'Quantifying Rational Recreation'

Felicity Mukherjee evaluated the audiences of Rational Rec from January to March 2008 at their regular season 1-3 venue the Bethnal Green Working Men's Club and at a one off event they curated for the Spitalfields Festival.

Click here to read the full evaluation report.

Evaluating musical appreciation and ability

The images below are from a unique exercise conducted at the Spitalfields Festival Launch event on 18th March. The exercise evaluated the audiences appreciation of contemporary classical music and testing their musical ability, through a series of questions, anatomical measurements and responses to sounds, images and objects.

2.3 ANATOMICAL TEST Lower finger length ratio indicates greater musical ability.  Male symphony orchestra musicians have lower finger ratios than less musical men (Manning, 1988).

2.5 MUSICAL PERFORMANCE TEST

Respondents were asked to pick up 2 objects (spoons) from the tray and create a 30 second improvised musical performance, assessed by the following criteria:

1. Duration: Rhythm including rests
2. Pitch: Different notes produced
3. Timbre: Different sounds produced by the spoons           
4. Amplitude: Variations in loudness + changes in dynamics       
5. Space: Position of the spoons + the performance aspect

'Quantifying Rational Recreation' presented on BBC Radio 3 August 2008 - Date/Time TBC Felicity Mukherjee will conclude her work for Rational Rec with a presentation of her audience evaluation exercise 'Quantifying Rational Recreation' on BBC Radio 3 towards the end of the Hear and Now show. Click here to read the QRR Evaluation Report and click here to see images from live evaluation conducted at the Spitalfields Festival Launch.

© Copyright Lucy Panesar 2008