Will it Ever Be Safe Again? Coughing at Concerts

Have you realized that we always have people coughing at concerts?

I don't think I've been to a single concert where people did not cough hysterically in-between the movements....!

Due to the Covid-19 virus, we are now living in a time that the "coughing sound" is more alarming than ever in the history.

While I was watching some YouTube videos of symphony concerts from the past, I realized how alarming I felt when people coughed in between the movements, and this led me to wonder why we cough so much at concerts.

Even in my personal experience, I had times that I joined the coughing dominos when attending concerts while I was perfectly healthy and fine outside of the concert hall.

So I decided to a little research on what makes people want to cough in classical music concerts. I thought maybe some psychological reasons such as a high pressure to stay quiet, or some physiological reasons such as the specific humidity control of concert halls might be the reasons.

However, I found very interesting answers from a behavioral economics paper by Andreas Wagener.

Here's the link to his research paper: http://www.culturaleconomics.org/awp/AWP-05-2012.pdf

This post is based on his research paper, and here are some reasons why people get urges to cough at classical music concerts!

1. Older audience.

It is an undeniable truth that we have high rate of older audience members in classical music performances. Older audiences tend to have weaker respiratory conditions which lead them to more likely cough. Also, they tend to have weaker cardiac conditions, and some of the medicines for cardiac conditions entail side effects of dry respiratory system which lead to coughing! So that's reason number one.

But we still love you!!! :)

2. ear and Scarcity of the future opportunity to cough or clear the throat.

Since we all know that once the music starts, we can't make any noise, the subconscious helps us to take advantage of any opportunity we can. So out of fear and scarcity mindset, we get urges to cough and clear our throats whenever music stops- in between movements. However, according to medical experts, coughing is actually controllable bodily reaction. So there is no need to freak out about being in a situation where you HAVE TO cough while music is playing. You can have it under control!

3. Participation to the music making experience

The desire to participate in music making experience is an intrinsic human nature.

If you think about primitive societies, where there was music, it was always communal- religious rituals, social ceremonies, or laboring songs, etc.

Music making experience is meant to involve everyone's participation regardless of their musical inclination. And perhaps that's why when we feel the groove of a good music, we can't help but sing along or dance along with it.

However, the concert etiquette which is developed after the 19th century, drew a clear line between the subject and the object of music making. The performers make sound, the audience stay quiet and appreciate.

Now, coughing is the only acceptable form of participation for the audience in this music making experience because people are generally understanding of the bodily need to cough.

4. Expression of dispreference

In the same sense, coughing is an expression of audience's dispreference of what they are hearing.

In the middle of performances, audience cannot yell or get up and leave when they don't like what they are hearing. The only behavior they can do to disrupt the flow of the performance without being blamed by everyone around them for doing so.

There is an interesting research in sociology by Pennebaker which recorded how many times people cough while watching different parts of movies. The research shows that people tend to cough more during the parts they found boring or difficult to comprehend. And the same phenomenon is observed in classical music. People cough more frequently during slow movements or contemporary music which is hard to comprehend! So in a way, we can assume that coughing is a way to express audience's dispreference or discomfort of the music.

However, if you are a performer, you shouldn't take it so personally if your performance got coughed at. Other researches show that if a person coughs before other people form their opinions about the performance, people are likely to just join the coughing domino without thinking. It's because we have a subconscious desire to comply with the leader's opinion within a group, and somehow, our subconscious interpret the first person's cough as the leading opinion. So realistically, coughing does not really say anything about the performance quality.

5.Expression of social identity

Wagener says that people express their social identity by coughing at concerts.

The concert etiquette is fundamentally an externality of the 19th century Bourgeois culture. So if I am a person who identify myself as a part of this culture, I'm going to do my best to hold down the coughs until the end of the performance, but if I'm someone who despise this culture, but present at the concert only because my mom made me to be, then it's more likely that I will get an urge to cough hysterically in the middle of slow and quiet movement- because this is a clear way to express how I feel about and fit in this social structure.

But the point is,

It's almost impossible to have a concert without someone coughing.

Now, imagine in the first concert you attend after Covid era, and in between 1st and 2nd movements, there's coughing domino in the hall..... how would you feel?

The first concert you attend after Covid era would be probably the scariest and most risky concert you will ever attend.

Well, hopefully, scientists will find good solutions for the cure and prevention of the corona virus, so that we can enjoy the live performances happily and safely again soon.

Thank you for spending time with me, and I will see you in the next post!