Is there a difference between tsuke one may applaud and tsuke better left alone?

The tsuke is the sound made by striking a board laid on the floor on the audience's right (the kamite side) with wooden clappers. The player is the tsuke-uchi — a duty of the scenery crew in Tokyo and of the kyōgen-kata in Kansai, so that the same sound has been handed down along two different lines. The first thing to know is that the tsuke is not a signal to applaud. It is sound that gives an outline to an actor's movement, and it sounds for a purpose quite separate from applause.

Within that, the tsuke is struck in different ways, and the difference is your guide. The battari that locks a mie is two strong decisive beats at the summit of a scene. The actor freezes; an instant opens in which time appears to stop. The applause and ōmukō calls that come here were built into the play's breathing from the start — one could say the moment is completed by them.

The bata-bata under a run, by contrast, is a rapid roll that lends impetus to motion. It is sound in mid-movement, and the scene is still going. Applause here treads on the line that follows or on the next turn of events. The same instrument, entirely different offices. If in doubt, hold to one thing: when the sound locks and the actor stills, applaud. It will almost never mislead you.