Introduction

1.     Identify the original spark

Similarly to the historical ‘eureka’ story, sometimes, a new idea for a project comes to us in an instance of surprise, like a revelation. However, despite its spontaneous appearance, those sparkling moments are usually the tip of the iceberg: the culmination of a process of reflection and synthesis, which is undergoing in our minds even when we are not completely aware of it.

Other times, we see an idea emerging through a consciously laborious process of researching, analysing, and writing countless drafts.

Either way, it can be helpful to identify where the idea for the project came from. For example, during the development of the music as an invitation project, multiple questions emerged, competing for attention and making the path unclear. In those moments, it was helpful to go back to the origins of the ideas and set the project back to course.

2. Set a topic, theme, or a central element

After the initial spark, it can be helpful to frame that initial idea into a topic or a theme, or to set an element around which the project will be developed. This theme, topic, or central element will work as a guideline for the activities to be done during the project. It is possible, however, that those items are intentionally left to be chosen by the participants. In this case, we can say that the participation itself is the central element of the project.

3. Map the field

Now, a wise step is to do some research in order to identify what has already been done relating to the project idea. These can be practical or theoretical works. By identifying related works, it is possible to draw some inspiration, to learn from previous experiences, and to identify which new insights the new project can bring.

4. Are there objectives?

Sometimes, setting the general objectives of the project - i.e., having a clear vision of where you want your project to go - can help significantly in the step of choosing the methods to apply in the development of the project. However, other times an exploratory approach is preferred, with the decision of ‘seeing where it goes’.

Either way, it can be interesting to make it clear which path will be taken, and communicate it to the participants at the beginning of the project (including the goals, if this is the chosen approach).

Specifically in terms of choosing a participatory proposal, it is advisable that the motivations for this choice are clear in the project design, as well as what is wanted to be achieved with the audience participation. Having clear goals for the audience participation can be helpful to understand about which participatory category^[1] the project fits in, and to decide which methods and/or participatory strategies are going to be used in the development of the project.

Case study: the music as an invitation project

For some years I have been interested in exploring creative ways to share music with my audiences. During my PhD, I had started investigating different ways to set up the space of the performance, then experimented with different ideas for the performer-spectator relationship,^[2] and eventually explored new ways (within the classical piano tradition) to engage my own body as an expressive element in my piano performances.^[3]

In that journey, I became more and more interested in inviting my audience to take a more active role in the live music experience. In some of my projects I had already started to explore some kind of audience participation, for example: inviting the listener to choose which pieces they wanted to have in the programme,^[4] or proposing specific walks in moments during a performance.^[5]

I then wanted to explore in depth the topic of audience participation within a practice-based research context.

Then, suddenly, the world was hit by the Coronavirus pandemic, and social distancing was reinforced to prevent the spread of the virus.

As mentioned previously in this book, I did some online performances during the Coronavirus lockdowns. Those included a series of improvisations delivered by WhatsApp calls, some Instagram Lives, and a YouTube Premiere.

Although those were really valuable experiences, I also felt some compromise in my relationship with my listeners: although we were connected, I could not feel the ‘liveness’ of the shared music experience. Although my audience was just there, at the other side of the screen, I still felt as if we were not together.

Then, the initial spark for the music as an invitation project emerged: audience participation as a way to make us feel more connected to each other when experiencing music through the internet!

The central idea of the project would be to investigate if the audience participation would contribute to build a sense of liveness (meaning the feeling of being part, of always being connected to other people)^[6] in the experience of an online concert.

In order to ‘map the field’ of what had been done before regarding this idea, I consciously recalled my own experience as a performer and audience member in online concerts. I also looked for literature about online participatory projects. Finally, since this was a research project, I studied texts about liveness in online performances to ground my reflections about the central idea.

Although I could find abundant examples of online concerts, and of participatory music projects, for the combination of online and participatory I complemented my literature review with publications from the area of theatre, which has a longer tradition in non-conventional practices regarding the conventions of spectatorship.

In the music as an invitation project, the general objective was then to create collaborative online concerts. This objective brought the project into the ‘co-creator’ category, where the participants ‘bring their own initiatives and ideas into play and to contribute to the content of the work’.^[7]

The specific objective was then related to the research context of this project, where I aimed to examine how the participatory proposal would make an impact on the audience’s experience of the music digitally and remotely.

From the specific objective, it became clear that the collection of audience feedback was a crucial element in the methodology.

However, in the second phase of the project, there was a need to adjust the general objective in order to fit the characteristics of the group of participants. The general objective was now redirected to realise a piece of music. This piece of music was commissioned by the project to the composer Alwynne Pritchard, and included collaborative elements designed specifically for that group of participants. This redirection of the general objective brought the second phase of the project to the boundaries between ‘co-creator’ and ‘material’ categories, where, in the latter, ‘people participate to perform a set task, and the form and content of their contribution is defined in advance and controlled by the artist’.^[8]

The redirection of the general objective in the second phase of the research implicated a change of methodology as well. However, the specific objective remained the same as the project’s original proposal, including the collection of audience feedback as a key element of the research aspect of the project.

Chapter 1: First steps - the idea, motivations and goals

CONTENTS

CHAPTER 2

Conclusion

References

Acknowledgements