Babies prefer live opera to recordings
NewsA scoop from Ludwig Van Toronto revels why record sales are going down the chute:
Even babies prefer live over recorded music performance, as a recent study published by researchers at the University of Toronto and others reveals.
The paper, An itsy bitsy audience: Live performance facilitates infants’ attention and heart rate synchronization., was published in the journal Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts, (Jul 13, 2023). It’s a combined effort of researchers at the UofT Scarborough, Bucknell University, Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières, and the Dept. of Settlement & Community Services in Toronto.
The effects of music on audiences has been the subject of several studies in recent years. Here, the goal was to study the effects of music beyond a lab environment. The researchers examined the reactions of infants at live vs recorded versions of baby opera performances on a behavioural and physical level.
They analyzed results for two audiences made up of babies 6 to 14 months of age;
The two audiences watched a baby opera at the McMaster University LIVELab (a combination of concert hall and research facility);
Two more audiences in the same age range watched a recorded playback of the same performance in the same venue;
A third control group in the same age range viewed the playback at home via whatever device their families owned.
Read on here.
But in the Wasteland we have Met broadcasts to cinemas.
The fact that live performance is more engaging than a recording (of the same performance) is hardly revelatory. But that doesn’t explain why “record sales are going down the chute” since live and recorded performances have coexisted for a long time and there’s nothing in this research to suggest that the difference between them is increasing. Besides, in 2022 revenues from recorded music grew in the US for the seventh consecutive year and in the UK for the eighth consecutive year. So where, exactly, are sales going down the chute?
God, what next!
We can vouch here in Birmingham that opera and babies go well together! B’Opera does a fun and fine job, such as here at the Birmingham Festival 2023 last Tuesday:
https://www.birminghamfestival23.co.uk/whats-on/tuesday-1st-august/perrys-party-picnic-with-bopera/
They’re just too young to have heard Callas yet.