Audience Clapping Along

[SuperFunTastic]

Now I'm sure many people think it's a lot of fun, and some performers encourage it, I know, but I just cannot stand it when an audience starts clapping along to songs. I find it mildly irritating at concerts and even more cringeable on TV shows; in fact it was watching Hit Me Baby One More Time and Madonnamania tonight that made me write this.

When people do it at concerts, I find it spoils the songs sometimes. They sound fine without lame clapping added in. Also, some people clap out of time, and there's always the point where it's no longer appropriate to clap but the stragglers continue, thinking that that this proves that they're having more fun than everyone else or something.

It's not the actual clapping that annoys me really, I mean I don't mind if the mood suddenly takes someone and they spontaneously start clapping to the beat. It's because it seems forced and sheep-like: some people start clapping and then everyone's looking around thinking "should we join in?" and they gradually do but then it dies down a bit and just....urgh, sorry it's a pet hate!
As I freely admit that I'm pretty easily irritated, I just wondered if I was the only one that hated this custom, or if others find it similarly grating.

[beNcooKe]

totally agree.

Also those daft vile little camp brats I bump into in gay clubs who scream out those high pitched S-Club related "Oohah oohah" noises.

When I'm around people like that I suddenly get alarmingly homophobic.

[Ella]

Especialy since most audience members can't seem to clap in time.

[Mr Subways]

Sometimes it's great, but I agree, on the Hit Me Baby One More Time it was so crap, I had to switch it off.

[popfreak182]

at gigs it adds to the experience, but like superfuntastic said, on tv shows, it just contributes more to the cheese.
what about stamping your feet on the floor? they always do this at my school when bands play, the only problem being that with a vehement outburst of this at a gig, the seating thing might all fall down.
that makes it even more fun.

[LaLaLaBridgetta]

Now interrupting some sort of torch song/classic standards with "Let's make some noise LAAAAAAHNDAAAAAHN"...that's worse.

Bridgey xxx

[Josh]

I hate it too. It is just so cringeworthy.

Especially if you are in an audience and everyone else seems to be clapping. Do you embarass yourself by sitting there being the only one not joining in, or do you embarass yourself further by becoming "one of them"?

[Scruffy]

It's great at a gig, if people are in the moment and really buzzed. I've done it myself. It is exetremely irriatating on tv shows though, I noticed it on MadonnaMania especially it completed ruined an already really bad show.

[sophiefrombloke]

The bingo-wing flapping and fat-pikey-man hand slapping was enough to make me turn off Girls Aloud's Wake Me Up performance on Ant and Dec. Actually, I've totally boycotted ITV, now that Tanya's left Footballer's Wives. On topic oncemore, when there are gorgeous people on stage, why do broadcasters insist on showing big swooping shots of the ugly audience? ITV audiences, on the whole, should get back to Harry Ramsden's. Or P&O Stena Line.

[Electrobix]

Nothing can compare to the time when Justin's video for Senorita was played on TOTP and they made the audience do the spoken bits at the end. It nearly made me cry.

[twistedvixen]

Electrobix said:

Nothing can compare to the time when Justin's video for Senorita was played on TOTP and they made the audience do the spoken bits at the end. It nearly made me cry.

Oh my. That was quite the most horrible piece of TV I've ever had the misfortune to witness.

Clapping along on tv is just so forced and false, and generally detracts from the actual performance as I, for one, just can't get past it.

[beNcooKe]

Sophie said:

The bingo-wing flapping and fat-pikey-man hand slapping was enough to make me turn off Girls Aloud's Wake Me Up performance on Ant and Dec. Actually, I've totally boycotted ITV, now that Tanya's left Footballer's Wives. On topic oncemore, when there are gorgeous people on stage, why do broadcasters insist on showing big swooping shots of the ugly audience? ITV audiences, on the whole, should get back to Harry Ramsden's. Or P&O Stena Line.

Totally agree, most of the time ITV is literally like the labotomy channel; tv for idiots (like in family guy). Theyre the sort of people who request DJ otzi and the Amarillo song, slapping their sides with one hand while either holding their pint in the other or beating their wives.

grumble grumble grrr

[Jon]

Ella said:

Especialy since most audience members can't seem to clap in time.

That's what annoys me the most. You hear 3 claps for every beat - the one just before the beat, the odd person who gets it right and the loudest of all, the slow people.

And it sounds rubbish even when it's in time. But when you're told to do it it's hard to refuse.

I can be seen on CD:UK footage clapping along like a twat to Rachel's "More More More".

[flufff]

There is a very good, physics based, reason for the clapping being out of time (beyond the people who are crap), because by the time the sound travels to the people up the back, they clap a bit late, then their slightly late clapping travels back to the front where the microphones (often) are.

My dad used to explain this to us every year when Last Night of the Proms was on and people in the seats up the top were always behind the people down the front. Thus demonstrating that it's not just common Saturday night ITV audience members that can't do it properly!

Clapping at a concert is great if it suits the song and you are feeling it. Clapping in a tv audience because a man has told you to clap, and given you a demonstration of how to clap is rubbish.

[AugustMoon]

flufff said:

There is a very good, physics based, reason for the clapping being out of time...

There is more to it, physics wise, than this sound-speed time lag aspect. The following isn't pure biology, even if it could seem like it:

"In remote areas of south-east asia, certain species of firefly flash rhythmically in unison. ...
The problem of how fireflies synchronize their flashes and how listeners synchronize their movements to the perceived beat of a musical pattern share the problem of how a nervous system measures time."
www2.psy.uq.edu.au/~brainwav/ModelRepository/Firefly/

Things have progressed in that field the last few years, but by how much is maybe difficult to say:

"Of course, no one knows how fireflies are really connect within a swarm. Indeed, only a few species manage the synchronisation trick. Watts and Strogatz had not answered all the questions about fireflies, and many remain unanswered still."
www.uboeschenstein.ch/music/Text/buchanan48.html


So a question here would be if audiences can actually "manage the synchronisation trick", or if they(we) just hope to do it.

It's been said that rock rhythms, in their simplicity and drive, are akin to Prussian march rhythms. I don't know how true this is, but my unease with both is similar. And, now when you say it, me cringing when audiences start to clap along is maybe related too. Because it's bad when it fails, but it's almost worse when it succeeds.

[AugustMoon]

flufff said:

...by the time the sound travels to the people up the back, they clap a bit late, then their slightly late clapping travels back to the front where the microphones (often) are.

I'm sorry for being fixated with the issue, but I've just learned something that has implications for this.

If the low speed of sound is as important here as flufff's father insists, then things would be different if the music was propagated with the speed of light instead. And that's exactly what's going to happen at Glastonbury this summer, where "3,000 festivalgoers are to be issued with headphones":

www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,5157780-116119,00.html


It's to keep disco noise down at night - but think how it'd be if the DJ put on some clap along song (like In the Navy). Maybe the clapping would be so synchronized people want more of it? That would be fun.

[flufff]

My dad will wish he was at Glastonbury in order to do some physics experiments. He used to make us calculated exactly how far away the lightening was too.

I used to be able to see (and hear) Big Ben from my flat, and on Remembrance Sunday you'd hear the bongs on tv before hearing them through the window.

But yes, as well as physics - you have to account for reaction times of people and some people have slower reaction times than others, while some couldn't clap in time if they had a metronome in front of them.

[Mr Subways]

Eugh I hate metronomes, they're so scary! I have to turn my back, which makes it so pointless.