(5. C. Results. I)
NON-MUSICIANS SESSIONS: (2) EXTRAMUSICAL ELEMENTS
To 'spice up' the session even more, from the fourth piece onwards I added extramusical elements, meaning extramusical anything that was beyond the music or the piece, including actions and audible or musical resources that were not the pieces themselves, intending to manipulate or affect the emotional state of the public. For the first calm part in D Major of Bach's Chaconne (4), I showed the picture of the Parthenon during a sunset, for Saariaho's Nocturne (5) I switched off the lights, for the beginning of Prokofiev's Concerto (6) I asked to listen with closed eyes, and for Bartok's First Rhapsody (7) I gave details about the context of the piece and played back real Bartok's recordings of the traditional Hungarian and Romanian melodies. I asked to qualify the help of this extramusical element to be more engaged with the music from 1 to 5 (1 the least helpful and 5 the most) and I received interesting feedback.
THE PICTURE. Surprisingly, the picture was the extramusical element with the lowest rating at all (3.1 out of 5), as well the piece it accompanied had the lowest satisfaction or engagement level (Bach (4) got a poor 6.35). I already knew it was the first attempt in which I tried to manipulate with an even more subjective element: a photo that evoked an atmosphere in me, and which did not work so well with my listeners. But I also may point out that it was the interpretation with the highest rating of difficulty using a specific philosophical approach, which coincided with being the first piece in which the listeners could choose between the three mental perspectives. What I may deduct is that the fact of being at the same time the first fragment with an extramusical element and with this permission could have caused a worse engagement of the piece, apart from not the most convincing execution.
VISUAL IDEAS. Right at the next piece, the tables were turned. The beginning of Saariaho's Nocturne (5) was rated with an 8.4 in terms of satisfaction and the extramusical element, which was switching off the lights, scored a 4.5 out of 5. Another idea to reduce/modify the importance of the visual element was carried out at the beginning of Prokofiev's concerto (6), in this case, a request my audience to close their eyes. Nevertheless, the results showed it was not so convincing: a satisfaction or engagement of 6.6 and a valuation of 3.6 out of 5 of the extramusical item.
CONTEXT and RECORDING. The results show that the performance of Bartok's Rhapsody (7) emphasized by a brief explanation of the context and real traditional recordings had a better reaction from the audience: 7.3 and 3.7 (out of 5) engagement and extramusical help respectively. For this last excerpt, the public had the chance to imagine or create their path or story, which means, to forget about Kivy's, Levinson's, and Davies' ways of thinking and to have complete mental freedom while listening. The rating of following this non-specific mental approach was 3.6, so the freedom (as often as we are not used to it) was not so easy to manage.
The last question for this last piece was if each listener could define their path or story while listening to the interpretation. Some responses talked about dancing (possibly influenced by the prior or subsequent performance about dancing and improvisation), while others chose a mindset closer to life (way of living, joy of life, a journey, a previous experience). The most appealing answer was "earth", which is an approach that I definitely agree with for this piece but sometimes do not know how to express.