Watch this video, created by NAfME. #musiced #musiceducation #education

July 31, 2013

Several years ago –  before the Americans with Disabilities Act – I volunteered for a non-profit organization called “ArtReach" which arranged for free or significantly discounted tickets to artistic events and concerts for groups – often individuals with disabilities – who were unable to afford the performances.   As a volunteer, I would show up in advance, pick up the tickets, assist with the group’s access to the venue, find the bathrooms, find and lead the group to their seats, and help in any way I could.

I remember leading a group of young adults to their seats once at a concert for chamber music.  Before the program began, we engaged in general chit chat, and I asked if they had ever attended a concert of classical music.  No, they hadn’t.   “Well,” I said, “let me explain when to applaud.”

I think they were a little surprised.  When to applaud?  Who wouldn’t know when to applaud?  But applause is a funny thing. 

At a classical music concert, the audience applauds at the end of the entire piece – NOT at the finish of the individual movements that make up the sonata or concerto or symphony.  At a play, the audience generally applauds at the end of a scene or act – but during a musical, the audience applauds at the end of a song within a scene.  At an opera, the audience applauds when emotion dictates – and at jazz concerts, listeners applaud after individual solos as well as at the close of the song.

Back to the ArtReach tale: I opened my program and showed the group how the pieces to be performed were made up of individual movements. I explained how the audience would clap only after entire piece and not after each movement. Then the concert began.  

The first piece was a Shubert string quartet.  When the first of four movements concluded, the audience sat quietly as the quartet readied to begin the second movement.  No one clapped.  Members of the group I was assisting looked at me and smiled.  None of them had started to applaud at the conclusion of the first movement.  They waited until the entire piece was over.

“Thank you,” they said later.  They said that they would have assumed that they were to applaud when the music stopped – and they would have wondered why no one else was joining in to clap with them.  With this new knowledge of classical music etiquette, they felt like they “fit in” at the concert.

So why this account about applause?  It’s just a simple reminder that people want to fit in.  They want to feel like they belong.  They don’t want to be embarrassed or feel self-conscious.  Sometimes all it takes is a little explanation.