| Hi, Joanna, good to meet you. |
| Now, before we discuss your new research project. |
| I'd like to hear something about the psychology study you did last year for your Master's degree. |
| So how did you choose your subjects for that? |
| Well, I had six subjects, all professional musicians, and all female. |
| Three were violinists |
| and there was also a cello player and a pianist and a flute player. |
| They were all very highly regarded in the music world |
| and they'd done quite extensive tours in different continents, |
| and quite a few had won prizes in competitions as well. |
| And they were quite young, weren't they? |
| Yes, between 25 and 29 - |
| the mean was 27.8. |
| I wasn't specifically looking for artists who'd produced recordings but... |
| this is something that's just taken for granted these days, and they all had. |
| Right. |
| Now you collected your data through telephone interviews, didn't you? |
| Yes. |
| I realised if I was going to interview leading musicians, it'd only be possible over the phone because they're so busy. |
| I recorded them using a telephone recording adaptor. |
| I'd been worried about the quality, but it worked out all right. |
| I managed at least a 30-minute interview with each subject, sometimes longer. |
| Did doing it on the phone make it more stressful? |
| I'd thought it might... |
| it was all quite informal though and in fact they seemed very keen to talk. |
| And I don't think using the phone meant I got less rich data rather the opposite in fact. |
| Interesting. |
| And you were looking at how performers dress for concert performances? |
| That's right. |
| My research investigated the way players see their role as a musician |
| and how this is linked to the type of clothing they decide to wear. |
| But that focus didn't emerge immediately. |
| When I started I was more interested in trying to investigate the impact of what was worn on those listening, |
| and also whether someone like a violinist might adopt a different style of clothing from, say, someone playing the flute or the trumpet. |
| It's interesting that the choice of dress is up to the individual, isn't it? |
| Yes, you'd expect there to be rules about it in orchestras, but that's quite rare. |
| You only had women performers in your study. |
| Was that because male musicians are less worried about fashion? |
| I think a lot of the men are very much influenced by fashion, |
| but in social terms the choices they have are more limited... |
| they'd really upset audiences if they strayed away from quite narrow boundaries. |
| Now, popular music has quite different expectations. |
| Did you read Mike Frost's article about the dress of women performers in popular music... |
| No. |
| where he points out that a lot of female singers and musicians in popular music tend to dress down in performances, |
| and wear less feminine clothes, erm, like jeans instead of skirts, |
| and he suggests this is because otherwise they'd just be discounted as trivial. |
| But you could argue they're just wearing what's practical... |
| I mean, a pop-music concert is usually a pretty energetic affair. |
| Yes, he doesn't make that point, but I think you're probably right. |
| I was interested by the effect of the audience at a musical performance when it came to the choice of dress. |
| The subjects I interviewed felt this was really important. |
| It's all to do with what we understand by performance as a public event. |
| They believed the audience had certain expectations |
| and it was up to them as performers to fulfill these expectations to show a kind of esteem... |
| they weren't afraid of looking as if they'd made an effort to look good. |
| I think in the past the audience would have had those expectations of one another too, |
| but that's not really the case now, not in the UK anyway. |
| No. |
| And I also got interested in what sports scientists are doing too, with regard to clothing. |
| Musicians are quite vulnerable physically, aren't they, because... |
| the movements they carry out are very intensive and repetitive, so... |
| I'd imagine some features of sports clothing could safeguard the players from the potentially dangerous effects of this sort of thing. |
| Yes, but musicians don't really consider it. |
| They avoid clothing that obviously restricts their movements, but that's as far as they go. |
| Anyway, coming back to your own research, do you have any idea where you're going from here? |
| I was thinking of doing a study using an audience... |