CURRENT STUDY - STILL IN PROGRESSIn Collaboration With:
Craig Hall at the New World Symphony
Challenge:
The New
World Symphony wanted to learn how to attract new patrons who do not
attend symphony performances regularly. The organization created a
new style of concert and wanted to know if the new style successfully engaged the audience
and if it didn't, how could the experience improve?
Solution:
Hedman recruited new audience members on sight, and recorded their EDA, afterwards syncing the data to the recorded performance. He then conducted long interviews with the participants about their emotional experience.
The second part to this research will include comparing these EDA responses to people's EDA and emotional experience attending a more typical concert.
Example EDA:
The second part to this research will include comparing these EDA responses to people's EDA and emotional experience attending a more typical concert.
Example EDA:
This is the EDA of four people listening to a concert with the theme of Romeo and Juliet. The blue and purple participants often became aroused at similar times, suggesting that parts of the symphony were successfully exciting new audience members. On the other hand the green and yellow participants did not show as many responses. We investigated possible causes for these similarities and differences.
Results:
| New World Symphony's Previous Model | New Emotion Model |
|---|---|
| Multiple short songs or one long song have the same effect on emotion. | Transitions between songs reengage the audience, therefor, short songs help keep people attentive and engaged. |
| There is no difference between male and females listening to the performance. | When boyfriends are "drug along", they pay attention to different details and do not as quickly get swept up by the music. |
| Having free drinks before or after a concert has no distinguishable difference on the experience. | Having a social after party increases participant's end arousal considerably, allowing them to leave on a high, exciting note. |
| During the concert, participants will learn to appreciate music more, which will carry on to the next concert. | While participants loved the educational presentations, they had no reference for later, so they were unable to remember what musical techniques were used. |
| Participants will be inspired to learn more about the music they heard. | Participants were inspired to hear similar music, but needed guidance in what new songs they could listen to or other concerts they could attend. |
| The new symphony format is engaging for young adults. | This is true and we were able to show EDA that corresponded with this hypothesis. |
From the initial pretrial work, the New World Symphony has invited Hedman to further investigate other concerts, compare different types of concerts, and conduct a richer, fuller study on the emotions the New World Symphony produces. Stay tuned!