Category: Intervention

The final intervention will be based around a fusion of contemporary classical music and in choosing a venue I really wanted it to happen in East London, because its a famous trendy place (Admin-Cityspice, 2022) enable to gather young people easily. I got in touch with a Japanese tea room on Brick Lane that does a great job of blending traditional Japanese cake and teas with modern culture, for example by replacing the ingredients with traditional Japanese hojicha in the form of a latte, and it would love to hold different events at the venue, such as sake tastings and traditional Japanese dessert making classes. I contacted the business via Instagram and expressed my interest in working with them. 

The information of the tea room : https://www.katsute100.com

After receiving a reply from the shop, I contacted a friend of mine who studied saxophone and asked her to adapt some classical pieces. Fortunately, she is a professional and adapting and playing was very easy for her and she was available on the day of the event. The shop will provide the venue and equipment, and the shop’s catering menu will cater for a wide range of people, with plain tea, milk tea and wine, as well as traditional desserts.

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The event started at around 7.30pm and we arrived at 6.30pm to start setting up, including setting up the sound and backdrop stage set up. The venue was quite basic due to the need to be open for normal business on the second day and the need to get back to normal business conditions very quickly. Perhaps due to the weather conditions on the day, the turnout was far less than usual, despite all the publicity. Below are some photos and videos from the intervention on that day.

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This intervention is the one I am most satisfied with, although it still has room for improvement. The format, the location and the target audience it gathered were by far the most in line with the objectives of the project.

However, the audience was far from the expected number and as a direct result the feedback received was limited, I think this had something to do with the weather and the way it was presented. I conducted random interviews and judging by the feedback from the audience (80% of the audience are between 20s and 30s, in addition to other performers), they said they were surprised to hear classical music adaptations in this venue, after all it was in an area with trendy culture at its core, and the fusion adaptations reaped unanimous praise. At the same time, they also received some constructive comments on how classical music could be incorporated visually and emotionally into trendy culture in future designs, such as designing products in association with trendy brands, planning immersive classical music exhibitions, etc.

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Admin-Cityspice (2022) Street Art and Food Adventures in UK’s most famous street brick lane, City Spice. Available at: https://cityspice.co/street-art-and-food-adventures-in-uks-most-famous-street-brick-lane/ (Accessed: November 27, 2022). 

Inspired by the feedback from the langlang’s concert, I decided to try to focus on a fusion of classical and contemporary music, both in terms of playing contemporary music on classical instruments and in terms of repertoire adaptations. fun. The selection of music is an important part of this, as serious, solemn and religious repertoire is difficult to achieve in this intervention. At the same time, in order to argue whether the calming function of classical music is something that is difficult to achieve with other styles of music, I created another playlist of different styles of heavy metal music for the same participants to listen to. In order to allow them to appreciate and analyse the differences more deeply, they were asked to draw pictures to express their feelings, which also allowed for a better visualisation of the feelings.

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Regarding this intervention, I think it achieves my most fundamental aim above all, confirming the acceptance of the fusion repertoire and the uniqueness of classical music in terms of functionality. Graphically, the use of softer colours was inspired by the combination of classical and contemporary music, giving it a vivid, be-loved feel. The control group listening to heavy metal rock, on the other hand, uses darker colours and straighter lines, giving it a manic feel. In contrast, when listening to classical music, the group’s behaviour and emotions were calmer. The feedback analysis showed that the participants were very interested in this combination of music, and the integration of popular music elements also eased the threshold of appreciation. For the next intervention I think we can use the combination of classical and contemporary music as the main part of the design.

I wanted to combine classical music with a lifestyle that is approachable by young people, the phenomenon of coffee consumption is currently rife among young people as a lifestyle (Amani & Ihsaniyati, 2020), therefore coffee becomes a direction that can be developed. There are many different styles and functions of coffee shops, for example Starbucks and the cafe in Harrods offer completely different services. The cafe I chose was a more trendy one, located in a quiet neighbourhood and offering a professional barista course. I chose an interesting fusion of latté art and classical music.

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There are two types of latte art, laffing is more common in latte art and requires more basic knowledge and technique. My choice was coffee carving etching, which has a relatively low barrier to entry and is more interesting in terms of the process and presentation of the result. I have invited a friend who is very interested in coffee to attend this intervention.

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Classical music will be played as we make the coffee sculptures and we will need to create patterns inspired by classical music. I think the whole process is like creating a small work of art and getting a feel for the classical music calm in the process.

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The feedback from participator:

How do you find about the event?

M: I think the design of this event is new and interesting because is not common and doesn’t seem to require a lot of practice.

Do you know the similar event before?

M: I’ve only known of a few beginner barista courses so far, but it’s rare to see a fun course like this for coffee.

What do you think how can be improved?

M: I think there needs to be some initial instruction so that the experience is more immersive. The environment also needs to be quieter if this is to be developed into a project in the future.

Analysis of testing intervention:

This testing intervention was fairly straightforward, and the feedback suggested that it would be feasible to combine classical music and coffee in the form of latte art, but by evaluating it in relation to the comments and feedback from the tutorial, the intervention did not go far enough and only combined a superficial aspect. In fact, George raised an aspect that I had not considered, the need to argue for the uniqueness of classical music. Why is it necessary to use classical music rather than other forms of music? There is a lot of theoretical knowledge on the internet, but I would like to prove this aspect through a practical act, and the next intervention needs to be designed around this theme.

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Amani, A.F. and Ihsaniyati, H. (2020) “Barista art: Coffee education strategy to the community,” Mudra Jurnal Seni Budaya, 35(2), pp. 127–132. Available at: https://doi.org/10.31091/mudra.v35i2.1043. 

My first intervention was to get 10 volunteers are all aged 20-30, and divide them into two groups. I will create a list of classical music recommendations and they listened to the list for 20 minutes a day on a compulsory basis(they decided when to listen), and then returned to the experience a week later to get their experiences and opinions.

Group A – including 3 female and 2 male, the selection is mainly in a soothing and peace style.

Playlist:

Clair de Lune – Claude Debussy

Think of me – Andrew Lloyd Webber

The Swan – Charles Camille Saint-Saëns

Moonlight Sonata – Ludwig Van Beethoven

Memory – Andrew Lloyd Webber

Op. 9, No. 2 – Frédéric François Chopin

Symphony No. 6 – Ludwig Van Beethoven

Group B – including 2 female and 3 male, the selection is dominated by strong and upbeat styles.

Playlist:

Der Hölle Rache kocht in meinem Herzen – Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

La campanella – Liszt Ferencz

Hungarian Rhapsody No.2 – Liszt Ferencz

Réminiscences de Don Juan – Liszt Ferencz

Paganini Caprice No.24 – Paganini

Symphony No. 5 – Shostakovich

Symphony No.5 – Ludwig Van Beethoven

These two different playlists contain at least one symphony, one romantic piano solo, one classical piano solo, one non-piano solo and one opera/musical selection, all of which are over 20 minutes in length.

The main segments I observed were

1. Whether they listen to enough or even play more than 20 minutes a day.
2. Whether they are able to cultivate an interest in classical music.
3. Whether they are able to continue listening to classical music after a week without being reminded of it.
4. Some thoughts and comments on the intervention.

I will selected some constructive/worthy feedbacks to be incorporated into my subsequent interventions.

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Feedback and analysis

Track:

Day 1 

7 of 10 volunteers listen to playlist up or over or 20 minutes.

Day 2

10 of 10 volunteers listen to playlist up or over or 20 minutes.

Day 3

9 of 10 volunteers listen to playlist up or over or 20 minutes.

Day 4

8 of 10 volunteers listen to playlist up or over or 20 minutes.

Day 5

10 of 10 volunteers listen to playlist up or over or 20 minutes.

Day 6

9 of 10 volunteers listen to playlist up or over or 20 minutes.

Day 7

10 of 10 volunteers listen to playlist up or over or 20 minutes.

Feedback:

Group A:

Almost everyone is able to listen to the playlist for at least 20 minutes a day. 3 of 5 choose to listen to classical music on a routine daily schedule before sleep, or apply it to scenarios that require concentration, such as working or studying. According to their feedback, they find it easier to fall asleep before bed and it helps to reduce their insomnia symptoms. This genre of classical music also has a calming effect on stress and can help with emotional stability.

Whether or not you will listen to classical music independently in the future. 3 of 5

Whether you will follow the field of classical music more closely in the future. 3 of 5

Some thoughts and suggestions for this intervention:

a) This project helped me to be exposed to a style of music that I hadn’t really listened to before, and the moment I heard it I decided I wanted to listen to it before bed, and it did actually prove to be some relief for my sleep troubles. I think for the emotional area, classical music might be helpful.

b) I particularly liked the song think of me, which made me watch the film based on the musical, the Phantom of the Opera. Maybe it would be more interesting to promote classical music through videos, films, and visuals!

c) The music selected for this playlist in the classical style, like symphonies or solo pieces are interesting, but when I went to find some classical music to listen to on my own I felt very bored. Perhaps for the average listener, the choice of music is also very important in determining whether they find it “not boring” or not.

Group B:

One of the volunteers in this group only managed to reach 20 minutes on almost three days, and most of the time he needed a reminder from me to do so. His feedback was that he would only listen to the playlists he was interested in and could not find any application in his life, perhaps because of his preference for light music.

Other people use this playlist mostly for sports, walking and cooking. It’s worth mentioning that La campanella is loved by almost everyone, who finds it particularly interesting. I think this may have something to do with the melody and the structure of the composition, which I will need to analyse in a more specific way.

Whether or not you will listen to classical music independently in the future. 2 of 5

Whether you will follow the field of classical music more closely in the future. 3 of 5

Some thoughts and suggestions for this intervention:

e) I love La campanella and I loop this song over and over again when I exercise, it fits the vibe when I’m doing anaerobic exercise! I even go out and find different versions played by different people to listen to myself, even though I can’t hear some of the differences in the details, it doesn’t stop me from enjoying it!

f) Before participating in this project, I had almost no classical music in my playlist. What surprised me was that I didn’t expect classical music to take so many formats, breaking my stereotype of what classical music could be – dull. And the intricacy of the techniques involved made me admire the players and feel that it takes a very long time of hard work and talent to perform these well.