{"id":44,"date":"2008-07-10T18:54:43","date_gmt":"2008-07-10T18:54:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/gap\/wp\/?p=44"},"modified":"2008-07-10T18:54:43","modified_gmt":"2008-07-10T18:54:43","slug":"i_am_not_alone_sitting_in_a_co","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/gap\/2008\/07\/i_am_not_alone_sitting_in_a_co\/","title":{"rendered":"I Am (Not Alone) Sitting in a Concert Hall"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over on Flyover<\/a>, John Stoehr has written a post<\/a> that asks a question we often contemplate individually about a behavior we never seem to quite challenge collectively: In an age of avant-garde music–by his definition work designed to provoke–how polite should the audience be?<\/p>\n

This choice quote from the post got ’em riled around the office<\/a> today:<\/p>\n

During the peak of the avant-garde – during the careers of John Cage, Morton Feldman, Milton Babbitt – there was no concern about the audience. Audiences had always been there and would always be there, except when they weren’t anymore. It’s remarkable to imagine composers wondering why no one’s paying attention to them while at the same time their work’s value is measured by how much they can piss people off.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Rather a broad stroke to paint in terms of composerly motivation, I think, but it’s also a strangely popular theme this week. Over on the other side of the pond, there’s a little fistfight<\/a> going on w\/r\/t some similar audience frustrations<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I don’t think it’s extremely challenging music that hurts so much as our silent taking of its punches when they clip our jaw. It’s the middle of July, and yet we passive-aggressively hack like consumptives as our sole expression of irritation. Are concert hall audiences too repressed to riot any more? Polite is waiting till it’s over so you don’t ruin the piece for anyone else. But I would feel a cathartic release and leveling of scales no matter what I was subjected to if, when so moved, I felt at liberty to holler a bit at the end. It would be exciting. Maybe the woman next to me loved it. I would know what she thought; she would know what I thought. In an ideal world, maybe we could have drinks and debate it out afterward–and maybe she would be so excited by the music that she would pick up the check.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over on Flyover, John Stoehr has written a post that asks a question we often contemplate individually about a behavior we never seem to quite challenge collectively: In an age of avant-garde music–by his definition work designed to provoke–how polite should the audience be? This choice quote from the post got ’em riled around the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-44","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/gap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/gap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/gap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/gap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/gap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/gap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/gap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/gap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/gap\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}