Received an email recently from someone who performed at a church concert where the audience was asked to not applaude between songs. They were a little upset about it and wanted to know what I thought about it.
I’ll start by saying I’ve played at a lot of churches that applaud, and a lot that don’t. I never tried to change the ways of each group, just went with the flow. I was usually a hired musician and didn’t feel it was my place to make calls like that. Each church has it’s own culture. I was raised in a Lutheran church that rarely clapped – so later in life I had to get used to hearing clapping in church.
