Presenting music live, audio-visually or aurally – does it affect listeners' experiences differently?

Abstract

This article reviews research regarding the question whether presenting music live, audio-visually or only aurally makes any difference for listeners' experiences. Most factors that characterise live performance could be supposed to enhance listeners' cognitive, affective and evaluative experiences. However, it is often hard to predict the exact influence of the visual stimuli that relate to audio-visual, and mostly also to live musical presentation. Many studies show that live music has positive effects on listeners' experience. However, there is little systematic research that compares live music with other modes of presentation. Studies comparing the effects of audio-visual and aural presentation have yielded rather mixed results. There is an obvious need for well-controlled studies on the effects of live music and on audio-visual music presentation based mainly on musico-psychological rather than visual-artistic principles. The research needs to take account of the variables that are crucial for understanding the effects of different modes of presentation.

Why Music? An Evaluation of a Music Programme for Older People in the Community

“…There are benefits to each. For listeners, live performances to a group have been found to elicit more significant benefits (Staricoff, 2004); the performers' facial expressions and body language enhance the listener's affective response (Finnäs, 2001). For many older people, access to live music is limited.…”

Playing for a Virtual Audience: The Impact of a Social Factor on Gestures, Sounds and Expressive Intents

“…While auditory information plays a crucial role in music communication models, Finnäs (2001) noticed an increasing interest in the visual component influencing the perception of the musical performance [31]. While the auditory stream convey emotions in music, its associated movements also contain significant information.…”

Sight over sound in the judgment of music performance

“…Honing in more specifically on the music psychology literature, there has been great interest in investigating performance evaluation and expert evaluators with more precision (38). As a host of factors that contribute to performance assessment have not been well understood or considered (19), a fuller understanding of the evaluation process holds great promise.…”

“…The role that auditory versus visual information plays in performance evaluation is of particular interest to researchers, practitioners, and educators. It thus becomes more surprising that, with some exception (39), there has been relatively insufficient empirical research to justify definitive conclusions (38). An understanding that is grounded in empirical research lends itself not only to the possibility of more objective evaluation processes, but also to the crafting of more effective performance.…”