Engaging the Audience: a Matter beyond Music?

Gustavo Abela Cruz

Despite knowing that music and emotions have a lot to do with each other, sometimes it is hard to articulate which relationship they have. Since the emotional impact seems to be one of the biggest appeals for an audience, do we, the musicians (specifically the performers), pay and draw enough attention to it? After reviewing the relevant literature about the processing of emotions, I came across the philosophical approaches of emotions in and through music by Peter Kivy, Jerrold Levinson, and Stephen Davies, proposals that could serve as inspirations for an audience and for performers. Then, I decided to carry out a series of experimental sessions to test the impact of these three approaches, as well as the performer's role, and components that could also affect a performance, such as set-ups, musical manipulations, or what I have called 'extramusical' items or elements. In addition to my research question “How can a performer affect or manipulate the emotional engagement of an audience?”, I sought to explore another inquiry. Is engaging more with the public nowadays strictly a musical matter?

5. C) Results

I) NON MUSICIANS SESSIONS

Discerning the demographic composition of a standard audience for a musical venue is a complicated task. Because of that, to be able to qualify the reactions of my hypothetical listeners, I thought that at least one distinction should be made between musicians and non-musicians. As I have already explained, the experimental activity carried out with a non-knowledgeable audience was done through microsessions in the city library (Bibliotheek Den Haag). Most of the participants came to another more vanguardist performance about the fusion of musical improvisation and dancing, and before or after it they joined my sessions. After explaining (verbally) how the session would be held, and after a brief description of the three philosophical approaches, I began playing fragments of the violin repertoire while the listeners filled in the mentioned questionnaire. I truly appreciated that they spent some time with me and helped me answer the questions presented in the forms.

Figure 11.

(1) PHILOSOPHICAL APPROACHES

ENGAGEMENT. One of my goals was to test which philosophical approach could be the most engaging. For that reason, for the first three pieces I played (the beginnings of Bach's Chaconne(1)¹, Sibelius' (2), and Tchaikovsky's (3) Concertos) I asked to follow the three different theories: Kivy's(music itself, beauty of music), Levinson's (imagination) and Davies' (contagious, experience) respectively in that order. The results about the level of satisfaction/engagement after hearing the piece with a particular approach were even: (up to 10) 7.7 for Kivy's beauty of music in Bach (1), 7.6 for Levinson's imagination in Sibelius (2), and a little lower 7.3 for Davies' contagion in Tchaikovsky (3)². But if we include all of Levinson's, Kivy's, and Davies' responses during the whole sessions (from the fourth to the sixth piece the listeners could choose between them) we can draw the first conclusion: Kivy's beauty of music is the one that gets a better engagement, 7.8 against 7.3 for Davies and 7.2 for Levinson.

EASE/DIFFICULTNESS. The subquestion regarding this matter was about the ease or difficulty of following the respective philosophical approach. Being 1 pretty easy, and 10 extremely difficult, the answers show that Levinson's imagination was the simplest mental path (2.8) while Davies' contagion (3.3) and Kivy's musical qualities (3.4) were a little more demanding.

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