This research aims at describing concepts and methods for creating connections through musical performance. I can now show more specifically how building a performance based on interpersonal communication is challenging and rewarding, and explain what is needed for it. It requires a lot of improvisation and adaptation, and you might never end up with a finished specific product. Just like in conversation, you have to feel the room and the moment, you cannot just follow a script. So much is based on the other sides' reactions that the ability to make plans is very limited. You should make stacks of plans and be able to pull them out of your sleeve, while accepting you might still have to invent new ones on the go – it's like being eloquent and fluent in a language, it's a profession of performance. And because it is indeed still a performance and not (only) conversation, being convincing is even harder – while as a performer you might be perceived as more worthy of trust, that is accompanied with higher expectations and judgement. The goals of making things feel planned and under control, with constant continuation, are making the experience more comfortable, convincing, and to lower social awkwardness. So, flow must be maintained. But perhaps there are many other ways to keep the flow going. For example, in the Pianohuis performance I was playing practically continuously and that seemed to work well; but at the combined experiment before that I stopped between each segment, talked and explained. It might have been less performative, but I could argue that the flow was still being kept, through maintaining an atmosphere, an emotional direction – which could be slow and apprehensive even, but nonetheless ongiong. What other ways could there be, other types of flow? The length of the performance is also a main factor in considering the wanted atmosphere, and the structure should be not too tiring mentally for the participants.
Recently, I have had the opportunity to work in a singers' class group lesson, as a piano accompanist. I have noticed many similarities between their musical exercises and my goals, in a way that inspired me a lot and which can connect my research with other existing practices. The singers worked on how to convince, the comments were always about how it made the audience feel and the technical details were meant to serve mostly that. They worked on continuity, opening themselves up and being vulnerable. They worked on using the space and movement in order to forget about technical musical thinking and focus on intent and natural communication. These are all elements that I highly appreciate and are tightly related to my research. The main difference between their work and my approach are that they were mostly using these methods as practice, to improve certain technical qualities, but with the goal of removing them in real concert environment – so without actually using much non-verbal cues such as body movement and gestures, without actually making eye-contact with audience members, etc. In effect, they are not trying to activate the audience as much as in my experiments – while they are definitely doing more work to reach connection than most instrumentalists, they are still keeping the classical approach of a certain distance between performer and audience, and they are not quite trying to make the move of switching from public communication towards interpersonal communication. Still, there is a lot to be learned from that kind of work, and I wish all instrumentalists would get some similar guidance and experience – because even though we do not use text or a specific character in our music, we usually do have very similar emotional intentions and stories that we wish to convey, and this approach could be greatly helpful.
Considering my initial sub-questions, regarding equality, openness, in-audience bonding, and real-life impact - these can be treated as guidelines for developing a performance meant for intimacy, connection, and reflection. They rely on my findings from experiments I conducted using information regarding interpersonal communication. They demonstrate how vulnerability and openness are reciprocated and lead to trust, but also how these should be built gradually and correspond with certain existing social formal expectations and structures. Transitioning from "presentation"-style performance (public communication) to a conversation-like event (interpersonal communication) requires more equality between performer and audience. Diminishing this distance can be done physically by being closer to each other, breaking the separation of the stage, but also by allowing the listeners to become participants, even asking them to do so. Thus they share the role of performers and there is an exchange – of formal "positions" and also a more substantial multidirectional exchange of ideas between all participants and performers. This creates dialogue, actual interpersonal communication, be it verbal or other. It can also create suspicion or fear - unexpected demands and responsibility in an newly imposed role can be intimidating in varying levels, and should be mitigated by gradual exposure, equal and shared emotional journey, accepting atmosphere, and clarifying expectations, if possible. Eye contact, which I was the most curious about, was relatively difficult to isolate as a factor. As expected, it is hard to separate it most of the time from other communicational cues such as body language, intonation, facial expression, and more. While its effect as a tool for increasing entitativity – by mirroring, mutual gaze, or shared experience – is not clear yet from these experiments, it is clear it has an immense power in grabbing audience members' attention. It also signifies clearly the personal relationship that is being established, it allows for deep emotions to be revealed, and it relays that every communicational cue of either side is taken into account and not lost even within the performative environment (an environment which could be expected to focus on less cues from audience members).
A performance is a kind of liminal space. The performer presents themselves, but one can never be sure who the real person is or how much of them is in the visible persona, and what the relation between the two is. When audience members get a new role, they become a kind of character themselves – they have a chance to take upon them elements of performance, to try out different elements of themselves. When they have an opportunity to share – especially sharing personal stories, thoughts, and be themselves – they can choose which version of themselves they want to be at that moment. And that automatically brings self-reflection and, while that was not part of my initial goals, intrapersonal communication. I regard this as a very "happy accident". In order to connect with others you have to be connected with yourself. Real connection can only come through authenticity; it is something that people can intuitively feel. So the relationship of the musical performance and real-life comes through – participants looking inwards to their real-life selves, sharing their reality (subjective and persona-affected as it may be), and through listening to each other, seeing each other, they get the ability and the opportunity to connect. A special connection that is of course enhanced and established - by the music. The "forgotten" music that was almost invisible but here all along. We shifted away from the music because we were busy thinking, looking in and out, also listening – but to each other, to communication cues and many kinds of language elements that we do not always pay attention to. Music that is attuned to its surroundings can become part of the environment and enhance it, take it in different directions and guide the people in it.
Preparation – having clear intentions and setting up according to them significant.
How to prepare – What atmosphere do I want? How do I establish this atmosphere? What am I willing to disclose? Who will I be? What will I ask of my companions to disclose?
Prepare – to change course, or even abandon ship and hop aboard a new one entirely.
Each person around me carries rows of waves, and I cannot control them but I can do my best to keep a current moving smoothly without crashing.
Meaning – when you request something of audience members, it works better when it is connected to meaning – for example, to analyzing the music or to sharing something real. Audiences are intelligent. If you ask for something too "technical" and unexplained, they might question it, suspect the underlying intentions, or refuse to follow.
Flow – is a central theme. Just like music, it's a game of tension and release – a whole performance like a whole piece of music. The consonances and dissonances here are not from the harmonies in the music, but from the breathing, living harmony of the group. To follow in Christopher Small's steps, "music is not a thing at all, but an activity, something that people do. The apparent thing 'music' is a figment, an abstraction, whose reality vanishes as soon as we examine it at all closely".54
Music as environment – it's a bed for many things to grow out of. It can be a place for deep thoughts, or for quieting intrusive thoughts; it can be a background space to speak on top of without being too loud, it can bring comfort. We do not have to focus on the music, we can even distract from it, we can let people forget about it; it is merely a tool to create a unique, special, different environment.
Personas and confessions – I am intrigued by exploring playing deeper on the tensions between these two concepts. The last experiment showed how we can all use personas as a way to shed some of our masks off. Unexpectedly, I found a subjective (artistic) environment, not an objective one, that can work to remove judgement – by the power of the performative space. I did say that the performer is being judged more, but as a performer, a facilitator of the event – not as a person. An intimate performance space can be used by everyone to choose who they want to be at that moment, to wear other masks or take them off, to explore different identities and roles. It is a safe space. At the same time, it takes you out of your comfort zone, it is intimidating, you testing yourself – it is different than the known. The unknown is scary but tempting, and performers should make an effort to manage this tension. That delicate and special environment of exploration, that also brings a certain equality where each person's individual baggage is influencing but less limiting – is the main tool that enables deep interpersonal and intrapersonal connection.
Numbers – because of the unpredictable nature of a performance that relies heavily on audiences' actions and reactions (it is the same level of trust as in co-performers, but without rehearsals), it is hard to accurately replicate these kind of experiments. But it would be interesting to try similar events with different amounts of participants, to see what changes and what stays the same, what other limitations appear or what other tools are discovered.
How big could this get?
How small?
In bigger groups, there could be a bigger challenge to control, to be and feel close, to follow, to keep it interesting – participants who have never met before need to be able to relate to one another, to at least identify each other, in order to open up.
In smaller groups, there could also be a challenge to open up – because it might feel too close, too revealing too quickly. I am curious about one-on-one sessions inspired by this material. My concept is already in the direction of person-centered improvisation, and I am excited by the possibilities for deep connection that can be created in this kind of intense communication. I wonder how a session like that can be structured.
Discovery – I was looking to create a sensation of discovery for my audiences – so they can share a bonding new experience together. I have successfully done that, and I have also managed to discover new things about myself. I have discovered that music helps me speak. Not only expressing through music in the usual way of playing and sharing my ideas via notes – I can speak with my audience members alongside playing for them, and it creates a kind of positive feedback loop: Playing gives me a confident persona that enjoys speaking to an audience, speaking opens me up to receive more messages and cues from other participants, social information contributes to my artistic expression – inspiring me to keep playing and enjoy what I am playing, and so on. I am sure that if more performing musicians try to incorporate some of these ideas in their practices, they would discover enlightening things about themselves.