In the final year of my undergraduate degree I completed a module called Music, Conflict and Social Change. This module introduced me to the field of ethnomusicology: the study of how music manifests in culture (later I would learn that every academic defines ethnomusicology differently. This is my definition).
My reading for this dule inspired an epiphany: I wanted to research audience experiences of my hometown concert hall, Saffron Hall (a state-of-the-art concert hall attached to a comprehensive school in rural Essex). I realised that the best way to achieve this goal was through completing an MA in Ethnomusicology, so that's what I spent the subsequent academic year doing.
4 months of fieldwork (108 pages of fieldnotes), 53 completed surveys, 13 excel charts and 207 pages of academic reading notes later, I finished my study. The results can be found below!
A huge thanks goes out to the staff, volunteers and audience members of Saffron Hall for generously indulging my curiosity, my supervisor Hwee-San Tan for her guidance and understanding, and Fiorella Montero Diaz for introducing me to ethnomusicology in the first place!
Related Pages: 2019 Archives