1Hi, Joanna, good to meet you.
2Now, before we discuss your new research project.
3I'd like to hear something about the psychology study you did last year for your Master's degree.
4So how did you choose your subjects for that?
5Well, I had six subjects, all professional musicians, and all female.
6Three were violinists
7and there was also a cello player and a pianist and a flute player.
8They were all very highly regarded in the music world
9and they'd done quite extensive tours in different continents,
10and quite a few had won prizes in competitions as well.
11And they were quite young, weren't they?
12Yes, between 25 and 29 -
13the mean was 27.8.
14I wasn't specifically looking for artists who'd produced recordings but...
15this is something that's just taken for granted these days, and they all had.
16Right.
17Now you collected your data through telephone interviews, didn't you?
18Yes.
19I realised if I was going to interview leading musicians, it'd only be possible over the phone because they're so busy.
20I recorded them using a telephone recording adaptor.
21I'd been worried about the quality, but it worked out all right.
22I managed at least a 30-minute interview with each subject, sometimes longer.
23Did doing it on the phone make it more stressful?
24I'd thought it might...
25it was all quite informal though and in fact they seemed very keen to talk.
26And I don't think using the phone meant I got less rich data rather the opposite in fact.
27Interesting.
28And you were looking at how performers dress for concert performances?
29That's right.
30My research investigated the way players see their role as a musician
31and how this is linked to the type of clothing they decide to wear.
32But that focus didn't emerge immediately.
33When I started I was more interested in trying to investigate the impact of what was worn on those listening,
34and also whether someone like a violinist might adopt a different style of clothing from, say, someone playing the flute or the trumpet.
35It's interesting that the choice of dress is up to the individual, isn't it?
36Yes, you'd expect there to be rules about it in orchestras, but that's quite rare.
37You only had women performers in your study.
38Was that because male musicians are less worried about fashion?
39I think a lot of the men are very much influenced by fashion,
40but in social terms the choices they have are more limited...
41they'd really upset audiences if they strayed away from quite narrow boundaries.
42Now, popular music has quite different expectations.
43Did you read Mike Frost's article about the dress of women performers in popular music...
44No.
45where he points out that a lot of female singers and musicians in popular music tend to dress down in performances,
46and wear less feminine clothes, erm, like jeans instead of skirts,
47and he suggests this is because otherwise they'd just be discounted as trivial.
48But you could argue they're just wearing what's practical...
49I mean, a pop-music concert is usually a pretty energetic affair.
50Yes, he doesn't make that point, but I think you're probably right.
51I was interested by the effect of the audience at a musical performance when it came to the choice of dress.
52The subjects I interviewed felt this was really important.
53It's all to do with what we understand by performance as a public event.
54They believed the audience had certain expectations
55and it was up to them as performers to fulfill these expectations to show a kind of esteem...
56they weren't afraid of looking as if they'd made an effort to look good.
57I think in the past the audience would have had those expectations of one another too,
58but that's not really the case now, not in the UK anyway.
59No.
60And I also got interested in what sports scientists are doing too, with regard to clothing.
61Musicians are quite vulnerable physically, aren't they, because...
62the movements they carry out are very intensive and repetitive, so...
63I'd imagine some features of sports clothing could safeguard the players from the potentially dangerous effects of this sort of thing.
64Yes, but musicians don't really consider it.
65They avoid clothing that obviously restricts their movements, but that's as far as they go.
66Anyway, coming back to your own research, do you have any idea where you're going from here?
67I was thinking of doing a study using an audience...