So it seems they do it on purpose. Coughing in concerts. Report on latest research is here.
But here are a few points that appear not to have been taken into consideration.
1. Pre-emptive coughing. You cough when you can, in the breaks between movements, because you can. And because you know you that in another moment won't be able to and if you're afraid you might need to then you get it out of the way first, just in case.
2. Nervous coughing. There's nothing like being unable to do something to make you feel a terrible urge to do it. This can manifest itself quite physically, in the form of a truly ghastly scratch at the back of the throat that makes your eyes water and your hands sweat and you feel you can't breathe, and you really do have to cough. Believe me, I've experienced this - about ten years ago I had a phase of a few months in which it happened to me every time I went into the RFH. It started, and later stopped, for no particular reason.
3. No drinks in very dry concert halls coughing. I'm not thinking of beer. I'm thinking of nice, fresh, cough-cooling WATER. The air inside concert halls can become very, very dry, which sets off coughing because your throat dries out. The concretey Barbican is a case in point, but it can happen anywhere. Daring members of an audience will often smuggle in a small bottle of spring water in case of coughing. But I'm sure plenty others don't dare, because we're not supposed to take drinks into a classical concert. Nuff and stonsense. Water should be mandatory.
4. I'm not too happy about the idea that we cough because we're bored. But the fact remains that people cough less if they're really focused on what is going on. The more exciting a performance is, the less coughing there tends to be.
5. Why do people cough more in the quiet bits? I'm not convinced they do. It's just that in the loud bits, you can't hear them!
7 comments:
1. It goes against instinct, but if I feel the urge to pre-emptively cough, I do it *during the loud bits*, because I know when it gets quiet or when the movement ends I won't want to.
4. Call it boredom, call it nervousness, call it discomfort (see Adams quote below) – I think this is by far the biggest factor. And like you say, you hear much less coughing when the audience is really engaged.
5. I disagree. See your point 1. For many people, it seems the break between movements, or the quieter moment within a movement amounts to much the same thing. Also (point 4) it's very likely that people find the loud bits more engaging.
Whatever the latest research, I still think John Adams nails it, especially on the psychology of it all. http://www.earbox.com/posts/28
«I myself think that much of the barking and hacking one hears at a concert is an unconscious expression of profound psychological discomfort, a discomfort brought on by feeling caught in a confined space with a large number of people all sharing emotions of extreme delicacy. The music expresses an intimacy that is simply too much for some audience members to tolerate in a public setting. They very likely are not even aware of their unease, but they reach out desperately for an emergency valve, an escape hatch from the confines of their deep feelings of internal discord.»
I think it's much less a psychological problem, and much more a physical one. In a modern concert setting, we are expected to be as quiet as possible, and in doing so suppress the tens of normal physical adjustments in our body position, and more pertinently the many small throat clears and swallows that we would unconsciously carry out. Try just for five minutes to note every time you clear your throat and swallow - it's quite a lot!
This active suppression eventually leads us to 'explode' due to a build up of irritating stimuli at the back of our throats and in our pipes ... ok, I mean saliva and mucus!
This happens all the more in quiet passages because we suppress even harder!
There is some coughing that seems to me to suggest "look at me, I'm here", or exhibitionist. Also, these days the ventilation in many venues has not kept up with the changes in personal habits. The smoking has gone, mercifully, but has been more than replaced by high intensity made to carry distances fragrance products. An increasing number of people are reacting to these as their strength and extent of use increases.
It used to happen to me very occasionally up in the gallery at Covent Garden in the 70s because it could get very hot in winter. I always managed to stifle the cough by simply holding my breath but almost burst a blood vessel in the process.
There was someone in the front row of the stalls in 1966 who hacked his way through Act I of "Siegfried". After the interval Solti threw him a coughsweet, which the man dropped and then hacked through Act II. Solti was so upset that he said he couldn't go on so Enid Blech, his secretary, offered the man her box seat and was applauded when she took his place for Act III.
Well, interesting, but has anyone mentioned the sometimes one hundred plus people on the platform, who despite often having coughs, colds etc. RARLEY cough. How do we manage it? Cough sweets, that's how. Unwrapped and ready to go! Go to the Konzerthaus in Vienna and all around the entrances to the auditorium are bowls of FREE cough sweets. Frankly, if you have a cough you can't control by one means or another, you shouldn't be there. I would agree about the water, but unfortunately it wouldn't stop there. Soon there would be people bringing in booze as well then leaving litter and spilling stuff. Some people suggest that because we are concentrating on playing and using a lot of intellectual effort we are less prone to cough, that may be true, but surely that should be true of the audience at any concert worth its salt too?
South Bank used to offer free cough sweets in waxed paper (so no rustling while opening), but the makers sold the formula. Barbican don't offer anything. I was unaware of the 'no water' rule; I always take in some liquid with me, just in case. Coughing during quiet passages is INTENSELY irritating, & can be like a physical assault. I was taught at school that One Did Not Cough: if you were really unable to control it, you left the room.
Adams' comment (thank you, Yvonne) is most interesting: it may well be true, but that's still no excuse!
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