How should audiences behave?

There's a great exchange of letters in yesterday's NYT reacting to Daniel Levitin's Sunday op-ed in which he advocates much more audience freedom at classical music concerts. His final paragraph:

"Music can be a more satisfying cerebral experience if we let it move us physically. When we hear a chord we like in works by Sibelius or Mahler, our brains want to shout out “Yeah!” When an orchestra builds the timbral mass in Ravel’s “Bolero,” we want to break out of our seats and dance and show how good it feels. Stand up, sit down, shout, let it all out. As the managers of Lincoln Center contemplate renovations, I say rip out some of the seats and give us room to move."

The letters are all over the map, from an orchestra violinist who would like concert halls to be more like open floored rock venues to a Mr. Snooty Pants type who thinks it's all about how much privacy he's entitled to at the concert because of how much he paid for his tickets.

While I empathize with Mr. Levitin (whose book about music and the brain I reviewed in an earlier post) to a degree, I think he's mostly wrong on this one...

First, the irresponsible point. He completely fails to acknowledge music's dynamics and the value of hearing unamplified, purely acoustic music. In short, if anybody is talking at all, or god forbid a group of people catching up on their week, you're not going to be able to hear anything in the music besides the loudest passages. You'll be missing the whole point and you might as well be listening to Journey as Debussy.

Second, while Levitin has discovered in the lab that listening excites our motor cortex even when we don't move, there's nothing unnatural about NOT moving while listening. Indeed I feel certain that the act of holding still while one's motor cortex is firing away in concert with all the other parts of the brain that light up during good music, is part of the "dance" in the mind that makes the experience exciting.

Finally, Levitin doesn't answer the question why it's wrong to have different kinds of venues and different codes of conduct for different kinds of music and different kinds of shows. It's perfectly natural. I wouldn't want to eat Thomas Keller's cooking sitting in a booth at Chili's. (Shudder) I don't want to boogie to Beethoven. I feel perfectly comfortable moving in my seat at a formal concert enough to get the music inside me without disturbing anyone else. At a jazz concert, I'm delighted to applaud a solo along with everyone else, because the music is taking a pause at that point anyway, the performer can respond through improvisation where the composed music player can not, and it's part of the accepted norms of that kind of music. Concert halls are specialized spaces. Nobody made you go in. But once you've paid and settled down, stay settled. Let your neurons do the hokey-pokey. Just keep your hands and feet to yourself.

Comments

[Jonah Rabinowitz]

Craig,

I read the NYT article and the following day's letters to the editor with great interest.

I agree with you that the concert hall and the music that is usually played there require different conduct. I also feel comfortable in stating that the musician from Lucerne would quickly find problems with audiences that leapt from their seats or went to a bar in the back of the hall as suggested.

However, Mr. Levitin, inadvertently, makes us question all of the behaviors that are considered unseemly by "classical" music concert goers.

There are times when emotions from the audience are appropriate and often frowned upon. As an example, why is there a problem with applause in between movements of works (often misconstrued that the applause is from those with no or less knowledge of the works performed). If audiences feel the need to show their approval and excitement, great. But, this kind of behavior is not generally accepted. Yet, the obligatory standing ovation accompanies many concerts that may just not meet a level of extraordinary. What does this say about the behaviors that have become standard at concerts and why?

Behavior that disrupts other listeners is always unwelcome at all kinds of concerts. Lately, I have chosen not to go to concerts of well known bands or performers because all I get to listen to is the patrons at the concert signing the songs that I came to hear from the performers. My reasons for not attending is that their behavior is acceptable and my problems should not burden everyone else that purchased a ticket.

Mr. Levitin provides us with another jumping off point to continue discussions on the future of western European music and the state of our artistic cultural institutions and their future patrons.

As you know, there a variety of blog discussions on this subject by folks that are much more insightful than me.

Thanks,

Jonah