Scientific Methods of Studying Audience Reaction in Drum Corps

[smj02]

Also keep in mind that such art isn't (or shouldn't be) trying to evoke the same reaction that a drum corps show is (or shoud, or used to).

A few points:

The parenthetical statements say a lot here...there's a certain type of response that you're implicitly looking for. There's an assumption that most people go to a drum corps show looking to be pulled out of his/her seat, looking for some kind of visceral response, apparently by every corps, according to your theory.

You also have another big unstated assumption - that the music rules over visual or over the marriage of visual with music in determining audience response. But you've talked about that plenty elsewhere.

Regarding your ideas and your approach...I found it interesting in reading the article that the piece that connected the most, with the most people, in orchestral and electronic/pop versions, was Adagio for Strings. I can't think of another piece of similar length that draws the listener into tension, builds that tension for several minutes, and then releases that tension in one big, extended resolution. I seem to remember another thread that you started where you concluded as much - that the biggest response is governed by tension and release. (Note: and you mentioned it in a post here, as well.)

So if we can extrapolate from this other study, it seems that a show with either drawn out tension followed by a release of that tension, or a show with several big tension-and-release moments, would go over well with the audience. The best example of the former that comes to mind is SCV 2010, which received mixed reviews on DCP, and there are tons of shows that take the latter approach. But either way, tension-and-release is a relatively important part of most, if not all, drum corps shows. Now, do you propose to find some specific formula (or formulae) of tension and release, perhaps related to the timing of the tension and release within the show? I'm curious (well, kinda) what such a new study would show or how it would help designers. I mean, I can happily listen to pretty much any song based on the Pachelbel Canon chord progression, but I'm sure to many people it would get old.

As far as looking at chemicals in the brain to measure response, I guess it's the most objective measure there is. But still, with a non-physical reaction like emotion, I would guess that a physical chemical like dopamine is only a close approximation of the actual impact of the response/effect on an individual as a result of a sensory input. And does dopamine correlate exclusively to the type of visceral, stand-up-and-applaud type of response you're looking for, or does it also reflect the awe-struck, wait-a-couple-seconds-to-respond type of reaction that I've seen more often at drum corps shows in recent years? I mean, Adagio for Strings isn't really your stand-up-screaming drum corps chart. By looking at dopamine, it's not like you can expect the same efficacy in the result as knocking someone's knee to check her reflexes. But, like I said, measuring chemical receptors like dopamine is the closest thing we've got now.

Is this type of study worth doing? I say no. The focus should be on polling and marketing, unscientific as they may be. Get in the stands, talk to folks right after each corps, talk to folks after the show, conduct polls online after the fact. What folks remember about the show three months, six months, nine months after the fact determines whether they'll pre-order tickets for the coming season. I think, anyway. We could do a scientific study on that, too.

[charlie1223]

This whole thread is reminding of me Brave New World. Where the government figures out how to make everyone happy by giving them "Soma" pills. hehe.

[garfield]

I admire your tenacity, Hrothy.

[DrillmanSop06]

I was about to ask who humored this thread to 7 pages overnight then I realized it was mostly Hrothy responding.

Your efforts are certainly appreciated and your...whatever quality keeps you so insistant...is certainly admired.

But srsly?

[TerriTroop]

Disclaimer: I am a student of music theory (BM and MM in the field), so I have spent many a year studying music from many angles and pondering how it affects the emotional/mental/physical of an audience. My point is that I would be pre-disposed to liking the kind of study Hrothgar15 suggests. Having said that:

There was no detailed information given about the methodology of the proposal by Hrothgar15, but many responses made assumptions regarding the study's potential ("it's futile") or included assumptions regarding methodology before declaring the study pointless. I don't know who Hrothgar15 is out here in "real life." I don't know any of those who responded negatively in "real life." But if someone like Hrothgar15 wants to propose such a study, what's the harm? Why declare it futile and pointless before you see the methodology?

I'm just pointing that out because there seems to be, in some cases, an air of animosity toward the OP (or perhaps his motives?).

Personally, I think such a study would be fascinating. Live crowd response is an intriguing part of the landscape of drum corps, and I think smart theorists and investigators could bring some interesting observations to the table. I would expect that we do already know, intuitively, much of what would come to light. But there could be great depth brought to our understanding of this activity and its audience, if a study is done with solid methodology.

[DrillmanSop06]

Disclaimer: I am a student of music theory (BM and MM in the field), so I have spent many a year studying music from many angles and pondering how it affects the emotional/mental/physical of an audience. My point is that I would be pre-disposed to liking the kind of study Hrothgar15 suggests. Having said that:

There was no detailed information given about the methodology of the proposal by Hrothgar15, but many responses made assumptions regarding the study's potential ("it's futile") or included assumptions regarding methodology before declaring the study pointless. I don't know who Hrothgar15 is out here in "real life." I don't know any of those who responded negatively in "real life." But if someone like Hrothgar15 wants to propose such a study, what's the harm? Why declare it futile and pointless before you see the methodology?

I'm just pointing that out because there seems to be, in some cases, an air of animosity toward the OP (or perhaps his motives?).

Personally, I think such a study would be fascinating. Live crowd response is an intriguing part of the landscape of drum corps, and I think smart theorists and investigators could bring some interesting observations to the table. I would expect that we do already know, intuitively, much of what would come to light. But there could be great depth brought to our understanding of this activity and its audience, if a study is done with solid methodology.

The idea is a nonstarter. It addresses minutia that, as intriguing as it may be, would not necessarily 1) happen and 2) produce results.

Couple this with the fact that OP expects to be taken seriously given his credentials and postings and you have a formula for the overwhelming negativity in this thread. Had someone such as yourself put forth the very same argument, it might have been taken more seriously from its onset. However, in the case of the OP, I'm not too sure how seriously his suggestions are taken around here with very few exceptions. Is this unfortunate? Yes. But perhaps he should have conducted a study as to what sort of postings and expectations are most likely to sway an audience deeply connected with an activity they have participated in or observed and contributed to for more years than he.

[dcpincollector]

Of course it's judged. Of course it entertains people.

But what the OP is looking for are specific minutiae of the activity to be analyzed and then exploited, totally ignoring the fact the people respond to different things in different ways.

Hell... people will respond to the SAME thing in different ways on any given day for a variety of different reasons.

Hearing the same piece of music or the same sound or seeing the same drill move will not always illicit the same response.

Hell....I think that you are missing the point. He is not talking about seeing or understanding each "individual" audience members reaction. This is something much deeper than that. It is about the overall reaction of the crowd. I think that this post brings up an interesting point. So many people talk about the "good old days" of drum corps and maybe there is a point here. Why was the audience reaction so much greater in the past? If you disagree with this statement simply go back and listen to all of the DCI Championships since '72. There was much more reaction from the crowd during these older performances. The crowds response could be heard audibly throughout the performance, not just at the completion of the show. There must have been something going on that illicited the reactions of the crowd. Was it the type of music played? I think that this is a very plausible possibility. I do not have an answer for this, but I think that there was something going on back then that truly appealed to the masses. It obviously had nothing to do with the quality of the music etc. as any one with an ear for music knows that the qualiy of the performances has never been better than today.

Maybe we should trailor this discussion to try and explain this. Was it just a different time? Were people different? Or were corps hitting on something that went deeper into our DNA? This should definately be a topic of interest to anyone who truly loves drum corps.

[Michael Boo]

Hell....I think that you are missing the point. He is not talking about seeing or understanding each "individual" audience members reaction. This is something much deeper than that. It is about the overall reaction of the crowd. I think that this post brings up an interesting point. So many people talk about the "good old days" of drum corps and maybe there is a point here. Why was the audience reaction so much greater in the past? If you disagree with this statement simply go back and listen to all of the DCI Championships since '72. There was much more reaction from the crowd during these older performances. The crowds response could be heard audibly throughout the performance, not just at the completion of the show. There must have been something going on that illicited the reactions of the crowd. Was it the type of music played? I think that this is a very plausible possibility. I do not have an answer for this, but I think that there was something going on back then that truly appealed to the masses. It obviously had nothing to do with the quality of the music etc. as any one with an ear for music knows that the qualiy of the performances has never been better than today.

Maybe we should trailor this discussion to try and explain this. Was it just a different time? Were people different? Or were corps hitting on something that went deeper into our DNA? This should definately be a topic of interest to anyone who truly loves drum corps.

Does anyone have the data done by the doctoral student at the University of Kansas a number of years back? I was one of the people who went into the room he had set up at the World Championships (don't remember where or when) to view short snippets of corps performances and rate how each one made me feel and explain why. This was maybe 15 years ago.

[audiodb]

I firmly believe that we can scientifically study exactly why music and more specifically drum corps has such an emotional effect on audience members. Furthermore, I think we can go even deeper, into isolated musical and visual characteristics of a show, and discover how they map to neurological processes and chemical releases in the brain. Such information would be incredibly useful for show designers to aid in creating the most exhilirating products possible, because we'd have the exact knowledge of what makes them so.

But can we study the effect on judges? Now there's something show designers might take an interest in.

[chaddyt]

Hell....I think that you are missing the point. He is not talking about seeing or understanding each "individual" audience members reaction. This is something much deeper than that. It is about the overall reaction of the crowd. I think that this post brings up an interesting point. So many people talk about the "good old days" of drum corps and maybe there is a point here. Why was the audience reaction so much greater in the past? If you disagree with this statement simply go back and listen to all of the DCI Championships since '72. There was much more reaction from the crowd during these older performances. The crowds response could be heard audibly throughout the performance, not just at the completion of the show. There must have been something going on that illicited the reactions of the crowd. Was it the type of music played? I think that this is a very plausible possibility. I do not have an answer for this, but I think that there was something going on back then that truly appealed to the masses. It obviously had nothing to do with the quality of the music etc. as any one with an ear for music knows that the qualiy of the performances has never been better than today.

Maybe we should trailor this discussion to try and explain this. Was it just a different time? Were people different? Or were corps hitting on something that went deeper into our DNA? This should definately be a topic of interest to anyone who truly loves drum corps.

I agree with you. And as a previous poster mentioned, if it was anyone other than Hroth posting it, it may have been taken a little more seriously. But you look at threads like this and the amps/synths/vocals, and it's pretty clear already that, at least for the people on this forum, they are concerned with what they specifically like.

We all try to argue that what we specifically like applies to the larger majority of the audience, but no matter how you break it down, it's all individual opinion/taste. Take the reaction for Cadets' 2000 show. It was pretty substantial. But I can guarantee that it wasn't all for the same reasons.

(In full disclosure, I could care less whether a study like this was conducted or not, so long as it wasn't used as a means to program and design a show).