To whoop or not to whoop

[Des]

I find myself whooping at concerts but I'm not proud. It's because I can't ululate or do those ear-splitting, fingers-in-mouth whistles (although I'm working on it):

http://www.natwilson.com/stuff/whistle.html


A short, well judged whoop is acceptable during the proper applause, but what is unacceptable is the long, high-pitched, red indian-like 'whooooooooo' uttered by world music fans, often during quiet moments in an acoustic performance. Many an intense Indian raga or intricate solo kora improvisation has been nearly ruined by these stray caterwauls. I think the perpetrators are really quite bored and want to chivvy things along a bit. They don't actually enjoy the music but, just to liven things up and keep themselves awake, they let out this 'whooooooo'.

Perhaps Womad should designate a 'non-whooooooooing' stage this year?

[Gordon Neill]

I am most deinitely not a whooper. I can hardly bring myself to clap at regular intervals. It's possibly something to do with my Scots reserve. Possibly I also feel that, having handed over so much money, it's the performers who should be applauding me at regular intervals. Possibly I'm just a miserable git. Possibly all of the above are true.

But whatever the reason, I find the whoopers of this world quite irritating at pop concerts (nothing personal). Having said goodbye to my cash, I just want to hear the singers and musicians, not untrained, amateur whistlers or whoopers. Quite often, I even find myself reluctant to clap. Possibly because it's expected, a bit like a doggie that's learned to do a new trick looking expectantly for a biscuit. I usually do clap, if only to avoid any tutting or hard stares from my neighbours. But, unless the performance is truly outstanding (which, by definition, is unusual) I'd rather not bother with that either. Possibly I'm just very lazy.

[Dominic]

I don't do whooping. I don't mind other people doing it at appropriate moments, if the performer deserves it and as long as it's not right in my ear.

I don't do audience participation. Clapping along is ok, but sometimes drowns out the music I'm trying to listen to. A performer getting the audience to sing along, particularly a reluctant audience, is often embarrassing, and always interrupts the flow of the performance.

Introducing the band is a tough one. They may well deserve the applause and the chance to show off, briefly, and occasionally lets me put a name to the face. But, especially when it's done near the climax to the set, it slows things down.

In a standing venue I usually try to get near the action and move about a bit according to mood & style of music. I try not to stand chatting at the bar. In a seated venue, I might stand and sway in front of my seat, but it a long time since I had a proper dance at the Barbican or the RFH. (Fanfare Ciocarlia at the Barbican the exception to pove the rule, but I stayed near the back.)

I do applaud by clapping, sometimes loudly. I might even yell for more at the end.

But I don't "do" drum solos.

[Gordon Neill]

Oh dear God! I'd forgotten about audience participation. That is the stuff of nightmares. I'm well aware that I can't sing. Why should I be expected to prove it in public? And it's that element of being told what to do that gets my hackles raised. It's like being at school camp. I wouldn't mind so much if there was a chance of getting some money back, given that I had to chip in with a bit of singing. But that never happens.

And I get really bored with the band introductions. Why am I expected to care what their names are? Just crack on with another tune, please. It's not as though they want to know what my name is (imagine if the audience decided to introduce itself to the band).

Actually, that's not strictly true. Many years ago, my wife and I went to see some Columbian guitarist at one of the thousands of shows on as part of the Edinburgh Fringe. To our horror, it turned out that we were the audience. Just the two of us. To his credit, he sat down beside us and asked how we wanted to play it. We all agreed that it would be best if we came back on the Saturday when there was every chance of a good dozen in the audience. I liked him.

But I am prepared to shout for 'more' at the end. Assuming that they were good. Even then, though, I get a bit fed up at the stage management of the encores. Everyone knows that they will 'finish', wait for a bit of begging, and then saunter back with another two or three well-rehearsed spontaneous encores. The only one I respected when it came to encores was dear old Chuck Berry. At the end of his contractual hour, he simply stopped, midway through a song, and walked. No chance of an encore. But he packed more into that hour than anyone else I've ever seen. Arguably the best gig I've ever been to.

[Des]

The next time some artist/band asks me to 'put your hands in the air' I will thrust them deeply into my pockets. My hands that is, not the band.

[Ian A.]

Clapping along is ok, but sometimes drowns out the music I'm trying to listen to.

Clapping along is NOT OK. Any fule kno it's a Proven Fact that British audiences are genetically incapable of clapping in time. Not as badly as German audiences, but still like really, really bad. I don't understand why we as a nation are perfectly able to tap our feet in time, and quite a lot of us can dance reasonably OK (even occasionally men) but not clap our hands. I theorise that it's something to do with a delay between the brain and the arm movement that we can't compensate for, whereas with the foot it's a direct connection. How come the Spanish can do it so well?

Clapping along is the last refuge of audience who don't understand music, trying to pretend that they do. Artists who encourage it become the victims of their own lack of research.

Anyway, while on the subject, have you ever had the desire, when yet another dingbat on the stage yells out "are you feeling aaaallraaaat?" to retort "Actually no, I've had a hard day at work, my girlfriend just left me and the cat died."? Or just "No, get on with it". Rhetorical questions from the stage need to be retaliated against.

[That Was Jonathan E. Then]

Will you lot please stop reading my mind from so far away — and stop writing all the stuff I could have written first if not separated by so many time zones! It is damn near as irritating as clapping along at concerts.

You're all a bunch of miserable gits, not just Neill, and it's beyond me why we aren't all locked up together in some institution for the terminally unable to behave like conventional jackasses. Perhaps this forum is some sort of virtual lock-up for the likes of us.

I have always, ever since I was a wee bairn, preferred a well-made recording to the live music performance for just the many reasons brought up by so many of you. Besides the question of other audience members' behaviour, venues are so often uncomfortable and so often I get this horrible feeling of being herded around by the security as though I was some animal on my way to the slaughter house.

It's not that I've never been to a show I enjoyed, but by and large I always feel that the money spent is better spent on a recording that I can keep on enjoying than a fleeting experience. That was true even when I didn't need to pay for either, but now that it's my cash being laid out, I'm even more disinclined to go out except for the occasional truly exceptional outing. Tinariwen and Vieux Ali Farka at the Seattle Town Hall was the last time back last October. There was a lot of audience participation, but it was still a pretty good show. That venue is good about it really being about the music. It's not a bar or club where half the audience are more interested in getting tanked. And so we're back to the behaviour of conventional jackasses. I'm of the opinion that, just like sports fans and their obnoxious unruliness, many people are so desperate to have a "good time" and so deprived of imagination that all they can do to express themselves is act moronically — and unfortunately, the feedback loop has closed and now many musicians encourage it because they think that is what people want. Or they love applause, which is quite a strong intoxicant itself.

Now that there are so many DVDs of live musical performances, I'm expecting to go out even less! At least when you're watching a DVD, you don't have the bloody cameraman crouching in front of you as you do half the time these days at the actual live event.

[Gordon Neill]

Yes, it is irritating when a pop singer asks if I'm alright. The chances are that I'm feeling perfectly content until they spoil everything and ask me really dumb questions. And it's not as if they pay a blind bit of attention to what I say anyway. I suspect that, deep down, they don't much care whether I'm alright or not.

And, going back to The Whoop Question. There's something terribly unBritish about whooping. It's something that our American cousins do (possibly from watching too many cowboy and indian films). I can't imagine Gladstone 'whooping' at a Gilbert O'Sullivan concert, or waving a zippo lighter above his head.

On an impulse, I looked up Debrett's Etiquette & Modern Manners for some sound advice. I couldn't find anything on whooping at pop concerts. But as a general rule, Debrett's goes for handwritten thank you letters:

A handwritten thank you letter is always appreciated. As a general rule, a thank you letter should be written within a week to ten days of an event or receipt of a present......

A formal thank you letter should be handwritten and sent by post, usually first class, or delivered by hand. Traditionally addressed to the hostess, nowadays they can be addressed to either the host, hostess or couple as appropriate....

It is appropriate for parents to respond on behalf of their offspring before the child is able to write. The child should write their own, however, as soon as they can.

[Adam Blake]

Clapping along is NOT OK. Any fule kno it's a Proven Fact that British audiences are genetically incapable of clapping in time. Not as badly as German audiences, but still like really, really bad.

Couldn't agree more, but one funny little story: One time I went to see Dr John at what used to be called the Town and Country Club in Kentish Town. He had some fuc*ing cheerleader doing the whole: "Lemme hear you say Yeah, I want you to put your hands together" routine - but my disgust turned to amazement as I noticed that the audience was clapping in time. Why? Because the house was full of musicians, all looking around in amazement as they clapped in time. I joined right in, and it was almost fun.

[joel]

I never clap or whoop since I suffer from what Ian and Adam have accurately defined as the British Disease. It's a widespread genetic disorder: French and Japanese audiences are also quite useless.
However, whooping is obligatory if your audience consists of Berber ladeez dancing round their handbags.
Didn't Miles tell the story about how, during Blue Note recording sessions, Alfred Lion would tap his foot right after the beat. The musicians - who tapped on the beat - found this hugely entertaining.

[aj]

I Seem to remember a night in Birmingham where the great Eddie Palmieri spotted a posse of identically clad Salsa dancers "formation dancing" down the front (it was just when the 90's dance class craze had really kicked in).

Cue Eddie to fly off across the keyboard in a crazy, psychedelic, arrhythmical improvisation.

Looks down, clocks the dancers again and deadpans...

"Still with me"?

[That Was Jonathan E. Then]

That's a very funny story. I'd clap, but . .

[will vine]

Spontaneous eruptions of approval - tricky one this - shouldn't be, but it is (round our way at least).

I am particularly at odds with the strange, sometimes distinctly uncomfortable, etiquette of the jazz clubs where some form of approval is required at the end of each musicians solo. While this usually takes the form of a polite communal hand clapping, good solo or bad, it may also be accompanied by somebody's enthusiastic "whoop" or possibly an educated critique.......

"Lovelylovelylovely....nice one Art" or "Oh Yes !" or worse still "Yes Indeed!"

I do tend to observe this clap every solo convention, sometimes because I'm generally thrilled by the playing but more often as a way of encouraging a headier atmosphere by urging the players to greater heights, or on a bad night simply to get them off the ground.

Educated jazzer or not, there is also the tricky question of when to clap or bellow forth i.e. Has the guy reached the end of his solo ? It's not always easy to tell. You've really got to judge your "Yes indeedy !" just right or you'll look a right prat (i.e. an even bigger prat). This is especially difficult if say, the sax player and drummer are "trading fours" and you lose count of how many they've traded.

As with all gigs, I find that 5 or 6 beers helps my intuitive counting and consequently my well judged and wittily whooped critique; although stylistically my mate, Jamaican Jim, wins out every time with his delightful, perfectly placed utterances of "Sweet, Sweet, Sweet."

[Hugh Weldon]

Just a thought on the old 'introducing members of the band' routine, I do find this a tedious ritual usually. But I was reminded of Dizzy Gillespie's take on it.

"Ladies and gentlemen", he would announce, "I would now like to introduce the members of the band.", and would then proceed to introduce them - to each other...

[Adam Blake]

Anyone ever see that clip of Dizzy Gillespie and Slim Gaillard singing "Oo Bop Sh Bam" and cracking each other up? It's beautiful. I tried to find it on YouTube but I don't think it's there.