‘We hear with our eyes!’ Unlocking tacit knowledge about multisensory music performing

Abstract

Music performance is now recognised as a multisensory experience where both sound and sight contribute to its transmission and reception. The challenge for music education is to disseminate recent performance science research findings in this area into the curriculum using engaging and meaningful strategies. Practice without access to key research does not adequately prepare future music professionals as critical thinkers about, and evaluators of, music performance production and reception by themselves and by others. This study reports on a multisensory experiential learning workshop which aimed to equip university music students with knowledge and skills to capitalise on their inherent perceptual capacities. In doing so, students’ responses demonstrated an understanding of how to unlock tacit knowledge about performing and appropriate music perception skillsets which can be drawn into their own performing.

Introduction

Music performance is now recognised as an embodied multisensory experience where both sound and sight contribute to its transmission and reception (van der Schyff et al., 2022). Appraising music performance presents a challenge to musicians in responding to, and describing, a complex multisensory phenomenon. Musicians form global impressions of performances (Stanley et al., 2002) yet rely on assessment criteria and verbalisation to communicate their perceptions. Evaluators have a limited set of descriptors to convey the sound they hear, and there are no collective criteria to share music judgements between music listeners (Blom & Encarnacao, 2012; Wrigley & Emmerson, 2013). When musicians’ judgements of sound are disproportionately confounded by sight (Platz & Kopiez, 2012), it suggests the need to develop musicians’ awareness of the entirety of the music performance experience (Waddell & Williamon, 2017).

This paper investigates a novel experiential learning workshop where performance students experienced the performance of professional and student performers behind a screen (audio) and then unscreened in full view (audiovisual). The study responds to the research question – what can performance students learn about multisensory aspects of performing in the performance of others? Using an applied research in music performance approach, second year university group-music performance students reported their expectations, immediate impressions and reflections of music performance as a multisensory experience. This experiential learning opportunity ‘promotes student interaction in the classroom’ (Würdinger & Carlson, 2010, p. 17). The aim of the research was to equip university music students with knowledge and skills to capitalise on their inherent perceptual capacities in relation to the explicit aspects of multisensory performance, and in doing so, to inform their own performing.

Music is traditionally considered an aural art but key studies on music perception have discovered that musically trained and untrained participants receive music performance by both sound and sight (e.g. Behne & Wöllner, 2011; Tsay, 2013; Vuoskoski et al., 2014). If music is a multisensory activity, where sight plays a significant role (e.g. Broughton & Stevens, 2009; Huang & Krumhansl, 2011), music students need to develop appropriate skillsets to appreciate and access these audiovisual capabilities. The multisensory learning environment can ‘produce greater and more efficient learning’ than the unisensory environment because it approximates natural learning settings (Shams & Seitz, 2008, p. 411). Indeed, arts-practice knowledge is multifaceted, and can be described as ‘explicit’, ‘tacit’ and ‘ineffable’ (Biggs, 2004). Explicit knowledge can be put into words, tacit knowledge is an embodied skill and ineffable knowledge is the intangible processing which cannot be reported in words. This study focusses on the relationship between explicit and tacit knowledge. For music education, the challenge is to provide meaningful and useful learning opportunities for music students where they can capitalise on their inherent perceptual capacities.

For van de Schyff et al. (2022), ‘. . .embodied music cognition offers a welcome new perspective as it places more emphasis on examining how the body mediates musical interactions within specific environments’ (p. 17). Within higher education, the challenge for music educators is to demonstrate multisensory explicit and tacit knowledge about multisensory music performance through experiential learning which is appropriate and accessible to university music students, such as the workshop in this study. It is critical to prepare students with knowledge and skills to capitalise on sight and sound capacities, and to develop a more nuanced understanding of how multisensory processes inform music performance and communication in themselves and others.

In relation to tacit knowledge, Polanyi (1966/2009) reminds us that ‘we can know more than we can tell’ (p. 4) and gives examples in biology, language, facial recognition, chess, mathematics, among other disciplines. It occurs most prominently as ‘knowing-that’ and ‘knowing-how’ (Malik, 2023, p. 359), and this ‘tacit knowing [Malik’s (2023) preferred term] pervades all the basic forms of knowledge’ (p. 361). In science, Burns (2021) asks, ‘how much of and of what kind of [a scientist’s] tacit knowledge needs to be made explicit, if it can be?’ (p. 97) and in music, Kaastra (2020) notes that while Chaffin’s music performance cue model improves the chances of a successful performance outcome, the model ‘is less effective for explaining tacit aspects of musical learning in general. . .’ (p. 16). This point is also recognised by Barrett (2007a) for whom tacit knowledge brings into focus aspects of our lived experiences ‘that reflect alternative realities that are either marginalised or not yet recognised in established theory and practice’ ( p. 143).

These alternative realities can emerge from repeated experiences of one’s specialised practice (Haseman, 2007) and revealing tacit knowledge can, at times, be detrimental to our understanding of the whole artistic entity (Jarvis, 2007; Polanyi, 1966/2009). However, Haseman (2007) has an antidote for this by bringing these understandings to the surface and critiquing them through reflection-in-action and reflection-on-action. In the music classroom, Johansen (2021) also acknowledges how ‘these tacit skill and process dimensions can be made explicit by language tools such as those afforded by Schön (1987), entailing teachers’ ability to select and adapt to the dynamics of practical contexts as reflection-in-action’ (p. 29). Students can be encouraged to understand that what seems ineffable, can usually be ‘translated’, to use Biggs’ (2004) term, using text and other media. This information can be revealed to students (Blom et al., 2011) by adopting an experiential learning approach which focusses intentionally on the tacit action (Barrett, 2007b).

Innovative learning programs enable music students to conceptualise their training with meaningful tools in the music profession (Carruthers, 2020; Creech et al., 2008). Music programs are changing with universities in Australia, for example, offering ‘a broader class-based approach’ (Blom, 2008, p. 101) to performance with a range of experiences (Encarnacao & Blom, 2020). Taking ‘a reflective turn. . .’ (Schön, 1991) enables students to challenge passive content delivery (for example, lectures) on the reception of music and develop self-awareness in music evaluation. One way to draw students’ attention to the tacit multisensory knowledge in music performance is through experiential learning. This approach has been well-established in law (Carlson & Skaggs, 2000; Marsh & Ramsden, 2015). Creative arts’ studies have intimated that students who engage with both performing and listening, through the experiential learning in a master class, are better able to engage with the concepts available to them as both performers and listeners (Long et al., 2011). This extends music learning beyond one-to-one lessons or the classroom, giving students first-hand experience of performing and listening to engender critical thinking and the application of research knowledge to their own practice and lifelong skills. And this learning process corresponds with Hendricks (2011) comment that ‘for [violin teacher, Shinichi] Suzuki. . ., continual improvement came through self-reflection, followed by an immediate, selfless change of course’ (p.140). Experiential learning has the capacity to move university education’s passive content delivery to applied enquiry-driven pedagogies.

The idea of translating research findings through exploring knowledge in an experiential learning paradigm, such as a multisensory workshop (this study), or through an audition workshop (Mitchell & Benedict, 2017; Mitchell, 2018) or evaluation simulator (Waddell et al., 2019) ensured that students could consider the importance of sight and sound in performance. They could also reflect critically on research findings which are relevant to their future careers in the music profession. The experiential learning model blends recent research findings in real-world scenarios and enables music students, staff and professionals to understand the implications of recent research in the context of their music practice. Learning by doing, or experiential learning, empowers music students to reflect on research concepts, to engage with them through their experiences (as performers and listeners) and to incorporate them in their own music practice.

This study represents a major extension on current empirical research work focussed on ‘auditions’ by implementing its results in the classroom. It has potential to facilitate deep understanding and awareness of explicit and tacit knowledge about the sound and sight of music performance. For university music students, learning to talk about this knowledge in their future performances is, potentially, a valuable learning opportunity. The experiential workshop was devised to encourage music students to highlight their own conceptions of music performance by sound alone, and sight and sound as listener-viewers, rather than their own performing.

Method

Participants

A purposive sample of thirty-nine second year university music performance students, aged from 19 years to late 20s, was enrolled in a subject on group music performance. This group was chosen because they were not new to university performance but had experienced a year of engaging critically in performance studies. When entering the subject, the students identified themselves as: 21 guitarists, 5 bass guitarists, 7 pianists, 11 vocalists, 3 flautists, 2 clarinettists, 4 percussionists and 2 brass players. Of these, 13 students were multi-instrumentalists able to play two to five instruments. The students’ music groups for the subject included classical piano duo, piano quartet, African marimba ensemble, improvisation groups, pop/rock group, South African vocal/instrumental ensemble, Steve Reich’s Electric Counterpoint, folk duo, iPad Orkestra and an ambient sound group. All students were invited to take part in the research project.

Materials

Students were provided with workbooks for feedback for each performance set. They were invited to reflect on the workshop in three stages designed to capture immediate and instinctive responses to the performances. First, to provide their expectations for the sessions to gauge their initial thinking on the topic. Second, they were asked to comment on their first impressions of each of the screened and unscreened performances. Third, on completion of the workshop, they provided their reflections on what struck them as interesting, new or meaningful during the workshop. They were invited to name one idea they would take into their musical performance plus one idea they would take into their musical listening and what part of the workshop was most useful to them. This three-stage listening-viewing role actively engaged students with the performance of four performers and also strongly reflected aspects of Lebler’s (2007) engagement of students in their higher education popular music program learning through instinctive reflective activities which aimed to ‘produce. . .increased awareness of the learning process and enhanced transferability of skills’ (p. 210–211).

Procedure

The project was approved by the authors’ two institutional Human Research Ethics Committees. Second year undergraduate university music group performance students were invited to act as listener-viewers in a 1-hour interactive music workshop which explored how complementary multisensory information augments the audience’s impressions. Students had previously attended a lecture which introduced them to current research on sound and sight aspects of music performance, drawing on findings that music is a multimodal experience and the impact of visual information on the judgement of performance (e.g. Platz & Kopiez, 2012; Tsay, 2013), and the dynamics of sensory integration for perceiving musical performance (Vines et al., 2006). They considered Schumann’s description of an audience awaiting a performance by Franz Liszt where ‘one has to listen and to behold’ (in Platz & Kopiez, 2012, p. 168) and the role of gesture in the performances of Robbie Williams (Davidson, 2017), Lang Lang (Davidson, 2012) and Annie Lennox (Davidson, 2001).

The workshop structure began with two male music professionals (saxophonist and cellist), who were experts in performing and teaching and could reflect on good practice in performance evaluation. They were invited to lead the sessions and to perform on stage in a performance space at the University. Their brief was to perform, screened and unscreened and to lead the verbalisations of explicit and tacit knowledge of music performance by sight and sound. They were followed by two student solo performers (a female singer and a male pianist) who also performed screened and unscreened. The pieces performed were: Dreams of You by Dave McGarry (solo saxophone); Punena No. 2 by Ginastera (solo cello); Lullaby of Birdland by George Shearing (solo voice); semi-improvised piano solo.

Students sat in the front rows of the hall. At the start of the session, students were asked to name three expectations they had for the session, including things they hoped to learn and/or experiences they hoped to have and to write them down in a workbook. Students then experienced live performances with and without a screen, deliberately placing the screened performance before the unscreened to isolate students’ attention to the sound alone before presenting a multisensory performance. Students were invited to make notes on their first impressions of each performance and to consider what aural parameters were gained by listening only and what changes occur by adding the visual. They were guided by the first author and the two male professional musicians. Students completed the session by reflecting on what they had learned by providing their first impressions through the guided questions in their workbook during the workshop. The workshop and discussions were recorded, and workbooks and audio recording were transcribed for analysis.

Analysis

The study adopted a thematic analysis approach (Clarke & Braun, 2021), drawing key points from the literature (e.g. reflection, bias and tacit knowledge put into words) to begin categorising and discussing responses to the themes of the workbook (expectations, first impressions and reflections). But the study was also interested in responses ‘likely to upset your thinking’, as Becker (1998, p. 87) worded it, as they may reveal deep thinking, maybe ‘eureka’ moments (Blom, 2014) such as the quote in the title of this paper, when a student’s tacit understanding is revealed. Student participants’ responses are identified by numbers S1 to S39.

Results

Expectations

Expectations for the screened and unscreened performances included students’ perceptions of challenges for responding to performances, handling bias and considering whether they would have any differences perceiving audio and audiovisual performances.

Challenges for responding to performances

Students had a good understanding of the concept of responding to screened and unscreened performances and how they might learn to test their evaluation skills. Twenty-eight of the students expected their perceptions to be challenged, understanding ‘. . .there to be a difference in what I focus my attention on when listening with/without visuals’ (S4). They were prepared to ‘examine my own practice of aural and/or visual observation’ (S3) and ‘to see if the visual impact changes the perception of the musical performance’ (S12). Students anticipated how their evaluation skills would change to see ‘the difference we ourselves make in judging people’s musicianship based on their sound, their appearance, and both’ (S1). There was an expectation that there would be a ‘significant difference between viewed performance and screened performance’ (S13) with a possibility of ‘technical playing that will be accompanied by something physically expressive once the curtain is drawn’ (S39) and students would be able ‘to feel/see more emotions with sighted performance’ (S19).

Handling bias

Three participants anticipated a bias towards the visual performances expecting ‘to be more interested in the visual as I believe sound and sight complement one another’ (S32) while another was cognisant that the ‘visual will be better because I have a bias that the visual helps. .’ (S34). And one harboured a bias ‘. . .towards the visual, due to [a] drama background’ (S33).

No difference to evaluation

Ten were ready to apply their usual performance evaluation skills and were ‘just expecting competent levels of performance’ (S2). Six of these focussed exclusively on technical issues and expected ‘to learn and/or observe new performance techniques and elements I can apply to my own performances’ (S15), techniques including ornamentation, expressive techniques, Avant Garde and extended practice. For two participants there was an expectation of no difference because I ‘don’t think that ears and sight will make a huge difference’ (S25) and ‘the music will be the same with and without eyes’ (S28).

First impressions: Screened performances

In first impressions for screened performances, several themes were raised. Students had a focus on timbre, believed that good technique is an aural experience, some concentrated on listening and others found listening without looking disconcerting.

A focus on timbre

Students focussed on aural aspects of the screened performances noting that ‘timbre was very important’ (S27) particularly the ‘very mellow voice’ (S1), and how the ‘very smooth style [was] well-suited to the instrument’ (S2). The saxophone was ‘soulful’ (S7), ‘soothing to hear’ (S15) while the cello had ‘lots of colour’ (S15), ‘contrasting timbres’ (S1) and the cellist ‘ha[d] a really dark mood to his music’ (S16). This ‘dark-sounding’ (S29) quality was noted by another, and again the ‘sharp, melancholic’ (S7) timbre was referred to, plus the ‘enjoyment. . . of hearing different tone colours’ (S25).

Good technique is an aural experience

Students remarked on the performers’ technique and style of performance and delivery. The saxophonist has ‘fluent, good technique’ (S4) and ‘excellent tonal control’ (S10), demonstrating ‘lots of bent notes’ (S13) and ‘use of staccato and vibrato techniques: very precise, every note is clear’. The saxophonist’s ‘expression [was] great’ (S10), although he ‘seemed a bit rushed. Nervous’ (S6). The cellist showed ‘excellent technical ability’ (S14), ‘play[ing] really smoothly and show[ing] an excellent knowledge of his instrument’ (S16) with ‘dramatic playing, [and a] broad range of sounds’ (S4). His ‘expressive techniques stood out’ (S21) and he ‘played a wider range of notes, technically . . . advanced’ (S5) with ‘different striking techniques’ (S13), were there ‘finger plucked bass notes?’ (S28), and overall ‘very accurate playing’ (S29).

Concentrating on listening

The use of the acoustic space, particularly by the cellist, was noted by nine students. The cellist ‘used space well [and] seemed more confident’ (S6), creating a sound environment that was ‘very atmospheric and ethereal’ (S20). Two students found the cellist’s performance suspenseful, ‘interesting. Unknown of what’s coming next’ (S22), at times sounding ‘like a horror film’ (S23).

Silence and the experience of not seeing/knowing what comes next were highlighted. Two students noted that lack of visuals created a sense of ‘anticipation because you couldn’t see what was coming next’ (S27) and experienced ‘. . .more tension when there was no visual, I heard more pauses’ (S32). Comments on the potential within a lack of sound were that ‘silence is more expressive than sound. Louder behind screen’ (S36), ‘utilis[ing] space between chords for more timbre expression’ (S39) with one student made ‘very aware of sound and stillness’ (S12).

The extra-musical sounds were more apparent. For one student, the lack of visuals meant they could ‘hear more sounds – [but] got distracted. Focus needed because you can’t see. Had to really concentrate to listen’ (S12) while another ‘could hear a lot more keys and movement spatially’ (S32). A student heard this ‘surprising sound, unexpected’ (S30) while another could hear that the performer was ‘checking [the] seat is right height [before] let[ting] loose behind [the] curtain’ (S36).

Listening without looking is disconcerting

Eight students were challenged when unable to rely on visuals, perceiving a change in the way they heard the performance because of a lack of visual reference. This was a positive experience for some, but less so for others. One noted that they ‘had to really concentrate to listen’ (S12) with two unsure how many instruments and people were playing. The lack of visuals contributed to the performance being ‘very airy, disconnected from any physical pairing’ (S37) with one student feeling ‘very distracted because I couldn’t see the actual vocalist, and her expressions’ (S24). Not seeing the player spoilt the experience as the ‘saxophone loses its appeal in blind performance – I feel it’s a performance instrument’ (S33), yet for another, a change of mood was heightened with ‘there [being]. . . more tension when there was no visual’ (S32). One student perceived that the ‘acoustic sounded louder behind screen’ (S36) while another ‘was thinking ‘where is that sound coming from?’’ (S38). A similar sense of anticipation was felt by another ‘because you couldn’t see what was coming next, it was slow and you wanted to see what his hands were doing to try and anticipate next’ (S27).

First impressions: Unscreened performances

In first impressions of unscreened performances, students found that seeing a performer perform enhances the experience. It also heightens emotional engagement. Students found that body movement can be distracting, and were confused about the effects of stillness versus movement.

Seeing a performer perform enhances the experience

Facial expression was the focus for eight students who found the performances ‘interesting and entertaining due to movement and facial expression and stage presence’ (S22). Facial expression brought out mood with some ‘facial expressions . . . quite intense which was effective as the song was quite expressive and melancholy’ (S35). Eye contact was important for four students for communication with the audience – ‘good stage presence, made eye contact with the audience’ (S23) with the ‘visual mak[ing] a huge difference. Eye contact’ (S34).

Ten mentioned body language or movement and three commented on ‘gesture’. Approximately half of the responses remarked on physical gesture and the facial expression of performers. The majority of this group felt the performance was enhanced through ‘body language – strong performer, much more emotion and expression in performance’ (S1) and that when performers ‘moved with the music, I got more of a sense of passion’ (S4). Students felt ‘more engaged with performance, facial expressions, felt like more connected to audience, eye contact friendly face, warm and connected with audience’ (S12) and ‘enjoyed [the unscreened performance] much more, because I could see the performer’s emotional facial expressions, and see that she was enjoying herself’. Much of this enjoyment appeared to be conveyed through the performer’s physicality, for example their ‘physical connection with the instrument and the music’ (S14) and how ‘you can tell he is getting into it by the way his whole body is moving along with the music’ (S15). For two students, this physicality actually ‘transcended into the music’ (S19), resulting in ‘story telling through movement’ (S21) with another feeling that they were ‘more engaged with the performance because of the movement that assisted with the notes (long movements bending around with the shape of the note)’ (S32).

Seeing performers heightens emotional engagement

Awareness of emotion, from the performer but also for the receiver (the student listener), was commented on by many students in the sighted performances. Ten noted an ‘emotional connection with the music’ (S14), with there being ‘much more emotion and expression in performance’ (S1) conveyed through ‘the performer’s emotional facial expressions and see[ing] that she was enjoying herself, so I enjoyed myself’ (S24). One student found the visual connection of music with performer ‘made the articulation clearer. More emotional’ (S27) and for another conveyed ‘feeling [and emotion] better than behind a screen’ (S7). Three students gained ‘more of a sense of passion’ (S4) and felt that ‘the artist plays a lot more with an enthusiasm and passion because he knows that there is an audience’ (S16). Yet for one, ‘the piece had more emotion, was a style that is more suited to a blind performance’ (S39).

Body movement can be distracting

While the majority of comments on physical movement, body and facial expression and eye contact were positive, other students offered a more critical view, finding these aspects distracting and noticing ‘a lot more physical movement than I expected – more whole-body movement – a bit distracting’ (S3). This observation was echoed by students for whom a performer ‘seemed to move body more than was needed for the aspect of the performance’ (S5) with physical gestures ‘forced because she knows she’s being watched’ (S39). Another noted a performer’s ‘head turns and twitches between phrases. Seems more rushed’ (S13).

Confusion about the effects of stillness versus movement

Six students were clearly anticipating a difference in the way they perceived a performance after sighting the performers, and for one there was ‘no difference’ (S11) between unsighted and sighted performing. Three students observed a lack of movement finding a performer ‘musically expressive but not really physically expressive. Not much movement’ (S6) while another echoed this thought noting ‘less movement than I thought there would be’ (S25). Of those who did perceive change there was a sensation of how ‘watching added to the dramatic nature of the music’ (S4) with the sighted performance being ‘visually more impressive – quite theatrical which works well with the piece’ (S10) and finding the experience ‘much more interesting and engaging, [and being more] aware of how piano was used to sound like 2 instruments’ (S12).

Reflections

In their reflections, students considered learning to listen by ear and by eye. They processed the experience in a range of different ways.

Learning to listen by ear and by eye

Students reflected on the impact of the session on their reception of music performance. Thirteen focussed their responses on aural/visual aspects. They were more attuned to the audio information for performances behind a screen, even ‘silence before starting a performance’ (S28) and they ‘heard more behind the screen than [they] did with visual’ (S32). Removing the visual presentation reduced distraction, and with their increased focus, ‘some performances [were] more satisfying without the visual’ (S20). Without visual information, students were aware ‘how different[ly] [they] picture a performance when not being able to see it for ourselves’ (S23) and were challenged to imagine action on the stage. The addition of ‘the visual made it seem that the performers tried too much to express’ (S25).

After the blind and sighted presentations, 16 focussed their reflective comments on issues of statecraft and persona. They were more cognisant of ‘how much visual impact has on a performance, movement, facial expressions etc’ (S12) and also ‘movement is more significant than I realised’ (S3). Seeing a performance was a positive experience and the combination of sight and sound revealed how ‘the more the instrument is related to the performer’s body, the better they seemed to perform’ (S2). ‘Performance matters’ (S1) and students ‘enjoyed watching almost as much as listening’ (S4). ‘When you can see the performers, you are drawn in more’ (S15). Engaging with the performer changed the experience of music performance and students were aware of ‘how much seeing performers during performance changes our feelings towards them’ (S5) and ‘the connection [was] created by the visual performance’ (S22). One student commented on the need for balance between the visual and functional.

Promoting deep listening

Focussing on performances by sound and then by sight heightened students’ capacity for deep or critical listening. One student would ‘start listening more rather than relying on visual’ (S22), others commented on ‘listening for gesture with a sound – the motion of the music and a performer’ (S9) to enable them to ‘[be] more aware of how I’m listening and how much attention I’m giving the music’ (S35). There was a growing awareness of unconscious bias and in future, one student noted they would ‘try not to pay too much attention to visual aspects and focus more on sound to not make a judgement before the performers start playing’ (S30). They would attempt to listen ‘using (and not using) my eyes’ (S10) and attempt to ‘[listen] for anything neutrally or without bias – perhaps it is best not to look at the performer whilst listening’ (S1).

Implications for lifelong learning

As a learning tool, students found the discussion with fellow audience members and performers, plus the screened and unscreened performances themselves, useful. They appreciated the importance of focussing on multisensory music and felt that ‘everything [was important] – the entrance, the execution, the sound, the visual, the relationship between me and my music, and the exit’ (S8). They became aware of ‘the way a performer presents themselves before, during and after the performance’ (S17) and ‘that your facial expressions really make a difference!’ (S15). There was a realisation that ‘We hear with our eyes!’ (S1).

In future, some would ‘probably be a bit more careful when [they] perform in real life as context does affect everything’ (S10) and would seek to employ ‘anticipation [as it] creates interest with audience. .’ (S22). Students would ‘[work] on the overall performance from the moment we walk on to the way we finish’ (S32) as ‘the way you present yourself and the way you look really affects the performance in an aural manner’ (S1). Having experienced the influence of sight on sound as audience members, many students resolved to always ‘perform sounds with the same passion as I would when I have an audience’ (S24).

Discussion

The research question asked what second year university music performance students learn about multisensory aspects of performing in the performance of others. In doing so, the study sought to unlock music students’ explicit and tacit knowledge about the multisensory nature of music performance in order to equip them with knowledge and skills to capitalise on their inherent perceptual capabilities. Students were encouraged to reflect on their responses to screened and unscreened performances (by the two professional and two student performers), in an experiential learning workshop, and respond to the performing critically. We tracked students’ expectations of the workshop, their first impressions of the screened and unscreened performances, and their subsequent reflections about the reception of music performances.

Some student responses reflected the literature but also gave new insights into their performance thinking through the revealing of explicit and tacit performing knowledge. By investigating expectations, first impressions of both screened and unscreened performances and finally reflections, a range of educational implications emerged from the workshop. Student expectations included a good understanding of the concept of responding to screened and unscreened performances, noting both explicit and tacit knowledge and this understanding revealed a range of different responses. They recognised possible challenges to their perceptions (Behne & Wöllner, 2011), where sight transmits more information than the sound of performance (Tsay, 2013), were excited by the challenge of acting as responder (Waddell & Williamon, 2017) and keen to find out how their attention might be skewed by the sound-only and sound and sight presentations (Waddell et al., 2019). This can be interpreted as an expectation of the revealing of some tacit aspects of music performance. The potential for the professional experience in a class setting was welcomed (Mitchell & Benedict, 2017) and students recognised the potential to enhance their own skillsets (Blom, 2008). Any expected bias in the unscreened was due to the multisensory, complementary nature of the two senses (Tsay, 2013). Despite the overwhelming body of evidence on the power of the visuals (e.g. Platz & Kopiez, 2012), a small number of students remained unconvinced and were confident in their audio and audiovisual evaluation acuity, drawing on their existing knowledge of explicit aspects of performing. But this could change. For example, one student expected ‘the music will be the same with and without eyes’ (S28) but later, in the sighted performance, found the role of ‘silence before a performance’ (S28) new and interesting.

Students expected that their first impressions of the screened performance would be identifying specific techniques of the performers as if in an examination setting (Stanley et al., 2002). For the screened performances, student reflections focussed on hearing more about the performances with a reduction in distractions (Waddell & Williamon, 2017) and in doing so revealed what had been tacit knowledge. For example, what they did not anticipate, in their first impressions, was their appreciation of the mournful, dark timbre of the professional performers’ cello and saxophone and the performers’ use of the acoustic space. This piqued their creative interest in listening critically (Blom, 2008), and in imagining how performers manipulate the performance space. The deliberate use of long pauses prompted students’ heightened awareness of silence and founded their curiosity about these screened performances, where all normal visual cues were absent (Huang & Krumhansl, 2011). The extra-musical sounds behind the screen were intriguing and these students became aware of the absence of visuals, and their value in real-life performance assessment (Encarnacao & Blom, 2020).

Listening without looking was challenging, as the full range of performance information was not available. A screened performance meant missing emotion or expression being conveyed from performer to receiver (Broughton & Stevens, 2009). Students missed facial expressions, seeing the physicality of articulation and the enthusiasm and passion which comes from awareness there is an audience (Platz & Kopiez, 2012). Students’ cautious or critical impressions were valuable for the study and confirmed that there is complementary information in multisensory presentations to augment the receivers’ impressions (Shams & Seitz, 2008).

Seeing the performers augmented the audio-only experience with the visual information enhancing most of the audience’s impressions. The absence of sight in the screened performances was highlighted in unscreened, and many students were both relieved to have a complete picture, and overwhelmed by sight (Mitchell, 2018). Body movement and facial expressions appeared essential to understanding the performers’ intentions, and this visual body language transmitted critical information not available in audio only presentations (Broughton & Stevens, 2009). When performers tried too hard to express themselves, this could be distracting in the screened performances as they impacted the sound, rather than enhanced the emotional or expressive content. Students became aware that seeing the player meant anticipating the next move and sound, but not seeing gave a sensation of uncertainty (Mitchell & Benedict, 2017). In the unscreened performances, subtle visual gestures were satisfying and complemented the aural musical message (Vuoskoski et al., 2014). Seeing the performer did not simply result in improving their concept of performance quality (Tsay, 2013), but improved students’ connection with the performer and performance in ways students had not anticipated (Biggs, 2004).

This multisensory workshop prompted students to reconsider the way they receive music performance. The student comments covered a range of different responses, moving from an expectation of possible bias when reflecting on the performing of others, to detailed observations of the screened and unscreened performance, noting specific sound and sight aspects which reflect tacit knowledge of performing by the professionals but also by the students’ peers. The experiential aspect of learning by doing inspired students to question the transmission of information, and to redefine their presumptions about music performance (Carlson & Skaggs, 2000). Deep and critical listening was evident when students wrote of hearing gesture in sound, and not relying on visual stimuli. They commented on prejudging the performers before the music starts and promising to listen without bias thus demonstrating a shift in their thinking about music performance evaluation (Creech et al., 2008). Separating audio-only and visual-only presentations in experimental study designs alerts audiences and researchers to elements of sensory information (e.g. Tsay, 2013) but this is unrealistic in real-world performance contexts where performance is transmitted by sound or sound and sight. Nevertheless, students hit their ‘eureka’ moment (Blom, 2014) about the importance of both sight and sound in music performance.

A limitation of the study was the lack of opportunity to interview a group of students in depth. Following up with students after a period of time to see how they have engaged with the learning in the workshop is a research project for the future. A further limitation was the focus on sight and sound only while current research is interested in embodied cognition. Future studies could consider the way in which students, performers and facilitators can adapt previous research findings into new performance teaching and learning environments.

Conclusions and future directions

Critical research may be compelling, but without context, it lacks meaning and does not provide a useful resource for students in training (Marsh & Ramsden, 2015; Mitchell, 2018). By moving beyond the passive content delivery of a lecture, to the active experience of a multisensory workshop, students were encouraged to capitalise on their perceptual capacities, to recognise their biases, redefine explicit and tacit knowledge on their own terms and draw these understandings into their own performing. The workshops moved the classroom audition environment (Mitchell & Benedict, 2017) to the classroom environment of responding to the performing of others. In doing so, the study could be viewed as a further example to illustrate van der Schyff et al.’s (2022) comment that ‘musical learning. . .is an ongoing process in which the learner maintains and develops a condition of self-realisation in relation with their contingent milieu (instruments, teachers and peers, social and cultural dynamics and so on)’ (p. 183) with the classroom workshop a potentially valuable higher education environment involving all of the factors listed.

Experiential learning and high-level discussions with the professionals reinforced students’ understanding of tacit knowledge about multisensory music performance (Biggs, 2004; Jarvis, 2007). It enabled students to generate tools to reflect on perceptual responses to, and evaluations of, music performance as well as their own future performance preparation. While much of the literature focussed on assessment, this was not the aim of the workshop, but the thinking undertaken by the students is potentially useful for future careers. For the university teachers, there was a recognition that students respond to screened and unscreened performance in a range of different ways, with differing preferences and opinions. These understandings have educational implications for teaching university performance students which can be drawn into their own performing, and when they experience the performing of others. Teaching performance must place a strong emphasis on the act of performing itself, asking students to see and hear inside the performing experience of others. It revealed both explicit and tacit performing knowledge – showing there is also much to discuss, debate and consider.