Live Music Performance Research Articles

Examining Emotion Perception Agreement in Live Music Performance

Current music emotion recognition (MER) systems rely on emotion data averaged across listeners and over time to infer the emotion expressed by a musical piece, often neglecting time- and listener-dependent factors. These limitations can restrict the efficacy of MER systems and cause misjudgements. In a live music concert setting, fifteen audience members annotated perceived emotion in valence-arousal space over time using a mobile application. Analyses of inter-rater reliability yielded widely varying levels of agreement in the perceived emotions. A follow-up lab study to uncover the reasons for such variability was conducted, where twenty-one listeners annotated their perceived emotions through a recording of the original performance and offered open-ended explanations. Thematic analysis reveals many salient features and interpretations that can describe the cognitive processes. Some of the results confirm known findings of music perception and MER studies. Novel findings highlight the importance of less frequently discussed musical attributes, such as musical structure, performer expression, and stage setting, as perceived across different modalities. Musicians are found to attribute emotion change to musical harmony, structure, and performance technique more than non-musicians. We suggest that listener-informed musical features can benefit MER in addressing emotional perception variability by providing reasons for listener similarities and idiosyncrasies.

Platform-mediated live musical performance in China: New social practices and urban cultural spaces

This paper provides a non-Anglo-American geographical discussion of digitally mediated cultural activities. Taking China’s live music industry as an entry point, we seek to theoretically and empirically understand the complex roles of digital technologies that influence contemporary cultural practices. We argue that digital platforms have reshaped the production and consumption patterns of Chinese live musical performance. Focusing on the ShowStart platform as a case study, we measured the role of the platform by collecting and analysing its performance records over a two-year period and observed the rising influence of independent small labels and small-scale performance venues in China’s live music industry. Live houses, a special type of small venues that used to be niche subcultural spaces dominated by underground musicians, have become popular urban cultural consumption spaces in this platform era, expanding rapidly in large cities and expected to gradually penetrate lower-level cities. Furthermore, with the increasing commercialization of the live music market under platformization, we point out that the state’s digital surveillance of the industry is also increasing, and the state’s urban resource allocation for live music venues may be misplaced.

Personhood, QOL, and Well-being in People with Dementia undergoing Creative Arts-based Therapies: A Scoping Review

ABSTRACT Creative art-based therapies (cABT) provide a creative non-pharmacological approach in therapy to people with dementia and can potentially improve their personhood. This review identified cABT that focused on the personhood of persons with dementia living in residential facilities and determined how quality of life (QOL) or well-being were assessed. Searches were conducted on PubMed, Medline (Ovid), EMBASE, CINAHL (EBSCO), PsycINFO (OVID), and SCOPUS databases, to gather articles from 2010 to 2020. In this review, cABT encompassed art, music, and theater/drama. An overall of five studies were included and, in these studies, art programs were seen in the form of water painting, an intergenerational art program, live music performances, and medical clowns. QOL and well-being were assessed using the Greater Cincinnati Well-being Observation Tool, a QOL checklist, and transcribed from conversations to develop themes on participation and mental well-being. Personhood was promoted through self-expression and self-creativity. Increased number of participants are required for future cABT to further understand the impact the arts may have on personhood, on the QOL and well-being, and enhancing creativity for people with dementia.

What We Talk about When We Talk about Live Smooth Jazz: Sonic Suburbanization, Multipurpose Places of Assembly, and Collective Memory in Regional Cleveland

AbstractWriting about jazz often emphasizes urbanity and focuses on a geographically bounded scene. This can obscure what people do with jazz to affirm community across distances, in the context of Black suburbanization. Likewise, the construction of jazz as an art music oriented around a canonical past does not allow a full understanding of what musicians do with commercial culture to construct community in the present. In this article, I present the notion of sonic suburbanization to foreground the ways Black people exert agency through musicking, claiming suburban space and affirming community across urban and suburban lines. This is live performance that is “both/and”: Both suburban and urban; both community and commercial. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in Cleveland, this research focuses on the ways live smooth jazz performers invoke multiple musical histories while congregating heterogeneous Black identities across boundaries. To demonstrate the crossovers of live smooth jazz, I begin by outlining the idea of sonic suburbanization. I then note the proximity of Black music genres in a context of racial segregation. Despite suburbanization's role in dislocating Black geographic cohesion, live musical performance continues to affirm a crossover Black community through interposing an array of sensibilities. Finally, I point to the conceptual schemas of musicians in the scene who foreground continuity with jazz, pop, and gospel. Live smooth jazz performers take pride in rhetorical effectiveness and genre versatility as part of connecting to the audience. Although some scholars attend to smooth jazz outside “real jazz,” musicians in the scene view smooth jazz as real jazz.

Piano music by Viktoria Poleva: Experience of performing embodiment

Relevance of the study. The main characteristic identifiers of Victoria Poleva's compositional style are considered, in particular, the dominant piano component of the music worldview, which translates the main ideas and meanings in the spiritual and instrumental genres of oeuvre. The actual factors of the special study of the meaningfulness of the texture embedded in the piano within the style of "sacred minimalism" are highlighted. The main performance specifics of the works were found to be close to the correct understanding in the construction of the interpretive version. The piano work of the composer has not been scientifically studied, the lack of competent analytical works prompts the study "Music for the Piano" (author's name), which is a sought-after and popular repertoire. Scientific investigations of this matter will reveal one of the bright styles of modern music art in the field of musicology and cultural studies. For the first time in home-bred art history, the main stylistic guidelines, image-emotional, programmatic priorities were identified, and the majority of piano music material was examined and analyzed. The chosen aspect of the research is under the spotlight of modern, global, concert life.
 The main objective of the study. The purpose of the article is to reveal the artistic meanings-messages of the composer, the peculiarities of their concert performance, the role of meaningful interpretation of piano reception.
 The methodology. Empirical research method was used from the experience of numerous performances of Viktoria Poleva's works, the analytical method reveals the essence of the actual problem; the comparative method consists in comparing the interpretive versions of pianists' performance live, and by comparing them in video and audio recordings, it allows presenting modern performance trends; the source method in the form of archival notes, newspaper publications, posters, work with manuscript scores argues the basis of the outlined aspect; relying on citations during communication with the author brings the research result closer to reliability.
 Results and conclusions. It has been proven that the author's philosophical and artistic messages hit the listener's reactions-impressions through her performing skills during live music performances. The top priority role of a pianist’s training is emphasized. The importance of world performances of compositions that reflect the author's spiritual quest is explained in terms of restoring the man’s balance and harmony in response to the today’s cruel challenges. The author substantiates the means of music expressiveness in the piano presentation, which serve to achieve the goal-affect, as the main idea of focusing on powerful manifestations of aesthetic impression. Attention is focused on special, technical and artistic piano techniques that enhance sound effects, and with the help of which the main essence of the composer's ideas is expressed. Significance. The piano music of V. Poleva is gaining widespread worldwide popularity, the score music is mostly in the state of manuscripts and needs publication, the topic of piano works is relevant for future scientific research.

Frisson Waves

Frisson is the feeling and experience of physical reactions such as shivers, tingling skin, and goosebumps. Using entrainment through facilitating interpersonal transmissions of embodied sensations, we present "Frisson Waves" with the aim to enhance live music performance experiences. "Frisson Waves" is an exploratory real-time system to detect, trigger and share frisson in a wave-like pattern over audience members during music performances. The system consists of a physiological sensing wristband for detecting frisson and a thermo-haptic neckband for inducing frisson. In a controlled environment, we evaluate detection (n=19) and triggering of frisson (n=15). Based on our findings, we conducted an in-the-wild music concert with 48 audience members using our system to share frisson. This paper summarizes a framework for accessing, triggering and sharing frisson. We report our research insights, lessons learned, and limitations of "Frisson Waves".

Terrorist Attacks Against Performing Arts Venues: Global Trends and Characteristics Spanning 50 Years.

In fostering community and culture through entertainment in shared spaces, performing arts venues have also become targets of terrorism. A greater understanding of these attacks is needed to assess the risk posed to different types of venues, to inform medical disaster preparedness, to anticipate injury patterns, and to reduce preventable deaths. A search of the Global Terrorism Database (GTD) was conducted from the year 1970 through 2019. Using pre-coded variables for target/victim type and target subtype, attacks involving "business" and "entertainment/cultural/stadium/casino" were identified. Attacks targeting performing arts venues were selected using the search terms "theater," "theatre," "auditorium," "center," "hall," "house," "concert," "music," "opera," "cinema," and "movie." Manual review by two authors was performed to confirm appropriateness for inclusion of entries involving venues where the primary focus of the audience was to view a performance. Descriptive statistics were performed using R (version 3.6.1). A total of 312 terrorist attacks targeting performing arts venues were identified from January 1, 1970 through December 31, 2019. Two-hundred nine (67.0%) attacks involved cinemas or movie theaters, 80 (25.6%) involved unspecified theaters, and 23 (7.4%) specifically targeted live music performance venues. Two-hundred thirty-four (75.0%) attacks involved a bombing or explosion, 50 (16.0%) damaged a facility or infrastructure, and 17 (5.4%) included armed assault. Perpetrators used explosives in 234 (75.0%) attacks, incendiary weapons in 50 (16.0%) attacks, and firearms in 19 (6.1%) attacks. In total, attacks claimed the lives of 1,307 and wounded 4,201 persons. Though fewer in number, attacks against music venues were responsible for 29.4% of fatalities and 35.0% of those wounded, and more frequently involved the use of firearms. Among 95 attacks falling within the highest quartile for victims killed or wounded (>two killed and/or >ten wounded), 83 (87.4%) involved explosives, seven (7.4%) involved firearms, and three (3.2%) involved incendiary methods. While uncommon, terrorist attacks against performing arts venues carry the risk for mass casualties, particularly when explosives and firearms are used.

Engaging With Objects and Feelings: The Making of Live Music Space in Shanghai’s Livehouses

Livehouse is a small venue for live music performance, a term commonly used in the Asian context. This article adopts an insider’s perspective to look at the connections between livehouse and its audiences. Instead of treating spaces and objects as silent textures of live music experiences, we regard livehouse as an active site filled with ideas and feelings. The meaning of livehouse is made by audiences through both human and non-human agents and extends to the broader social and cultural context of Shanghai. By highlighting the power of things and networking in between, this article combines the affordance theory to illustrate the experiential dimensions and interpretive processes of livehouse audiences in Shanghai. Drawing on ethnographic data from 26 in-depth interviews and participant observation, we conclude the social, cultural, and emotional affordances of livehouses perceived through tangible and intangible objects and settings.

온라인 스트리밍 뮤지컬 공연의 서비스품질 요인 IPA 분석

This study is an analysis of audience’s importance and satisfaction on the service quality factors of streamed online musical performance. Service quality factors of online performance are defined as content characteristics, video quality, information and reliability in outcome quality; usability, convenience and technology in physical environment quality; interaction and responsiveness in interaction quality; and price in quality for the price. Importance-Performance Analysis(IPA) is used to identify perception on the service quality factors. In the result, first, most online performance viewers have watched live musical performances offline and watch more and spend more on offline musical performances. Second, the analysis on the difference between importance and satisfaction of service quality factors showed that the importance is greater than satisfaction in technology the most and the interaction was the only quality factor with higher satisfaction over the importance. Third, in the IPA matrix result, content characteristics, video quality, reliability, usability and convenience were included in the ‘Keep the good work’, technology and price were in the ‘Concentrate here’, information, interaction and responsiveness were in the ‘Low priority’. The result suggests that online performance viewers recognize price for quality, physical environment quality and outcome quality as core service quality, while interaction quality as supplementary quality. The findings of this study could provide basic data for setting the direction of development and strategic management of online performances.

A place outside the pandemic? An ethnographic study of live music events at St Gallen's cultural venue Palace during the COVID-19 crisis

AbstractThe multiple impacts of COVID-19 on the music-culture industry have been duly discussed in a variety of public discourses, academic and otherwise. However, there is still a dearth of studies that investigate alternative face-to-face practices of live music performance and organisation during the pandemic's significant constraints on social behaviour. The present work aims to fill this gap by offering an anthropological angle on live music practices during COVID-19. It specifically draws on fieldwork that I could carry out in the autumn of 2020 at a live music venue – ‘Palace’ in the Swiss city of St Gallen – owing to a ‘liberal’ handling of the COVID-19 crisis by the St Gallen authorities. This article documents accordingly the challenges and adjustments that Palace had to undergo during pandemic times from the perspectives of producers, musicians and audiences alike. The primary focus here is on exploring changes in the venue's management, programming, audience composition and especially the musical-aesthetic experience of the venue's pandemic-compliant gigs. Finally, the article draws on the musings of my interlocutors as to whether Palace was in their experience a place outside the pandemic, to tackle the larger question of how COVID-19 has affected people's perceptions of live gigs and urban nightlife more generally.

Accidents, Obstacles and Opportunities

In this paper I discuss two issues: the nature of live music performance and the shape of live music careers. In both cases my concern is with how musicians make choices. My argument is that such choices are not made freely but should be understood, rather, as a response to constraints and opportunities. In the first part of the essay I suggest that the interest and pleasure of a live concert lies not just in what we hear but equally in what we see: performing gestures which signify musical decision making. I consider how musicians indicate different kinds of motivation: entertainment, self-expression, formal discipline, attentive listening, the exploration of feeling. And I discuss the social and material constraints involved in the choice of musical instruments and performing colleagues. In the second part of the paper I focus on musical careers and critique analytic and common sense attempts to confine music-makers to specific genres. I argue that musical careers are essentially accidental and fluid, the result of particular local conditions and opportunities. It is from this perspective that I describe musicians as ordinary. Music-making must be understood in terms of everyday life and the musical role of such institutions as families, churches, education, the military and holidays. What makes musicians extraordinary is not who they are but what they do and how they use their opportunities. We should admire successful musicians not for their integrity but for their opportunism, a term that needs rescuing from its negative overtones.

Musical Change in The Era of Technology - Synthesiser in Kurdish Music

This paper is a field research based on the quantitative and qualitative methodology to discusses the role of synthesizer instrument in Kurdish music, in the Kurdistan Region between 1990 and 2021. For this purpose, several interviews have been conducted with music experts and synthesizer performers. Thus, this research has been analysed from their point of view. Some important questions have been raised to accurately pinpoint the role of Synthesizer in today's Kurdish musical scenes. The affect of synthesizer instrument has been looked at in the contexts of different music performances, such as musical bands, studio recordings, wedding gatherings, live music and bend performance. This reproach is the first of its kind to look at the role of synthesizer in Kurdish music.

The Sound of Music: Short-term Effects of Live Music Performance on the Cognitive and Emotional Statuses of Residential Patients with Major Neurocognitive Disorder

<h3>Introduction</h3> Patientswith neurocognitive disorders (NCD) commonly experience a range of psychiatric symptoms such as depression, anxiety, psychosis, and agitation.¹ These comorbidities complicate the course of treatment for these patients as well as exacerbate caregiver burden. Since pharmacologic interventions are known to pose significant risks to these patients, there is great urgency to find additional non-pharmacologic options to improve quality of care.¹ Music therapy is becoming a more frequently used tool in different treatment settings and has been shown to improve anxiety and depression, however intensive and structured music therapy can also be a cost burden for residential facilities.^2,3 This study's aim was to assess the short-term benefits of a live music performance for residential patients with mild and moderate major NCD. <h3>Methods</h3> Thisis a prospective, non-blinded, longitudinal comparison study. Inclusion criteria were age 65-100, English speaking, and had either a diagnosis of major NCD, cognitive disorder, or dementia of the mild to moderate stage that required institutionalization at a residential facility. Exclusion criteria were severe presbycusis, and diagnosis of dementia or NCD of the severe stage. Participating residential facilities with connections to the Symphony of Soul Foundation and St. David's Foundation were asked to publicize this study to residents and their legally authorized representatives (LAR). The participants would then provide informed assent and consent, respectively, to enroll. The study intervention was a 30 minute live-performance of a set list of popular music from the 1930s-1950s (English language), given by a standard performer. The main statistical analysis will be a multivariate repeated measures comparison of scores that assess cognition, depression, and quality of life using the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA), Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS), and the Cornell-Brown Scale for Quality of Life (CBSQoL). The scales were administered 1 week before the study intervention to participating subjects for baseline scores, and then re-administered 1 week after the intervention. Different versions of the MoCA (v.1 and v.2) were used for the pre- and post-intervention assessments. <h3>Results</h3> Atotal of 8 subjects (n=8) and their respective LARs provided assent and consent to participate in the study. There was 1 complete dropout before the study began. The mean MoCA score pre-intervention, MoCA_pre = 7.3, with a 95% CI = [2.36, 12.25]; the mean MoCA score post-intervention, MoCA_post = 9.4, with a 95% CI = [3.41, 15.39]; the difference between the two mean MoCA scores was not statistically significant, since the 95% CI for this difference was [-5.65, 9.85]. Subjects did not have scores that indicated clinical depression throughout the study, with a mean GDS_pre = 1.5, and a mean GDS_post = 2.2. The mean CBSQoL_pre = -3.67, with a 95% CI = [-10.91, 3.57]; the mean CBSQoL_post = 17, with a 95% CI = [10.86, 23.14]; the CBSQoL scores between the two groups had statistically significant difference as evident in non-overlapping CIs; the 95% CI for the difference between the two mean CBSQoL scores was [11.19, 30.15]. <h3>Conclusions</h3> Thisstudy's initial results suggested that there was a statistically significant improvement in the subjects' quality of life after a brief, live-musical performance. However there were no significant differences in the subjects' cognition and mood. The labor intensity behind completing the pre- and post- intervention assessments was a notable barrier for subjects to participate effectively, and was also a deterrent for other eligible subjects to enroll in the study. Decreasing the difficulty for subjects to participate in the future (e.g., through optimizing the testing environment, shortening the music performance) might therefore increase the sample size and improve the study's power and validity.

Snakes’ commodification within the fashion system

In the early 2000s a snake would appear as a prop in a live music performance, catalyzing a “trend” of live snakes as accessories which persists today on runways, red carpets, and on pages of fashion magazines. Around the same time, luxury fashion brands were selling out of snakeskin clothing and accessories, a trend which maintains popularity today. This paper applies a critical animal studies lens and insights from snake behavior literature to consider how live snakes are used in fashion performances and how they may be stressed by these environments. This article also discusses snakeskin as a distinct form of accessory which glamorizes and appraises snake death. Whether they appear alive or dead, the snake’s nonconsensual appearance on a runway, red carpet, or stage as a superfluous accessory trivializes and passivizes the snake. Surprisingly, such arguments find opposition from influential global conservation organizations, and the role of the luxury fashion industry is a controversial talking point in snake conservation.

“The social and cultural dimension of ‘platforming’ live music : the case of the Hong Kong independent music scene during the Covid-19 pandemic”

ABSTRACT This article explores the implications of the rise of digitally–mediated live music performances in the context of one marginalized cultural scene, the Hong Kong independent music scene, during the Covid-19 pandemic. Combining observation of live-streamed events with interviews of key actors in the scene, this article analyses the processes by which the partial ‘platformization’ of live music activities has led to the deterritorialization and reterritorialization of the scene - through collaborations between some Hong Kongand international indie music actors and the reaffirmation of the‘local’ via the use of visual represesentations of the city in online concerts, as well as to forms of digital disengagement. In turn, the article argues that analyses of the platformization of culture music must take into consideration the socio-cultural effects of digital platforms on specific localized contexts of cultural creation and consumption such as cultural scenes.

Autolume-Live: Turning GANs into a Live VJing tool

Creative Artificial Intelligence is increasingly used to generate static and animat- ed visuals. While there are a host of systems to generate images, videos and music videos, there is a lack of real time video synthesizers for live music per- formances. To address this gap, we propose Autolume-Live, the first GAN-based live VJing-system for controllable video generation. By analysing the needs of VJs and current Deep Learning-based audio-visual systems, we developed a live video synthesiser that extracts musical features, such as the amplitude, pitch and onset strength, and allows mapping these to generate trajectories in the frame latent space. These frames can further be manipulated through a MIDI In- terface which allows the user to improvise, manipulate the Neural Network and adjust the output to accompany live music performances in a co-creative way.

Verbal interjections and the making of Awillo Mike as a social representation of “lived lives and storied lives” in live music performance in Kenya

Live music performance takes a narrative form where experiences are narrated collectively by a “live band” both in song and performance. In such a performance, one band member often becomes a social representation of “good performance” for the audience. This paper seeks to contribute to this debate on “liveness” by exploring how “Awilo” Mike Otieno, one of the lead singers of Ja-Mnazi Africa Band in Eldoret-Kenya, uses verbal interjections — in between speech narrations during live music performance — to endear himself to the audience. This paper is based on data collected using unstructured interviews with “Awilo” Mike Otieno and purposively selected Band members for a period of six months. Augmentative data was obtained by participant observation and informal discussion with regular members of the audience. Based on Critical Discourse Analysis, the paper argues that verbal interjections in live music performance are not mere discourses. Instead, they are sites and means for the musician to exercise his/her power over the audience. By exercising this power, the musician is able to shape, (re)define (re)negotiate and contest (pre)existing subjectivities among the audience, and that of the audience towards him/her due to their diverse social positions in society. This subsequently aligns their physical and emotional realities. In addition, verbal interjection enables the musician to create new meanings on the narrated experiences to that which the audience can identify and relate with in their everyday lives, despite both being decontextualized. The ability to create congruity using verbal interjections proves the effectiveness of an artiste's performance and accounts for his or her popular acceptance.

Brain oscillation recordings of the audience in a live concert-like setting

There are only a few previous EEG studies that were conducted while the audience is listening to live music. However, in laboratory settings using music recordings, EEG frequency bands theta and alpha are connected to music improvisation and creativity. Here, we measured EEG of the audience in a concert-like setting outside the laboratory and compared the theta and alpha power evoked by partly improvised versus regularly performed familiar versus unfamiliar live classical music. To this end, partly improvised and regular versions of pieces by Bach (familiar) and Melartin (unfamiliar) were performed live by a chamber trio. EEG data from left and right frontal and central regions of interest were analysed to define theta and alpha power during each performance. After the performances, the participants rated how improvised and attractive each of the performances were. They also gave their affective ratings before and after each performance. We found that theta power was enhanced during the familiar improvised Bach piece and the unfamiliar improvised Melartin piece when compared with the performance of the same piece performed in a regular manner. Alpha power was not modulated by manner of performance or by familiarity of the piece. Listeners rated partly improvised performances of a familiar Bach and unfamiliar Melartin piece as more improvisatory and innovative than the regular performances. They also indicated more joy and less sadness after listening to the unfamiliar improvised piece of Melartin and less fearful and more enthusiastic after listening to the regular version of Melartin than before listening. Thus, according to our results, it is possible to study listeners’ brain functions with EEG during live music performances outside the laboratory, with theta activity reflecting the presence of improvisation in the performances.

Review essay: Between the Material and the Ephemeral

Review essay: Between the Material and the Ephemeral

Live Music Performance: The Relationship Between Flow and Music Performance Anxiety.

Most studies exploring the relation between flow and Music Performance Anxiety (MPA) have focused on the disposition of generally experiencing flow and the occurrence of MPA. Little is known about the connection between experiencing flow and MPA as it relates to a specific performance. In this study, flow and MPA have been investigated in 363 orchestral musicians in relation to a particular live music performance. The musicians were asked to fill out a questionnaire immediately after a concert. Flow experience during the performance was measured using the Flow Short Scale. The Performance-specific Questionnaire on MPA (PQM) was used for MPA. The PQM addresses particular aspects of MPA and refers retrospectively to the time before and during the performance as well as to the moment of filling out the questionnaire after the performance. Using three scales, the functional coping, the perceived symptoms of MPA and self-efficacy were determined for each time point of the performance. The results showed that experiencing flow was on average higher among orchestral musicians compared to a sample of the general population. However, there were differences between the professional and non-professional musicians. All PQM scales showed significant correlations with the global flow scale. Regression analysis on the global flow score found that regarding the time before the performance the PQM scale symptoms of MPA were diametrically connected with the flow experience. The PQM scale functional coping was shown to be positively related to the flow during the performance. Moreover, high self-efficacy was found to be closely related with stronger flow experience. Furthermore, flow seems to have positive effects on functionally coping with MPA and the self-efficacy after the performance. These findings confirm the negative relationship between flow and symptoms of MPA, offering further approaches in understanding the relationship especially for live music performances.