Coughing is a fact of life. Everyone coughs. Sometimes you cough and it’s so sudden you can’t help making a noise. Sometimes you cough and the world coughs with you – it catches on. But there is one thing that I can’t stand, which can be avoided: there exist multitudes of incessant crap-heads who engage in serial coughing at concerts when everyone else is quiet.
If you know you’ve got a cough, you can prepare and counter for it. And – here’s the apparently difficult part – you should counter for it. It goes beyond politeness and courtesy. To serial cough unnecessarily loudly is depriving people of the ability to listen to the concert and of reducing their ability to concentrate and absorb themselves into the music, as well as making it difficult for the orchestra.
It’s simple: As soon as you’re about to cough, cover or close your mouth. Before the concert starts, they should put the obvious and patronising but nevertheless necessary notice, “Please serial-cough quietly” alongside “Please switch off your mobile phone.” And they could also add “…or we’ll shut you up on your behalf.”
If I yelled every five minutes in a live orchestral concert, I’d get thrown out. And rightly so. So why aren’t the serial coughers?
1 comment:
I agree, if I was Ill and had a cough, personally I would not go to a live concert, and if I need to clear my throat while attending a concert I can do it so quietly it makes hardly any noise. It is just rudeness, ignorance that prevails from the idiot minority, I also think that coughing is more prevalent during concerts that are recorded! I wonder why?
cough--B*s*a*d*-cough
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