them anyway is, amazingly, exactly right.
Cackalacka
jl and Jewish Steel plus infinity.
Performance music is sacred, as is the interaction between the musicians and the audience.
Adding pretentious rules dictating which pauses are acceptable for audience response and which pauses are not adds a layer of protocol and self-consciousness; demeaning the experience and driving a wedge between the composition and potential newcomers who may or may not be familiar with the composition or the protocol.
But sure, maybe the protocol needs to be observed for added effect. Maybe trained musicians can’t get a slow train to start in-between movements and would prefer NOT to be showered with positive feedback.
But then again, maybe other symphonies are doing better than ours. The NC symphony currently plays before quite a few empty seats, and the ones that are filled, are filled with butts that won’t be around in another decade. Last month they had to have a benefit hosted by Branford Marsalis to fill some empty coffers.
Maybe symphonies prefer a solemn decorum to the audience embrace, but they can’t insist on it and expect to be a viable, self-sustaining art form with a vigorous and engaged audience.
Bill in OH
I didn’t read every single comment, so my apologies if this has been covered. It helps to remember that, at one time, “classical” music was pop music. People clapped and shouted and otherwise indicated their appreciation before, after and during a movement just like they do today at rock concerts. It wasn’t uncommon for a particularly well-received movement to be played over again. The whole stuffy, “high-art” thing seems to be a product of the 20th century. I’ve heard Toscanini named as a conductor who discouraged clapping, but I don’t know how true that is.
I’m of mixed emotions on the subject. On the one hand, it’s nice to be able to hear the piece without interruption or annoyance. On the other hand, dropping the pretension and protocol might make the music more appealing to a younger audience. And based on my observations of the Cleveland Orchestra over the last five seasons or so, if they don’t start appealing to a younger audience soon, professional orchestras are going to start going the way of the dodo pretty quickly.
Edit: Or, what Cackalacka said.
russell
“The whole stuffy, “high-art” thing seems to be a product of the 20th century”
I’d say 19th.
F**king romantics, with their stupid emo bloviating!
Also, on the jazz tip: Mingus would sometimes not play if people were talking, or if the bar was noisy (cash register etc).
But he was a thin-skinned SOB. The only guy ever fired from Duke Ellington’s band, and all because he went after Juan Tisol with an axe.
Brachiator
@russell:
Recently, Sonny Rollins (iconic saxophone player) has written about preferring to play in concert halls than in noisy, smoky clubs. It’s still about according jazz music a degree of respect that other forms don’t have to ask for.
I can’t easily imagine someone going to a small venue to see a classical music performance expecting the musicians to have to compete with the sound of a cash register or a waiter or waitress taking an order or clearing a table.
Yeah, Mingus was touchy. And Miles Davis famously would turn his back on the audience while playing. On the other hand, Miles, Mingus, and many other performers often had to deal with assholes who thought that jazz musicians were minstrels brought out to please their racist asses. Lena Horne and other black singers sometimes spoke of audience members who would shout out requests and other comments in the most despicably demeaning and racist terms and who would expect the singers to smile and take it.
Edited to add: Love the Standard of the Day site. Didn’t know about this before. Damn, the Internets is cool!
mattt
Hey John C. If you are just getting into classical, check out this Youtube channel:
Music Animation Machine.
I don’t have much book learnin’ on music either, but these graphical treatments add another dimension and I really enjoy it.
Just to pass on a fun story: about ten years ago (I was somewhere past 30 at the time) I took my wife to the symphony for date night. We’ve always enjoyed classical but don’t claim to “understand” it. Anyway, the piece after intermission was Beethoven’s 7th, which I don’t think I’d ever heard complete before.
I had been to enough concerts by then to know the “rules” but I got so into it I couldn’t help but clap after the 2nd and 3rd movements. At some point I started tapping my feet…during the last movement I was stomping pretty hard and would have been clapping along if my wife wasn’t holding one of my arms, absolutely mortified by my conduct.
When it was over I jumped up to applaud and felt a hand on my shoulder……turned around and this very tiny, very old lady, carefully put together and tastefully dressed, bent down from the row behind and hugged me tight. We were both laughing and exchanged some words about how wonderful it was. She said it made her so glad to see someone really enjoying the music.
So, of course it’s good to be polite and not interfere with others’ enjoyment. But don’t worry about lettin’ it flow, if you’re really feelin’ it…..you won’t be the only one.
mattt +6
mattt
@mattt: Oh, btw – the first video I’d watch on that channel linked above is
Beethoven’s 5th
Kered (formerly Derek)
“If the piece moves you to applaud, you should applaud.”
I like that.