Thread: Live recordings. Cough and applause. Can you stand them?

Originally Posted by AbsolutelyBaching

I don't know what the poetry means. Benjamin Britten didn't understand what Yeats meant, and he quoted him incessantly!

So I'll share a personal story instead.

Slightly elderly sister, in March, pre-Lock Down, goes to her monthly evening Women's Institute meeting. I tell her not to go, because I don't want her catching anything. She goes regardless, and finds (thank heavens) that the WI have cancelled the meeting pre-emptively. I tick her off for going anyway: her husband is 88 and is ripe for being killed off by her stupidly wanting to share a raspeberry jam-filled victoria sandwich with a bunch of relatively old people.

She sends me a text saying it's all a Chinese hoax, that it was a biological weapon research project that went wrong. I point out that it's either a hoax or a biological weapon, but it can't be both. In silence, she ignores the logic issue. I then send her various scientific articles from Ars Technica, quoting Nature articles and the like, in which they demonstrate by DNA analysis that this wasn't a man-made virus and that it probably originates from bats. She replies, and I quote, 'Unlike you, I don't get my information from the BBC. I have a wide circle of friends and acquaintances from whom I choose to get my information'.

Well, she's an English teacher, so full marks to her for the correct use of the accusative case, but not one of her friends is a biologist, a medical scientist, an ENT specialist, a DNA specialist, a virologist or, indeed, and to cut things short, anyone who could competently advise her on the science of the situation. I haven't spoken to her since, because I simply won't put up with that sort of medieval, Dunning-Kruger type nonsense.

Frankly, the median age of the classical music listener is such as to make most of us here more likely to die of this thing than the average. Thus: I take it seriously. Others are, of course, free not to: but don't share misinformation about it. And don't repeat the misinformation spread by others when replying to them, please.

I am frankly astonished at the lack of care for others that has already been evinced by some of the posts in this thread. Funny stories about throat sweet wrappers are one thing; claims that it's all just a bit of the 'flu and we don't mind the odd geriatric dying early... well, it's just stupid and callous. I don't care what your politics are (and if your a left-pondian, I especially don't care). But this venue is not the place for it. You kill who you want to. This poster is not for killing.

Short version: I will report anyone who posts anything about Covid-19 that is based on opinion, rather than scientific, peer-approved fact. And if it keeps up, and the mods won't react, I will do to TC as I have done to my sister and take my conversations elsewhere.

It was the first time I’d come across the view that it’s better to let people die than to cancel concerts. Or rather, to let the vulnerable die in order to allow the people who are feel less vulnerable to COVID “feel alive again.” I am sure this opinion is not uncommon, but it was the first time I’d come across it stated so proudly and clearly. The words which came into my mind were that the worst are full of passionate intensity. We may be saved by a vaccine, things look promising on that front. If not I fear that we will see some dark times ahead.

Originally Posted by AbsolutelyBaching

A call for the CDC to be regarded as 'corrupt', plus unscientific nonsense about vaccines based on zero actual scientific knowledge is a health issue, and I'll report anyone that spouts such stuff here. Keep your non-scientific opinions to yourself (along with your virus load) and we'll be A-OK. Share it, and I'll report it.



And that comment is right on the cusp. First, it's not just geriatrics dying of Covid-19.

Secondly, you quip about your own grandparents dying gasping for breath if you like. But don't do it here. Have the barest minimum of decency and humanity, for heaven's sake.

Stick to coughing and throat sweet stories please. This is not the place to be spreading misinformation about a very serious health problem for millions of people.

You're going to "report it"? Where have I heard that before? And your dictatorial tone is part of that too. Ah, the modern Left. Such nice, caring people. As long as you agree with them you'll be OK.

Originally Posted by Christabel

You're going to "report it"? Where have I heard that before? And your dictatorial tone is part of that too. Ah, the modern Left. Such nice, caring people. As long as you agree with them you'll be OK.

There is a reporting function for this site, which I intend to make use of should selfish, silly people with more concern for program selling in the interval than for the well-being of their grandparents post disinformation (as opposed to opinion, which is fine).

I'm actually not particularly left-wing. I have Margaret Thatcher's autograph, for starters.

Just don't post non-fact and expect people to not notice. Your air-head comment about it's just geriatrics was the icing on a *****-cake. Just stop it, in the name of human decency.

Originally Posted by SanAntone

You're right. Which is why I get my facts from the vaccine package inserts (not CNN or the NYT) and then Google the adverse reactions and find studies reporting on them. But I can't talk about this without the threat of being "reported" and probably banned if I keep up.

So I'm done.

You didn't get your assertion that the CDC was corrupt from a vaccine package insert, so don't compound things by telling untruths.

All medicines have contraindications. Every single one of them, including aspirin which can make you bleed to death.

You want to post peer-reviewed cautions about a specific vaccine? Be my guest. You want to make light of a pandemic that has killed a quarter of a million of your fellow citizens? Also be my guest, actually: I can't mandate you have a social conscience, and if you don't, that's a matter for you, not me.

But you make statements that the CDC is corrupt? No. Just no. Assinine political trolling, devoid of accredited facts or science.

So I'm glad you're done, and if you are, so am I.

It's a classical music venue, not a GOP chapter meeting. Stick to music.

I don't mind coughing during a live performance, and which I'm attending (pre-pandemic of course), but coughing kills recordings. Any noise from an audience kills the recording because it essentially becomes part of the performance—the same damned cough, at the same time, every time a listen. Might as well just go ahead and write the cough into the sheet music.

Originally Posted by Skakner

What's your opinion?
Is coughing and/or applause, deal breaker for an otherwise excellent live recording?
For me, absolutely. I just can't tolerate both.
I don't own many live recordings just for these two reasons. The moment I detect either of them, the recording will go on the shelve for ever. I will never listen to it again. Thankfully, there are too many choices for good recordings.
In the Concert halls there is no alternative but in my private listening, when I am in my favorite composer's musical universe, there is no need to suffer the "noise pollution"...

Glenn Gould's humming is something different...

Noises like that are a nonstarter with me. Same with humming.

I'm annoyed because a lot of coughing could be suppressed if the audience member cared. I have a chronic cough condition and I never know when it will come on. But I can hold it until pauses in the program.

Even worse than coughing is rattling paper of any kind, that is totally preventable. Don't keep opening and closing your program and don't unwrap cellophane-sealed lozenges during a concert. Just don't.

But you know what? I think about one quarter of any audience doesn't really want to be there and doesn't care about being fastidious. How do I know? In other threads here half the people have no one close to them who is really into classical music, yet almost everyone goes to concerts in pairs or groups.