Which of
the following is true about audience members’ perception of a live musical performance?
A) Audiences perceive little expressive information from visual observations of performers’ bodies.
B) Visual aspects of performance heavily influence the perception of all audience members, including trained musicians.
C) Visual performance aspects are important to popular music audiences but not classical music audiences.
D) Among all listeners, performers’ bodily gestures are not nearly as communicative as their musical sounds.
event, carnival, or fair and come across a live musical performance.Although the music might be a style that you would not listen to onyour own time, the live performance may be so engaging that youfeel compelled to take it in. Although musical skills may be the mostimportant criteria on which musicians are judged (see chapters 1, 4,and 5), visual aspects of live performances are also very influentialon audiences. First Impressions In many social settings, people make judgments about other peoplebased on how they look. This is true when audience membersobserve musicians in a performance. Research has shown thatlisteners’ opinions about the musical quality of a performance areinfluenced by performers’ physical appearances. For example, Northand Hargreaves (1997b) had college students listen to original popmusic while, for each excerpt, viewing a picture of a musician whowas presented as the composer and performer. The listenersresponded more favorably to the same music when they believed itwas created by a physically attractive musician than by anunattractive one. Pieces allegedly by attractive performers werebetter liked and judged as reflecting greater artistic merit,sophistication, and intelligence. Similarly, Davidson and Coimbra(2001) documented the importance of physical appearance in theassessment of singers in a music college setting. Wapnick and colleagues (Wapniclc, Darrow, Kovacs, 8: Dalrymple, 1997; Wapnick, Kovacs Mazza, E: Darrow, 1998, 2000)conducted a series of studies that used musicians as evaluators (seealso chap_ter 11, section on music critics and jurors). These studiesalso expanded beyond physical attractiveness to consider otherfactors of what is commonly called “stage presence,” namely, dressand stage behavior. The performers being judged—singers,violinists, and pianists, respectively—showed great variability in theformality of their attire, despite their being instructed to dress for arecital or audition. They also exhibited diverse body language andstage mannerisms. In general, these studies reported higherappraisals of music performance for musicians who rated high in thecategories of attractiveness, dress, and stage behavior. Thesefindings suggest that how musicians take the stage is as important asthe quality of their music. Performers may “win over” an audience,at least in part, based on their physical appearance and on theirability to signal confidence through body carriage, smiling, and eyecontact with the audience. of course, the types of stage behaviors and appearance valuedby judges and audiences vary depending on the musical genre andcultural context. Performance etiquette is determined in large partby sociocultural norms. Within Western classical music theexpectation is formal attire, such as a dark coat and tie for men andan evening dress for women [black if they are playing in anorchestra; see figure 9.1 for a different approach). When walking onstage, a soloist is expected to greet the audience through facial