ECR – Experimental Concert Research

The research cluster is currently home to the “ECR – Experimental Concert Research” project, which is funded by the VolkswagenStiftung’s funding segment “Off the Beaten Track”. The project investigates the effects of various presentation and performance formats using the example of the classical concert.

The classical concert is a highly advanced format of performance and reception. But which parameters of this heavily ritualised procedure are central to the concert experience and the creation of immersive experiences? Which elements are irrelevant and which ones are perhaps even hindering? We want to experimentally explore the potential for distinctive experiences that the concert opens up as a specific form of performance and reception for a specific style of music. The central question of our research project is: What characterises the concert experience in a contemporary concert of classical music?

But how can a musical experience be measured? We have decided to merge established and new methods. Before the concert, we will equip the audience with sensors that measure various physical signals that have been identified in music psychological research to be good indicators of emotional stimulation (such as skin conductance or heart rate variability). Directly after the concert, we will interview the people in the audience as well as the musicians in detail. In addition, we will film the audience in order to analyse both facial expressions and motion patterns. We assume that by combining these various techniques to collect behavioural, subjective experience and physiological data, we will obtain a comprehensive and differentiated picture of the musical experience of the people in the audience.

Further information