[Dixielandjazz] Audience Noise During Concerts

[Mattias Hallin]

9 jan 2008 kl. 20.15 skrev Brian Harvey:
> This apparently seeks to stamp out the practice of applauding jazz  
> solos
> because they can spoil the first notes of the following solo.
> Whilst I agree with that to a certain extent, to have no feedback  
> would
> surely be a sterilising process?

While having no feedback at all is not the greatest experience on  
earth, but something that often goes with the territory on certain  
types of gigs, i.e. receptions or similar situations where the band  
is there to provide background music while the audience is busy  
chatting away to each other. As a musician, this doen't really bother  
me, a) because I know from experience that people can enjoy my music  
wwithout necessarily giving me visible attention, and b) I get enough  
personal satisfaction from the music anyway.

In a concert situation it is of course different, that is to say that  
no reaction at all would feel rather awkward and strange. However,  
both as a listener and (particularly) as a musician, I am VERY VERY  
annoyed by the oh so frequent mechanical-round-of-applause-after-each- 
and-every-solo. It is one of the most effective means I know for  
completely destroying the possibility of creating a performance of a  
song that goes beyond just a string of unconnected solos. This is for  
two reasons: one is the noice that completely covers up a number of  
bars in the joint between two players' performance, making it  
completely useless to try and make something interesting out of that  
transition; the other, and, in my view, worse, is that applause is an  
extremely efficient way of completely releasing any tension present  
in the music. And when it is the audience that decides on when this  
is to happen, I often find that they "chicken out" far too soon; that  
they are, as it were, seeking relief far sooner than necessary and in  
the process robbing us musicians of one our most subtle and  
fascinating tools. Grrr!

All this said, I don't mind the OCCASIONAL round of applause, after a  
particularly and outstandingly good solo. In my experience, though,  
moments like that may come along once or twice or maybe a few times  
more in an entire evening. As a matter of fact, doing it this way  
requires a much more attentive listener -- to applaud after every  
solo is really a cop-out, and because it happens whether you played  
well or not, as amusician I can't really feel that its worth very  
much anyway. It does not feel like an active approval of something  
particularly good that I just did, it just feels mechanical.

So, as a general rule I would definitely say to audiences: please  
save your applause until after the song is finished, and only applaud  
a solo if it swept you away to such rapture that you just cannot help  
yourselves!

My tuppence'orth, for what its 'orth...

/Mattias

---
Mattias Hallin · Brussels · Belgium · <cmhallin at algonet.se>

"Oh bury me thar! With my battered git-tar!
A-screamin' my heart out fer yew!"