Listening like an etnographer
I still remember the very first time I attended a symphonic concert: the overwhelming red plush, the waiting silence in the hall before the conductor came up, the disturbed looks when I accidentally started clapping between parts of a symphony. Those disturbed looks taught me something: apparently, I broke a rule that applies here. Like any social situation, concerts cannot do without unspoken rules. In daily life we hardly think about those social rules and customs, we only notice them when they are broken.
In social science, researchers try to understand exactly what the social rules of all kinds of situations are and what they teach us about the culture in question. Following in the footsteps of researchers who traveled to other parts of the world to study indigenous cultures, a scientific method of researching social situations developed: ethnography. Ethnographers try to understand these situations by observing and describing them, often for a long time. By not identifying with what is completely familiar and self-evident to the participants in that situation, but looking at it as someone who does not yet know how it should be done, the rules become visible.
In the MCICM we conduct ethnographic research into the world of classical music. As an ethnographer I entered the practice of philharmonie zuidnederland in 2017. I wanted to learn how the orchestra tried to innovate the role of its audience and what is difficult about that. That's why I followed how an experimental concert is organised. I observed during meetings, in the office, at rehearsals and of course during concerts. And I asked questions about everything that surprised me. By sharing my observations, it also became possible for the orchestra to look at itself with new eyes.
Together we learned that experimental concerts consist of a mix of existing and new social and artistic practices. For example, performing the music at a high level remains important, but musicians often have to fill new roles and the audience is expected to behave in different ways. In these innovative projects we, from audience to musician, have to find out how it should be done without being familiar with the situation. It also helps not to blindly fall back on the customs you already know, but to take seriously what you don't know yet and learn from it. During an innovative concert we all become a bit of an ethnographer.
Veerle Spronck
PhD researcher at MCICM
