I took part in a piece of Bristol University research, held one evening at St. George’s Bristol, after picking up a flyer about it in a local music shop. The researchers were looking at concert programming – what makes an appealing concert programme and how does this differ if the potential audience is more musically knowledgeable? Do people avoid relatively unknown pieces or are some people actually attacted by the idea of hearing something new? Do people like programmes all from the same composer or period, or prefer variety? We were offered multiple-choice options for programmes and picked selections that we would like. (I suspect at least one of the ‘new music’ pieces was actually invented, so as to be guaranteed to be new to everyone!)
To gauge our level of musical knowledge there was an associated quiz. I won’t go into great detail because the researchers might use the questions again elsewhere. There were some simple aural tests, questions on musical history, and pieces of music and instruments to identify. We were also played multiple recordings of the same passage and asked which interpretation we preferred. I’ll just describe one question which was I think included out of interest rather than to test us. We heard three performances of a piece of guitar music by Albeniz and were asked to say which we thought was played by a woman. Actually I got this right, though purely by guessing. With pianists, I think it is true that women tend to have a lighter touch than men, but the overall range is the same, so you can’t tell by listening.
I’m happy to say that I won the competition, mainly due to being able to identify most of the pieces of music, so I got two free tickets to go to St. George’s in June.