The three pillars
Musical performance has to do with music, performer, and audience. A common notion about the relationship between these is that the performers communicate with the audience through the medium of music. But of course, even while the music is regarded as the crux of the event, the communication is not limited to this medium. As humans, we interpret practically every single stimulus made by another person as communicating something to us – be it body movement, clothing, posture… and a concert scenario is no different. People receive communicative information even from the choice of venue, lighting design, programs, and more. Any interaction between human beings is vastly complex and uses countless subtle mediums and communication cues, whether the interaction is in-person, digital, written, etc. – there is a whole language (including but very much not limited to verbal language) being "spoken" and received at any given moment. When the orchestra walks on stage, when the singer shouts "good evening Amsterdam!", when the pianist lifts their hands – they send vital cues about themselves that design the experience for the audience.
In their book, Communicating (Routledge, 2016), Roy Berko et al. (which I will refer to as "Berko" from now on) discuss the specific characteristics and mechanisms in action in every kind of human communication – intrapersonal, interpersonal, and public. These encompass the whole range of our communication abilities: communicating with ourselves – thought processing, personal decision-making, reflecting; communicating between two or more persons up to small group discussions – establishing a communicative relationship; and speaking in front of a large audience. While it does not specifically regard "performance", I wish to use these principles to investigate in a new way what happens in musical performances. For example, Berko's first comment about public speaking is that "the listenable speech" – one that is easily understood – should follow some rules of coherence and efficiency. The listenable speech should use a language that fits the intellectual level of the listeners, follow a clear logical trajectory, and be backed up in a way that will help the audience accept the points being made.26 If we think about classical music, we know that rhetoric is a key ingredient for any composer, especially during the common practice period – from baroque to romanticism (roughly 1650-1900). And they knew their audiences – they were usually writing for aristocrats and high-society people, who were musically trained and could appreciate their compositions just as well as a written speech, or a theater play. Even religious music had to have been satisfying to both the audiences but also to the people funding them. But when played nowadays, not to the originally intended audiences but to people who have a significantly different experience with musical listening – the immediate availability of it, the immense amount of coexisting genres and tastes, and commonly very different musical training if any – I don't believe musicians can trust the structure and features of the music itself to pass the same amount of information, no matter how thoughtfully crafted the pieces are.
What do musicians actually want to communicate in a concert they give? Most would claim this is chiefly an aesthetic experience, entertainment, for the audience to enjoy the music. Some would go further to say they wish to relay the emotions the music evokes in them to the audience, for them to feel and to be excited or moved by the music; perhaps even to inspire and change them. In my opinion, most of these goals are relatively small and shallow. If someone already gathers a group of people to listen to them, in these days where having people's real attention while sharing a space with them for the sake of art is not that common – I believe they should use it to communicate in a more concrete and thoughtful way. Modern musical performances are, in a way, broken, in my view. I am not saying they do not work at all, but they are built something like a presentation or a speech while using a language that does not and cannot fully communicate with their audience. To adopt Berko's approach, it is in a language that the audience mostly does not share with them. Classical music was written with a specific target audience in mind, and what might seem clear to an experienced musician does not match the knowledge of their audience these days. Thus, information is not transferred efficiently and coherently.
There are ways to mitigate this gap, of course. Some use educational tools – explanations about the music or its historical context and background. Others may try to enhance the experience and the intended interpretation using other mediums – such as video art, visual effects, dance, etc. Nonetheless, for me these attempts are not enough because they leave the music in its own space and time instead of really bringing it into our contemporary context, and finding ways of making it matter to our audience members. Basically, performers often create a gross imbalance in the triangle of musical performance towards the music at the expense of the audience. I find that a musical performance has many similarities to a persuasive speech, one which Berko calls a "speech of conviction", where the speaker is intending to influence the opinion or behavior of an audience, or encourage them to believe (or feel) as the speaker does. And in that case, the performer ("speaker") "must analyze the audience and develop arguments that will appeal to that particular group".27 Some try to appeal to audiences by programming more famous pieces or ones that are easy to listen to, but these reflect a lacking and underdeveloped vision.
This communicative gap, or anachronistic language complication, is not the same for pop music concerts. The key difference is that the content in pop concerts is necessarily contemporary. When the content and the audience are from the same era (and culture), it is of course easier to understand and interpret, to relate to. In addition, it helps that it is usually already "popular" or known, and that the music has lyrics. While classical music pieces can also be popular, and they might have lyrics (probably in a different language then that of the audience) – they lack the immediate connection to the current affairs and experiences of people. Whether the genre is dance-like or nostalgic, for example, a pop song's intention is usually very straightforward and easily relatable, from the simple direct words to the musical conventions used. So the communication is clear and specific – for conventional use. That is because there are also many limitations – of musical style, of topics, of time, of listening mediums and the industry in general – so this format is also not usually ideal for conveying artistically provoking, vulnerable, challenging ideas. While pop artists usually invest more effort in communicating with their audience – talking during the performance, using visual effects, dancing – and while this kind of performance definitely creates some feeling of connection among the audience because of the shared experience, there is not a lot of space for a bigger message apart from joint entertainment. In specific cases there could be a point about social unity and shared values, because a sense of unity could be created easily in this kind of performance, but it is again relatively shallow since audiences coming to a specific show of a specific genre or artist are usually already not the most diverse in that sense. Of course, there are more musical genres, from indie and hyper-pop to progressive rock and many within contemporary classical music. I would argue each genre had a great impact and message when it emerged, but the mere fact of it becoming a genre with specific conventions inevitably restricts its options for conveying novel messages – it becomes bound to an idiom, just like other genres. Flexibility of idiom is crucial for open live dialogue, and this will be discussed later in the chapter.
A different issue that is more visible in a pop concert is the tipping of the triangular scales towards the performer's side – putting more weight on the performer, their identity, compared to the specific musical content or on the relationship with the audience and their experience. Concert goers wish not only to hear their favorite tunes, but also to engage with the "idol", this character that they have very specific expectations from regarding their behavior. Philip Auslander notes in his paper, "Musical Personae", how pop singers have to have a musical persona that is different than their "real" self – they have to be able to open their hearts and reach high emotional intensities over and over again in each song in a way that would be impossible for most people. And each has their own unique traits and conventions that they use within the conventions of the encompassing genre.28 That is their performer-persona, and that is what they sell, what they communicate and deliver to the audience, not as a secondary thing to the musical content, but an integral part of it and sometimes even much more important than the music itself. After going to a classical concert, someone might talk about hearing a beautiful rendition of a symphony, or a moving nocturne – but after a pop concert people will likely speak about how captivating was the show as a whole and how it was to see the artist live, their behavior on stage – and less commonly about how excited they were to hear a specific song or an interesting interpretation of it.
The idol phenomenon occurs sometimes in classical music, too. Contemporary examples might include Yuja Wang, who has created and earned for herself a status very similar to a pop artist within the classical music world; or maestro Gustavo Dudamel, who's electrifying persona captivated millions. And of course during the romantic era, the status of the soloist was incredibly high. Paganini, Chopin, Liszt – they all had fans coming to see and hear them for who they "were", to get a taste of their magical persona – of which the virtuosic capabilities were only one constituent.29
"Maybe twenty percent of the people come truly for music",
"If we imagine 400 people sitting in a hall looking at us and listening to us, we’re totally naive if we imagine that the looking bit has got nothing to do with it",
"The very fact that people are there to listen to us means it’s not just our music, but the way we carry ourselves physically, and the way we carry ourselves in terms of what we wear, and the way we carry ourselves in terms of how we treat others is very, very important",
"It’s an act—it’s a performance—we’re actors, and we’re on stage and it’s a drama",
"I mean, many people go to a concert just to see the star, and to see how he manages tonight!",
"That’s part of the art of performance, or charisma, is having presence onstage that instils confidence in the audience, and thereby allows them to relax into the experience, and receive what it is that you’re offering",
--- These are quotes by contemporary well-known concert pianists, taken from Olivia Urbaniak and Helen F. Mitchell's paper, "performance as theater", talking about how they think about their performances.30 These examples show how significant communicational cues are in the minds of professional performers, and how much credit they give these for their success based on their vast experience. Their attitude suggests a major part of their performance as classical pianists is the showmanship and the artistic performative persona they create for themselves on stage. This matches well with Philip Auslander's theory regarding musical personae, and corresponds to many principles described by Berko regarding persuasion in public communication – such as increasing the speaker's credibility by demonstrating experience (could relate to showing virtuosity and confidence in playing), charisma (body language while walking in, hands and body movement while playing), and character (listing previous performances in famous venues on the program notes).31
However, the analogy to public communication attests that there is a clear imbalance between the parties – one side delivers the information and the other mostly receives. Of course, there are ways that audiences react and performers receive and perhaps even manage to respond, but that is quite rare, especially in classical music events. A simple example can be the decision whether to play an encore or not, based on audience's reaction and level of excitement (in either classical or pop music events), or even asking the audience and letting them choose what should be played as an encore. But, in most cases, music performances are carefully and meticulously planned in every aspect, without much room for change.
It is obvious that in a situation where there are one or few performers on a stage, with lights pointing at them, and all other people are positioned to view and hear them the best, and acoustics built to project in a specific direction, while the audience are dozens or even hundreds or thousands, crowded, in dimmer lighting – the process of "give and take" is not balanced. And if I wish to create performances that are based on better communication, this imbalance needs to be mitigated. In order to shift the "genre" of communication from "public" more towards "interpersonal" (in Berko's terms), I need to better consider the various aspects of this communication style.
Giving and receiving
Throughout history there have been many attempts to map the process of communication, but a perfect consensus portrayal of it has not been completely reached. That because it turns out that human communication is vastly complex and contains much more detail than either simple linear stimulus-and-response process (each side has only one specific role at any given time), for example, and it entails a large amount of types of cues that we give consciously and unconsciously (things we do, like facial expressions, body movements, touch, speech, vocal cues; or things we are or that we have – like appearance, aesthetic choices, smell, etc.).32 The "transactional model of communication" suggests a process of simultaneous messaging:
"Communicator A encodes a message and sends it. Communicator B then encodes feedback and sends it to A, who decodes it. But these steps are not mutually exclusive; encoding and decoding may occur simultaneously. Speakers may send a verbal message and at the same time receive and decode a nonverbal feedback message from listeners. Because messages can be sent and received at the same time, this model is multidirectional and the message overlaps."
This model acknowledges that messages can be sent and received at the same time, overlapping each other, making the process multidirectional and in a way that all communicators assume the roles of encoders and decoders in the transaction.33
I believe a first step to correcting the imbalance is reducing the number of people we expect in the audience, in combination with adjustments to the setting. An "intimate" performance where everyone can see and hear each other in relatively the same level, also considering the distance - everyone being close to each other enough for conversation tones - can create a more equal environment that allows this multidirectional messaging process. Even while there is a "performer" identity and an "audience" identity, the ability to sense all the regular cues that we have during every-day interpersonal communication can bring new interactions into the performance environment.
Assuming it is still relatively trickier to incorporate vocal cues and verbal language specifically in a musical performance because sound is the dominant medium, a different arrangement of the environment - perhaps more friendly and similar to a salon concert - can give space to exchanging more non-verbal cues even while the music is being played. Liszt had already started paving this path, though he was coming from the other direction. As he practically invented the concept of a solo recital, his concert-environment changed from house-concerts to bigger venues with larger audiences, and he decided that situating the piano in a right angle to the audience was the best way to achieve both connection with the audience so they could still see his face quite clearly, and also project the sound better using the open lid.
Taking this idea with interpersonal communication in mind, it would be better to position the pianist in front of the audience, even at the cost of closing the lid, for full visual connection can be made through facial expressions and gaze. Seating the audience might actually work better in a way more similar to a salon concert – in a circle, so there are no lines or rows and, again, there is full and equal access as much as possible between everyone. One disadvantage is that the pianist's body is thus obscured, and that will be discussed later in the experiments.
Another, more challenging, step is to bring back some more agency to the audience and opening up the space, mentally and socially, for live interaction with the audiences and for them to be able to give live feedback to which the performers could respond – creating a functioning circle of communication. This interaction and feedback can, but does not have to, include words or verbal reactions; it can be done in many different ways and with varying levels of the audience's actually taking part in the performance. Some of these will be discussed more and shown in following experiments.
One consequence of this live-interaction is a change in the nature of the performance – it will become less planned. A public speech, a regular classical concert, a show that does not break the "fourth-wall" – they can be planned throughout with all the tiniest details, and most time it could be kept almost unchanged. But interactions with other people who are not part of the planning can always be unexpected, and the performance must be fluid and suitable for adjustments. Musically (or artistically), we would say the performance has to have some improvisatory aspects.
The other side of this "unknown outcome" aspect is that an opportunity opens for change. If we want a performance to be more than entertainment, more than a presentation with a specific and limited message, then the "unexpected" factor is a way to introduce real vulnerability and personal material from both performer and audience sides. In other words, treating a musical performance with a social lens more than an aesthetic one – which can correspond in some ways to interpersonal compared to public communication – should help create an environment that enables greater and deeper impact on participants.
However, improvised music and improvised performance are not necessarily linked together. In his book "Improvisation – its nature and practice in music", Derek Bailey presents and describes approaches to improvisation from experts in different genres, such as traditional Indian music, Flamenco, European Baroque, and more. It was interesting for me to find out that, even in this genres that we might think have more freedom and possibility to attune to the moment with all that it has, the environment, the space, the audience - there was practically nothing said about these aspects. Most of the comments were about how to be true to the genre while following the rules, or how to learn how to play in these styles when the style itself is based on improvisation – where improvisation is the basic method, compared to how separate it is in classical music nowadays.
"[Improvisation] it secures the total involvement of the performer… it provides the possibility for the player to completely identify with the music"
"His main concern was for the authenticity of his music"
"Do not be afraid of being wrong; just be afraid of being uninteresting" (T. Carl Whitmer, "The Art of Improvisation", 1934)
"I consider what I play at home as being quite unique against what I do on stage. I think when the audience is there there's a demand for it to be good, and when you're at home, because there's no demand, it's so laid back that I think you can come up with some of your best music…when there is no call" (Steve Howe)
"Undeniably, the audience for improvisation… has a power that no other audience has. It can affect the creation of that which is being witnessed. And perhaps because of that possibility the audience for improvisation has a degree of intimacy with the music that is not achieved in any other situation." (Bailey)34
Free
A concept that can be more suitable for dynamic and interactive performances is "free improvisation". But what is it? Free improvisation is very hard to define, and even Bailey has struggled with it. People often associate it with experimental or avant-garde agendas, but that is not necessarily the case. In fact, improvisation is the oldest and in a way most basic form of music making. It is music that is not committed to any style or idiom, without any requirements except being spontaneous – it is characterized by being diverse and could only be limited by the person or playing it. Bailey does suggest there is a consensus that free improvisation is the way to go in order to escape the rigidity and formalism of a musician's musical background, "wishing for a direct, unadulterated involvement in music".35 Because of its free nature, lack of boundaries or adherence to a specific style or set of guidelines, Bailey has also proposed calling it "non-idiomatic music".
Michael T. Bullock, while accepting this term, claims it is potentially vague because no music can be completely idiom-less. He suggests "self-idiomatic music", instead, which I find very interesting.36 Bullock explains that self-idiomatic improvisers often redeploy traditional instruments, techniques or forms and put them in new contexts, and these can become a kind of vocabulary for a specific musician. This vocabulary will often be very flexible and constantly evolving, but with some core attributes and preferences. As this vocabulary, or personal language, replaces traditional repertoire – the exploration of the practitioner's vocabulary becomes the source for the musical structures, and the two become mutually sustaining.