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?

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Figure 22.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

(5. C. Results. II)

MUSICIANS SESSIONS: (2) EXTRAMUSICAL ELEMENTS

In order to establish a better comparison, I kept the same extramusical ideas tested during the sessions with non-expert listeners, although I added two more proposals, taking advantage of having longer sessions. Summing up, Saariaho's Nocturne (5) was listened to with no lights, for the beginning of Prokofiev's Concerto (7) I asked the audience to keep their eyes closed, in the fragment in D Major of Bach's Chaconne (8) I showed the picture of the Parthenon during a sunset once more, and Bartok's Rhapsody (9) was preceded by (his) folk recordings. I also introduced the sound of the bells of a Cathedral just before the second time of Bach's Chaconne beginning (6), to see how it could improve the focus or mindset of the audience. For the second execution of Tchaikovsky's Concerto beginning (11) I wanted to test another sense. My first idea was to stimulate the sense of smell with a flower. However, its smell disappeared quite soon after acquiring it, so in practice, it was more an element of imagination and evoking rather than a pure 'smell stimulus'. Because of that, I changed my plan for the second and third rounds. I took a couple of incredibly smooth stones to stimulate the sense of touch before the performance. I will display the two results separately.

LEAST CONVINCING. Right this last ingredient, the stone, was the least valorated at all (2.8 out of 5). On the other hand, the flower obtained a 4 out of 5, though the sample of the first group was too small to consider the result. The global average of the extramusical component in Tchaikovsky (11) was 3.1 out of 5 (still the lowest one). Despite this limited success, the performance engaged quite well, 8 out of 10, although other 'manipulations' took part. Parthenon's picture for Bach's Chaconne (8) was not highly effective either, like with non-musicians. The valoration of the extramusical element separately scored 3.25, whereas the engagement of the piece was 7.1 (out of 10).

IN THE AVERAGE. The sound 'winks' stay in the middle positions: Bartok's recordings listened before his Rhapsody (9) scored 3.5 (almost like with non-musicians), and the bells in Bach's Chaconne (6) 3.65. The rating of the executions was also quite average: 7.6 and 8 respectively.

MOST CONVINCING. At the top of the ranking are the proposals related to restrictions in the visual aspect, with very similar ratings. Saariaho's (5) version with no lights scores a maybe little low 7.65, but a good 4 out of 5 analyzing only the extramusical element, and almost the same for Prokofiev's beginning (7) with closed eyes, 7.6 and 4.1. In this case, closing their eyes did not seem to harm the audience unlike with the non-expertise public.

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