The Man Transforming Classical Music into a Game

Interview with Micha Hamel

How do you use gamification to get people to really listen to classical music? And in the process, can you also contribute to developing a society in which people are better at listening to each other? Within RASL, this is the research question being addressed by a group of experts led by researcher and artist Micha Hamel who believes that “classical music can teach you to listen to multiple perspectives.”

Incredibly enthusiastic. That is the most appropriate description for composer, poet, musician and researcher Micha Hamel. His eyes sparkle and his voice skips as he talks about GAMPSISS (GAmeful Music Performances for Smart, Inclusive, and Sustainable Societies), his current project conducted on behalf of Codarts and in partnership with Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR), Delft University of Technology (TU Delft) and the Willem de Kooning Academy (WdKA), in which he is researching the possibilities of opening the minds and ears of listeners to classical music in a playful way.

You might recognize Hamel from TV. He has coached people in the entertainment programme “Maestro”, including budding conductor Catherine Keyl. He also produces virtual reality systems and operas that tour throughout the country and has written various poetry books with which he regularly attends literary festivals. “I do anything as long as it involves music and literature. If you were to ask me what I am, I’d say I’m an artist. Full stop.”

 

Test of time

The Codarts lecturer has been conducting research into the current state of classical music since 2010. How do we reach new people? And what options are there to give classical music a popular image? Such questions don’t just appear out of nowhere, he explained. “Many orchestras are having to merge, and organisations are finding it hard to fill their concert halls. I’ve been using innovative formats and debates to engage in the discussion about the artistic content of our concert life for some time now. That’s why, as lecturer, I was given this topic.”

Hamel’s research also resulted in the book Speelruimte voor Klassieke Muziek in de 21e Eeuw (Space to Play for Classical Music in the 21st Century). An important insight he gained while working on the book is that some attempts to make classical music “trendy” (such as adding a VJ or pop artist to a performance) result in value being lost. “If you add a VJ to a Brahms symphony, you may have a more theatrical experience, but what it’s really about, the music as music, is diluted. This music is actually meant for close and concentrated listening and that’s how you get the most out of it.”

Don’t misunderstand Hamel—some music lends itself really well for theatrical interventions and cross-pollination with other domains. “There have been numerous successes, and the field is brimming with creative initiatives. However, these initiatives should not arise from panic, from the urge to be up to date at whatever the cost. If all concerts were to be theatricalized, we’d be at the beck and call of spectacle culture. We would then lose a large part of our repertoire, purely because everything in these works takes place within the composition and not outside of it. I wouldn’t be bothered if music were no longer played because nobody enjoys it anymore or because it doesn’t stand the test of time. But I have the idea that music is disappearing for the wrong reasons. That’s why, as an artist and composer, I need to stand up and say ‘No, we’re going to do this differently.’”

 

Best way to enjoy it

Halfway through 2017, he received an invitation from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) for a smart culture call: a call for research ideas in the creative industry. The RASL research consortium had just been established, so this offered the opportunity to address the dilemma of disappearing music. Hamel describes this as a “heritage issue”. “We have the classical music sector in which people study and work and to which an audience is attracted. But will that audience continue to attend? The younger generations, people with a non-Dutch background, an inclusive audience? What is the real value of this heritage? And, of course, there is also a political dimension, because it is a subsidized art form.” Via his GAMPSISS research, Hamel wants to determine how classical music can be opened up in a way that is also meaningful for society as a whole in the 21st century.

Provocatively, Hamel suggests that the “blame” for the decreased interest in classic music does not lie with the music itself but with the listener. “Many people have no idea what they are supposed to do or can do at a concert, let alone that they could form a nuanced opinion about the music. On the one hand, this is because they don’t know enough about the tradition and approach of music making. On the other hand, more importantly, listening as an activity is insufficiently developed.” Hamel would like to convert visitors into “engaged listeners” again. “That is the best way to enjoy music—being there, being involved and feeling the work envelop you.”

 

Listening bubbles

Together with his colleagues from Codarts, EUR, TU Delft and WdKA, Hamel concluded that visitors’ ears need to be reset. To do this, the team is designing classical music games to help listeners learn to listen better. Hamel stresses that this is definitely not some kind of PlayStation experience using controllers in the concert hall. Because it is crucial that visitors continue to experience classical music as “a feast of emotional stimuli that you receive purely via the ears”, his team is considering a listening challenge to train and develop people’s hearing gradually, including visits to concerts. “For instance, you could listen to a Mozart piano concerto as a competition between the piano and the orchestra. Which of the two was the winner? Or you could listen to the flute and think about three images that come to mind. Such a listening task requires a different attitude and engagement.”

Notably, GAMPSISS researchers want to not only generate better classical music listeners but also encourage people in society to listen better to each other. “Listening effectively is extremely important for your humanity. But if you look around you, you see many forces, parties and people who approach each other in a confrontational way.” He is referring to the isolated bubbles where people live, from which they mainly transmit but do not listen. This continues to erode mutual empathy. That is why the greatest objective of GAMPSISS is to enable people to realize and value ‘multi-perspectivity’, both in the concert hall and in society. “Can you distinguish various voices? This is also why we chose classical music, because it contains a lot of internal dissenting voices and paradoxical forces. It is the art form that gave a voice to the significant social ideals of the 19th century. With classical music, you can practise listening to multiple perspectives.”

 

The very best critic

GAMPSIS extends across many research domains—music that will be lost, making people more empathetic, games that entice listeners—and various institutional partnerships: Codarts (Micha Hamel, classical music knowledge and artistic research into listening), TU Delft (Rens Kortmann and Annebeth Erdbrink, development and realisation of games), EUR (Janna Michael and Koen van Eijck, cultural sociology research into listening behaviour) and WdKA (Florian Cramer, joint-research project with students in the design and testing of game variants). Hamel acts as the project manager, tasked with ensuring that everything stays on track. Although it may seem that working with all these different researchers and domains requires a bit of endurance, Hamel smiles, “I don’t wake up or go to bed crying. I’m working with really pleasant and good people. And as a composer, conductor and programmer, I have a great deal of experience with complex projects and complex schedules.”

Hamel’s philosophy is that you need to allow intelligent people to do what they are good at, without disturbing them too much or hindering them with regulations. He has also decided to harmonize all the research lines but not to have them totally merge together. “Because, for instance, if my research fails, it shouldn’t be the case that all the other lines fail too. Each research line must have its own value. That’s why we are working in constructive independence.” And yes, there is a danger that all these research lines will start to take on a life of their own and will not connect with each other. Hamel feigns nonchalance, “Well, we’d do something about that, wouldn’t we?”

To ensure that the research remains tethered to reality, 22 parties from the field are contributing to the project, including concert halls, orchestras and ensembles. In addition to financial support, they are providing musicians for interviews and concert tickets for listeners who will be participating in the games in 2019. “Their contributions will deliver the best criticism we could have, because they are the people who will have to implement our solutions and sell the tickets.”

 

Obtaining points and tokens

Hamel has already conducted large-scale research into listening, using literature research, interviews with experts and listening sessions with laypersons. The resulting listening model forms the basis for the development of the game. Annebeth Erdbrink, the PhD student who is devising game forms on behalf of TU Delft, has been orienting herself on the success factors of games that tempt people into action. “Because that is what we want with this project—that people think, yeah, let’s go to a concert, that’s a cool idea!” And EUR researcher Janna Michael has been investigating what would drive the intended audience groups to a classical concert. The three research lines—listening, game factors and audience promotion—should result in the criteria for a game. Arlon Luijten, who has experience with devising gamification within theatrical contexts, is also devising how such a game can be combined with the classical concert.

GAMPSISS should be completed by October 2021. If everything goes as planned, Hamel anticipates two results from the research. The first result would be a game form that can be immediately applied to various concerts. “In addition to a programme booklet, visitors can also buy an app for a few euros,” says Hamel. “This will enable them to prepare for meaningful and sensitive listening.” The second result needs to be the creation of an entirely new format for the gamification of the concert experience. Listening will always be central, but game forms will also open up the artistic content. “For instance, the Brahms symphony that is incompatible with a VJ—to activate the audience, you may need an entirely different room or you may need to play the symphony three times. Listeners could complete a puzzle of all the musical components and collect points or tokens, or ask each other about what they’ve heard. Such a concert is then no longer just a concert, but a ‘musical event’ in which the music is examined in greater depth.”

● More information about Gampsiss can be found on www.gampsiss.nl

 

● More information is available on www.michahamel.com