Klarinet Archive - Posting 000772.txt from 1999/11

From: LeliaLoban@-----.com
Subj: [kl] Applause as appropriate
Date: Sat, 20 Nov 1999 01:25:24 -0500

Mark Charette wrote,
>[A]re there any orchestras that still encourage the applause between
movements or after a particularly good solo? [snip] The audience would have
to be encouraged to participate, but with the strategic positioning of a few
shills to break the silence (as necessary) it might make for a delightful
evening of participatory music.>

I think it would take special education, along with the encouragement, to
persuade classical audiences in the U.S.A. to participate. IMHO, people seem
more inclined to do something if they understand why they should do it.
Several years ago, my parents and I compared notes about trained and
untrained audiences responding to the same performer, Celtic harpist and
storyteller Patrick Ball, a modern travelling bard who likes audience
participation. The Mythopoeic Society (of which I'm a member, though I don't
participate as often as I'd like) hired Ball to provide professional
entertainment at Mythcon 1995, held at the University of California at
Berkeley.

Mythcon, the Society's annual convention, continues the oral tradition by
hosting Bardic Circles at night and into the wee hours, in a comfortable
lounge. Participants sit roughly in a circle, come and go as we please, eat,
drink, and take turns reciting, singing and playing instruments. That type
of program only works in groups small enough for everyone to take at least
one turn. I've never seen a Bardic Circle draw more than about fifty people
at the height of the evening. However, at the 1995 convention, those small
Bardic Circles trained the core of the audience for Ball, who, near the end
of the four-day weekend, gave a superb recital for an audience of about 200.

Although the recital took place in an auditorium with conventional seating,
the kind of hall where people usually sit still, shut up and clap only at the
end of a piece, he opened his recital by asking us to be a bardic audience.
Many in the audience hadn't been involved in the Bardic Circles, but given
the nature of the Society, I think everyone there probably understood the
tradition. When the Bardic Circle regulars unhesitatingly began to call out
responses, cheer the heroes, hiss the villains and clap hands rhythmically
along with some of the music, the rest of the audience quickly joined in.
Although Ball used microphones, a rowdy crowd could have drowned out the
quiet-voiced harp. This audience seemed to possess a collective instinct to
listen to itself and carefully measure out just the right level of background
and context for the music and stories, without competing with them. Ball
told us this was his first formal audience in the U.S.A. that had ever really
gotten into the spirit of his bardic recital. It was a magical evening. He
played on and on through many encores. He wasn't done yet, either. He
participated in the Bardic Circle following the recital that night and he
joined the Mythopoeic Society.

My parents provided the comparison. They live in San Rafael, and had
attended a Ball recital just few weeks earlier, in San Francisco. They said
he asked for audience participation there, too. He seemed to have planted
some helpers around the audience who tried to lead the way, but there weren't
enough of them to create critical mass: They didn't have enough peer group
strength to pull the rest of the crowd along. Instead of joining in, people
stared in silent disapproval at the stooges, as if they were unwashed cave
dwellers. Finally even the hired barbarians succumbed to the hostile glares
and reverted to normal "concert manners." My folks said Ball gave a great
recital anyway, but they felt awkward, pushed and pulled in two directions.
Noise bothered the audience. Silence bothered Ball. It seemed as though no
matter how people behaved, they had the uneasy feeling that they were doing
the wrong thing.

At Mythcon, the expectation of a small audience of people who knew each other
and understood bardic tradition easily overwhelmed the expectation built into
the formal physical surroundings. In the normal Symphony Hall setting, with
a large audience of tastefully-dressed Symphony Hall regulars who don't know
each other, breaking down conventional concert manners would seem far more
difficult. It can be done, though, as Virgil Fox proved with his "Heavy
Organ" tour thirty years ago.

Lelia

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Unsubscribe from Klarinet, e-mail: klarinet-unsubscribe@-----.org
Subscribe to the Digest: klarinet-digest-subscribe@-----.org
Additional commands: klarinet-help@-----.org
Other problems: klarinet-owner@-----.org