Abstract Authors: Keith, Sarah; Hughes, Diane; Crowdy, Denis; Morrow, Guy; Evans, Mark This article explores the concept of musical liveness, and seeks to clarify how digital technologies are changing conceptions of live performance. It draws on research into contemporary music industries in Australia. Discussions of live music performance, and liveness, are often equated to the real-time performance of music by a musician in front of an audience. However, such performance opportunities are diminishing (Johnson and Homan, 2003) due to a number of factors, including changes to venue and live music legislation. In response to this decline, a number of action groups such as SLAM (Save Live Australian Music) have formed in opposition to such policies and are reviving live music communities in certain areas. In the absence of consistent performance options, online and DIY approaches have allowed artists to connect with audiences, engage in one-on-one interactions with fans, and showcase their performance abilities outside of traditional performance contexts. Strategic uses of social media allow artists to attract audiences to non-conventional spaces (such as busking performances or house parties); while online videos, whether they are created by artists themselves, impromptu or candid videos, or unauthorised videos created by fans, allow online audiences to participate in the live music experience and to connect with the artist. Research findings indicate that digital technologies are crucial in both promoting and sustaining a live presence for musicians. Musical liveness is no longer confined to offline physical performances; online technologies develop the concept of a technologically mediated ‘liveness’. References Johnson, B & Homan, S (2003), Vanishing acts: an inquiry into the state of live popular music opportunities in New South Wales, Australia Council & the NSW Ministry for the Arts, Sydney.

Classical music futures: Practices of innovation , 2024

The COVID-19 pandemic introduced audiences to new ways of engaging with artistic performance in an online environment (Rendell, 2020, terms this ‘pandemic media’). Multiple performers and organisations transferred live performances into a recorded or livestreamed format. However, at present, there is little research to support decisions that organisations may make in terms of how they do this, and what they deem to be important in how they record and / or stream. There is evidence to support the value of ‘liveness’ in music performance (Tsangaris, 2020), but what is this, and can it be replicated in online environment? This chapter will outline existing research regarding concepts such as liveness in music performance. The study discussed in the chapter will also discuss research regarding the live music experience as a social one, and the vital role that sharing musical spaces plays in social bonding and group coherence. This study examines questions including what listeners perceive to be the main differences between live and livestreamed attendance at music performance, and what constitutes ‘liveness’ in such performances. Data analysis suggests that audiences may have different motivations to attend live versus livestreamed performances, with the former being associated with having fun and a good night out, and shared experience, and the latter often about using time in a meaningful way and the sound quality available in livestreamed attendance at an event. ‘Liveness’ involves not only such factors as the opportunity to share an experience and interact with other audience members and performers, but also the sense of atmosphere, immersion, sensory experiences, and being physically present. When asked about the advantages and disadvantages of attending a livestreamed performance, audience members cite factors common to both live and online experiences such as the logistics, and whether they are with other people or not. However, a thematic analysis also reveals differences in what people see as the advantages and disadvantages of attending online, such as the emotional response to a live performance, and considerations around accessibility and the impact on the environment for online experiences. There is an urgent need in the music industry to better understand what the essential elements of a live performance are, and whether these aspects need to be, and indeed can be replicated in a livestreamed event, for example in terms of level of sound quality and emotional response.

Liveness in Modern Music: Musicians, Technology, and the Perception of Performance, 2013

This study investigates the idea and practice of liveness in modern music. Understanding what makes music live in an ever-changing musical and technological terrain is one of the more complex and timely challenges facing scholars of current music, where liveness is typically understood to represent performance and to stand in opposition to recording, amplification, and other methods of electronically mediating music. The book argues that liveness itself emerges from dynamic tensions inherent in mediated musical contexts—tensions between music as an acoustic human utterance, and musical sound as something produced or altered by machines. Sanden analyzes liveness in mediatized music (music for which electronic mediation plays an intrinsically defining role), exploring the role this concept plays in defining musical meaning. In discussions of music from both popular and classical traditions, Sanden demonstrates how liveness is performed by acts of human expression in productive tension with the electronic machines involved in making this music, whether on stage or on recording. Liveness is not a fixed ontological state that exists in the absence of electronic mediation, but rather a dynamically performed assertion of human presence within a technological network of communication. This book provides new insights into how the ideas of performance and liveness continue to permeate the perception and reception of even highly mediatized music within a society so deeply invested, on every level, with the use of electronic technologies.

Economists and sociologists of music have long argued that the live music sector must lose out in the competition for leisure expenditure with the ever increasing variety of mediated musical goods and experiences. In the last decade, though, there is evidence that live music in the UK is one of the most buoyant parts of the music economy. In examining why this should be so this paper is divided into two parts. In the first I describe why and how live music remains an essential part of the music industry's money making strategies. In the second I speculate about the social functions of performance by examining three examples of performance as entertainment: karaoke, tribute bands and the Pop Idol phenomenon. These are, I suggest, examples of secondary performance, which illuminate the social role of the musical performer in contemporary society.

This series of articles presents the findings of a research team who are one year into a three-year project investigating the social, cultural and economic impact of live music in the UK over the past 50 years. The project is funded by the UK's Arts and Humanities Research Council, and rather than focusing on a particular musical genre, it concentrates instead on understanding live music from the perspective of the live music promoter. The project aims to fill a significant gap in the scholarly knowledge and understanding of contemporary British musical culture, and to challenge and refine existing record-industry based accounts of music as a creative industry. The articles cover the team's progress in the following areas: the creation of an analytical framework to explore the historical, cultural, and institutional aspects of live music promotion; the development and professionalisation of the British live music industry over the past 50 years, and its changing relationship with the recording industry over the same period; the role of the state in the regulation of live music in the UK; and ethnographic research investigating how live music scenes operate in specific British localities.

Popular music culture has changed significantly with the diffusion of networked digital media in the late 1990s. The present article theorizes the concept of live music in light of those changes and develops the idea of a new economy of live music. The perception of concerts as live music is central, so this is explored conceptually and historically before outlining the main elements of the new economy. Two immediate elements are the new economic centrality of live music and the categorical change in concert ticket prices. Two other elements are the rise of new and renewed event genres and the broader dynamics of the digital information society. The article integrates perspectives of cultural and performance studies. The promoter called me around noon [on 11 September 2001] and said, 'Look, a lot of people have been calling and saying they're coming to the show. Do you wanna do it?' I said … [long pause] I really like being with people. I trust people. I like being in a group of people. I like that kind of energy. This is one of the reasons I bothered to go out on tour and not just concoct these things in my studio and ship them out and sell them. I actually like the energy of seeing real people and seeing what will happen … So, yes, that evening was very, very intense. (Laurie Anderson on Sound Opinions, Chicago Public Radio, 5 May 2008)

in (eds) Karen Burland & Stephanie Pitts, Coughing and Clapping: Investigating Audience Experience, Ashgate/SEMPRE Psychology of Music series., 2014

Coughing and Clapping: Investigating Audience Experience explores the processes and experiences of attending live music events from the initial decision to attend through to audience responses and memories of a performance after it has happened. The book brings together international researchers who consider the experience of being an audience member from a range of theoretical and empirical perspectives. Whether enjoying a drink at a jazz gig, tweeting at a pop concert or suppressing a cough at a classical recital, audience experience is affected by motivation, performance quality, social atmosphere and group and personal identity. Drawing on the implications of these experiences and attitudes, the authors consider the question of what makes an audience, and argue convincingly for the practical and academic value of that question. Contents: Preface; Prelude. Part 1 Before The Event: Preparing and anticipating: Marketing live music, Daragh O’Reilly, Gretchen Larsen and Krzysztof Kubacki; Musical, social and moral dilemmas: investigating audience motivations to attend concerts, Stephanie Pitts; Safe and sound: audience experience in new venues for popular music performance, Robert Kronenburg. Part 2 During The Event: Listening and connecting: Interlude - audience members as researchers, Stephanie Pitts and Karen Burland; The value of ‘being there’: how the live experience measures quality for the audience, Jennifer Radbourne, Katya Johanson and Hilary Glow; In the heat of the moment: audience real time response to music and dance performance, Catherine J. Stevens, Roger T. Dean, Kim Vincs and Emery Schubert; Texting and tweeting at live music concerts: flow, fandom and connecting with other audiences through mobile phone technology, Lucy Bennett; Moving the gong: exploring the contexts of improvisation and composition, Karen Burland and Luke Windsor with Christophe de Bezenac, Matthew Bourne, Petter Frost Fadness and Nick Katuszonek; Context, cohesion and community: characteristics of festival audience members’ strong experiences with music, Sidsel Karlsen. Part 3 After The Event: Responding and remembering: Interlude - lasting memories of ephemeral events, Karen Burland and Stephanie Pitts; ‘The gigs I’ve gone to’: mapping memories and places of live music, Sara Cohen; Warts and all: recording the live music experience, Paul Long; Staying behind: explorations in post-performance musician-audience dialogue, Melissa Dobson and John Sloboda. Postlude; References; Index. About the Editor: Karen Burland is an Associate Professor in Music Psychology at the University of Leeds. Her published research focuses on jazz audiences and their engagement in live performances in different contexts; the environmental conditions leading to childhood musical success and the professional development of musicians during career transitions; professional and amateur musical identities; and music therapists’ use of music technology in therapeutic settings. Karen is a member of the SEMPRE committee and Reviews Editor for British Journal of Music Education. Stephanie Pitts is a Professor of Music Education at the University of Sheffield, UK and author of A Century of Change in Music Education (Ashgate, 2000), Valuing Musical Participation (Ashgate, 2005) and Chances and Choices: Exploring the Impact of Music Education (2012).

The Future of Live Music, 2020

This is a pre-print version of a chapter published in the book 'The Future of Live Music' (edited by Ewa Mazierska, Les Gillon, and Tony Rigg). This research was conducted in the context of the POPLIVE project (Staging Popular Music: Researching Sustainable Live Music Ecologies for Artists, Music Venues and Cities-www.poplive.nl).

AoIR Selected Papers of Internet Research

In the last decade, the use of social media in the theatre scene has fueled debates on the possibility to redefine the performer-audience relationship on a wide scale. Scarce attention, however, has been paid on empirically studying how performance artists balance their use of social media between the need to promote their work and the ambition to experiment creatively on the medium affordances. This paper explores the use of social media by Italian contemporary theatre artists and companies. The study aims to explore the relational labour (Baym 2018) of performance artists in tracing the boundaries between online/offline performativity and between personal self-narration and artistic promotion. Through a combination of profile analysis and in-depth interviews, we want to understand how this artistic scene - that always experimented on intermedial and participatory possibilities - is making sense of social media. Preliminary results show how social media interaction and content prod...

2016

The use of computers is continuously changing the sound of records but also increasingly challenging established forms of live concert aesthetics. So what becomes of creativity and expressivity in the live performance? In this study, we present an artist-oriented approach to this question through interviews with artists invested in performing studio works on stage, as well as improvising musicians using studio technology in their concerts. We find that challenges to creative authorship and expressive agency are constantly negotiated through evolving practices of up- and down-scaling particular aspects of studio works on stage, as well as designing technological set-ups tailored to individual forms of improvisation. While these practices challenge deep-rooted notions of the ‘right’ or appropriate bond between musician and music, the appropriation of studio technology in live performance has clearly become an integral part of many artists’ continual exploration of their musical agency.