Did they really do that?

Subject: Did they really do that?
From: SussexCarole
Date: 07 Aug 11 - 04:09 AM

Yesterday we were performing at an outside venue, Andrew playing concertina and both of us singing. We both watched as a woman with her programme in hand approached us from the crowd and while I was mid song she asked me where she could find the storytelling venue!!!

We both managed to stop simultaneously - I spoke to the woman and then we we recovered the song exactly where we left off much to the amusement of the crowd. It was at that point the woman realised what she had done and scuttled away rather embarrassed and apologising profusely.

It's happened to us before (the previous time I was on stage and playing whistle) and I'm sure it will happen again. How does everyone else deal with this situation?

Subject: RE: Did they really do that?
From: Will Fly
Date: 07 Aug 11 - 04:11 AM

I've often been approached while playing, either solo or in a band, by someone with a question.

I smile and ignore them. They usually get the message and either wait, ask someone else or go away.

Subject: RE: Did they really do that?
From: SussexCarole
Date: 07 Aug 11 - 04:31 AM

I forgot to add that the person who tried to ask questions of us while we were on stage- me playing whistle and Andrew singing, was a guy from the next band due to play. He was loudly asking when we were going to finish - we totally ignored him!

Subject: RE: Did they really do that?
From: Waddon Pete
Date: 07 Aug 11 - 07:37 AM

It is interesting isn't it. Some people seems to have no awareness of the world around them! At a recent outside event in our local town centre I was fascinated by three distinct types of passer-by.

There were those who tried to pretend there was nothing happening and carried on with whatever purposeful activity they were bent on, those who had children with them who would have loved to stop and take it all in, but had parents or carers who were intent on not letting them and those who took it all in and thoroughly enjoyed it!

If you are playing the accordion on a street corner and some-one comes up for a chat or wants to apologise for tripping over your accordion case, then you can engage them in converstaion....not so easy if you are singing!

I was very impressed with a couple of buskers at a shopping mall the other day. They had PA and were giving it their all, but when some-one threw a contribution into their hat said, "Thank you", without breaking a beat and melded it into the song.

Best wishes,

Peter

Subject: RE: Did they really do that?
From: Leadfingers
Date: 07 Aug 11 - 08:21 AM

It IS amazing the way some people will start talking to someone singing !
Carole - That pillock from the other band was totally out of order !!

Subject: RE: Did they really do that?
From: Crowhugger
Date: 07 Aug 11 - 07:10 PM

Yes it IS truly amazing! But apparently everyone wasn't taught to respect music to the same extent as speech, or they feel they're entitled to an exception. The woman mentioned in the OP would have interrupted conversation I'm sure!

As kids we weren't even allowed to interrupt recorded music--it was considered just as rude to interrupt someone's listening enjoyment as to interrupt a live performance or a person speaking.

But yes, there really ARE people who don't know that butting into a song is just another rude interruption, or they don't care. In fact, I had to teach my mother-in-law this etiquette. To this day she very likely believes that I'm the one with bad manners for (a) not answering her question, and (b) turning slightly more toward others in the room when she did it a second time. Fortunately no one else took up her attempt at conversation, they just shifted in their seats and looked uncomfortable. She backed off when my father-in-law finally shot her a look. Both times, when I finished, I addressed her warmly with something like, "You were asking something?"

Subject: RE: Did they really do that?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 07 Aug 11 - 08:17 PM

You couldn't tell her without breaking rhythm that it was down by the greenwood sidey or over the hills and far away?

Subject: RE: Did they really do that?
From: Gurney
Date: 08 Aug 11 - 05:37 PM

I once had a busker say "Thank you" for my contribution. Through his didgeridoo!

Someone tell me what you say to a loved one who starts a conversation with you in the middle of a song that you're concentrating on practising?
I'd be justified in grumping if I made a living, even part of a living, by singing, but I only do it for my own amusement.
Bite my tongue?

As Derek Brimstone once said, "It's no wonder I'm not famous!"
-About himself, I hasten to add!

Subject: RE: Did they really do that?
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 09 Aug 11 - 01:02 AM

Valerie & I used to have a useful marital word of the sort households all create by a kind of internal folk process for interruptions of this sort, whether practising, working on computer, concentrating on a bit of reading, or whatever. She would always say "I'm not very speakable to" when busy; whence I created the acronym

INVEST

which we both honoured without question as a signal which said "I do not propose to engage you in conversation at this moment, kindly return later".

Never failed, nor caused the slightest marital discord. I commend it to Gurney to try.

~Michael~

Subject: RE: Did they really do that?
From: The Sandman
Date: 09 Aug 11 - 07:54 AM

I remember doing a ceilidh in suffolk sometime about 1984, and my partner and I were playing a slow air with concertina and clarinet, this woman walked up to Sue[while she was playing clarinet] and said would you like a sausage roll dear.
I replied as Sue was obviously unable to, thankyou for the offer but we are both vegetarians.

Subject: RE: Did they really do that?
From: Maryrrf
Date: 09 Aug 11 - 10:30 AM

It has happened to me, numerous times, and I've actually had people get up on the stage. Usually it's to request a song. I try to get through it as gracefully as possible but for the life of me I can't imagine what they are thinking....

Subject: RE: Did they really do that?
From: Musket
Date: 09 Aug 11 - 11:38 AM

I was thinking of a few examples I have had, but on reflection, most were heckling which is a different thing entirely...

I used to be interrupted when practicing in an earlier life, but to be fair, wedded bliss now includes not being interrupted.

During a singaround, you can end up competing with other conversations in the room and it isn't unknown for someone to drag me into their conversation when I am in full flight. Mind you, I am thinking of one particular old bugger....

Subject: RE: Did they really do that?
From: Crowhugger
Date: 09 Aug 11 - 06:33 PM

"Sweety I need to finish this. Can I catch up on your day [when I'm done/in half an hour]?" works well for me. Or, "Sorry, this is taking all my energy right now." Sometimes he comes back too soon or simply forgets because I'm working at my laptop right beside where he's getting something to eat; then something like, "I really do need to get this done first" will work and often result in an apology from him. If I'm feeling especially vulnerable to distraction myself, I'll move to another room and after letting him know when I'll be back to talk.

When I can't say something that long without messing up what I'm doing, which is typically when engrossed in writing or editing or something fundamentally creative, my shorthand is a quick headshake and the words "train of thought" which he fully respects as well. When I know by his voice there is something major on his mind, I'll always take a break at a good spot (sooner rather than later) instead of finishing all my practising/writing/etc. and return to my stuff afterwards. Barring something truly urgent (an immediate call of nature just when he sees the pizza guy coming up the walk, for example), he generally doesn't interrupt when I'm singing or playing. If he ever wondered about my expectations in that regard, the occurrence with his mother all those years ago probably clarified things. :-)

Let me add that I don't interrupt his task-concentration needlessly either--whether it's preparing for a volunteer-board meeting or reading the paper, or even watching baseball. My default choice is to wait till he's done (or for a commercial when it's TV), and I'll use an apologetic tone or words if I feel I must interrupt.

Subject: RE: Did they really do that?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 10 Aug 11 - 04:40 AM

I was singing solo from sheet music at a rally on the steps of the state capitol, and a woman in front of me grabbed my sheet music and started waving it as a fan. Good thing I knew the song pretty well.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: Did they really do that?
From: GUEST,Girl Friday sans cookie
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 09:49 AM

I think I was approached by the same woman. Was it in Blackmore
Gardens ? I was sitting having a coffee .

Subject: RE: Did they really do that?
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 10:52 AM

Keep in mind that the public includes everybody. That's not just people like you and me, but people who are mentally handicapped, who have gone through windshields, who have been beaten, who are walking around with brain tumors...

Sometimes they just can't process everything that's going on at once. Like that 'He's standing out in public, but he's also doing something private (singing) and I have to leave him alone.'

There's a woman in my church who went through a windshield. She seems perfectly normal, but it's amazing the things she can't remember sometimes. The pianist has a niece who has a brain tumor. (They couldn't get it all.) How will this effect her thinking over the years? We don't know, so give her a break.

Subject: RE: Did they really do that?
From: Crowhugger
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 10:54 AM

Yes, good thing you did, Joe.

I can't figure out what is going on in the heads of people who do stuff like that. Not that anything would be different if I did understand them. Are they sociopathic, with no sense of empathy whatsoever, or simply very self-centred and therefore do unusually rude things? Which question leads me to another: Where is the line between extremely self-centred and mildly sociopathic?

Subject: RE: Did they really do that?
From: Waddon Pete
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 11:55 AM

...I think the word is oblivious.....

Joe, that experience has to take the biscuit!

Best wishes,

Peter

Subject: RE: Did they really do that?
From: GUEST,999
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 12:44 PM

I think gentleness wins out in lots of ways. People, all of us, do strange things. When we do, we like to be treated as human (even though we may be a bit nuts).

I saw a world-famous comedian deal with a heckler. The heckler obviously didn't have all his dogs barking. The comedian destroyed him. I have never listened to or watched that comedian again.

Subject: RE: Did they really do that?
From: Lady Policeman
Date: 11 Aug 11 - 01:11 PM

A friend of mine is a concertina player and said that as a Folk Club organiser she often gets people asking her questions when she is in the middle of playing a tune that she really needs to concentrate on, so I made her a T shirt saying

"Please don't talk to me, my brain is busy!".

Now she only gets interrupted by people asking her where she got her T shirt! Hey ho!