The workshops: the main study

The rationale for using workshops as a data collecting method in the main study remains the same as for the pilot study. However, the structure, content and presentation of the workshops were modified to accommodate a shift in focus from studying individual and group movement experiences of exploring musical phrasing in a general way to studying an individual’s experience of applying a Somatic Movement approach to implementing phrasing choices at the instrument. I decided to use only one participant, a pianist, selected from the original list of potential volunteer participants for the pilot study. I realized that working with only one participant could raise issues of reliability. However, regarding the validity of the work it was important that I had the opportunity to focus more deeply on the embodied experience of how musicians made connections within themselves, their instruments and the physical and social environment they found themselves in. In addition, it was important that I could focus more tightly on individual experience, go deeper into that experience and explore in finer detail how movement could be transformed in to music at the piano. Further, from the pilot study, I had learnt that the workshops generated extensive amounts of data. This prevented the depth of analysis, interpretation and the attribution of meaning that I would have liked to have accomplished. As a result, I planned to deliver three workshops rather than seven, which were to be video recorded, over a twelve-month period. This timetable was chosen partly because of time restrictions of the participant but also to give the participant time to try some of the exercises out during personal practice time outside the research context as a means of deepening the experience.

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The three workshops focused on two contrasting pieces of music: Neil March’s

Diversions and the first movement of Beethoven’s Sonata in C Minor Op.10 No.1.

Workshops 1 and 2 focused on Diversions and Workshop 3, the Beethoven Sonata. In each case the participant was given seven days to prepare the pieces for performance. Two workshops were arranged to work on Diversions because the participant was unfamiliar with this piece and asked to repeat the workshop after he had had more time to learn to play the piece on the piano with greater accuracy. The Beethoven Sonata was already part of the participant’s repertoire and therefore one workshop was sufficient to address the movement/music exercises in a comfortable way for the participant. As a way of allowing the participant to track his experience of the workshops I devised a ‘before’ and ‘after’ scenario. I did this by dividing each workshop into three parts.

In part one, the participant was asked to sketch his musical phrasing choices on the score of the piece to be performed before playing the piece on the piano. In part two, the movement/music exercises were carried out, following the same structure as the pilot study outlined in Figure 3.1. In part three, the participant played the piece again and was asked to re-sketch his phrasing choices, noting any changes, if any, he would like to make. Each workshop was immediately followed by an interview, in which the participant was encouraged to focus on the experience of taking part in the workshop and describe it in detail. Further details regarding the content of the workshops can be found in Chapter 6.

3.5.3 Interviews

In hermeneutic phenomenological research the interview serves very specific purposes. First, it is used to explore and gather accounts of participants’ lived experiences. Second, it is a means of developing an informal dialogue with the participant about the meaning of an experience (van Manen 2007). This can be done through reflection with the participant that allows them to tell their story in their own words.

There are various ways of conducting interviews, including structured, semi-structured and unstructured formats. The different formats can be linked to the depth of the

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response sought (Robson 2002: 269). In the pilot study, a semi-structured interview format was chosen, providing the interviewee with much more flexibility of response than in a structured interview, where fixed questions are asked in a pre-decided order. Although semi-structured interviews have pre-determined questions, the order can be modified, wording can be changed and seemingly inappropriate questions can be left out or additional ones added (Robson 2002: 270). Semi-structured interviews provide richer data compared with structured interviews and allow participants freedom to respond to questions and to narrate their experiences without being tied down to specific answers (Morse and Field 1995). This feature helps interviewees feel comfortable talking about their experiences. A further advantage at the pilot stage of the investigation was that a semi-structured interview gave an opportunity to compare across interviews because some of the questions are pre-determined. The key questions helped to guide the amount of attention given to certain discussion topics, which were selected after considering Smith and Osborn’s (2003) suggestion for constructing an interview schedule using an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis approach.36 _{Further details on this approach are given in Section 3.8.}

In the main study, an unstructured interview format was chosen. This gave the interviewee more freedom to say whatever they liked on the broad topic of their experience of the workshops, with minimal prompting from the researcher (Miller and Crabtree 1999). This type of interview has a collaborative conversational structure that lends itself well to the task of reflecting on phenomenological meanings and, as such, was a suitable format for urging the participant to reflect upon and discuss his experience in greater depth than in a semi-structured interview (Langdridge 2007: 67; Bresler 2010: 12). Unstructured interviews can be tricky to manage. There are no pre- determined interview questions available to guide the conversation. Although initial focus question were used, it is quite easy to go off topic, which inevitably raises concerns about bias and reliability. Nevertheless, the unstructured interview has the potential to provide rich and highly illuminating material (Robson 2002: 273).

36 _{See Appendix P for a list of the selected discussion topics and key questions asked}

94 3.5.4 Video-assisted recall

As part of the process of collecting the data sets in the main study, the participant was asked to take part in a video-assisted recall interview to assist recall of their thoughts and feelings about the experience of doing the music/movement exercises/tasks in the workshops. In addition, participants were invited to reflect on what and how they did things and what they were thinking about at the time – that is, what was in their imagination.

Interpersonal process recall (IPR) is a qualitative video-assisted interview approach used for professional development by practitioners such as counsellors, doctors, managers, teachers, coaches and athletes to increase their awareness and understanding of how they interact with others (Larsen, Flesaker and Stege 2008: 19). It is also used as a method of learning and self-exploration (Allen 2004: 161). It was initially developed as a systematic research method to study college students’ thought processes during class discussions (Bloom 1954). It was developed by Norman Kagan and his colleagues in the 1970s to facilitate therapy and counsellor training through recall of videotaped interactions (Kagan 1980, 1984; Kagan and Kagan 1991). It is used to access individuals’ thoughts and feelings about experiences as they occurred at the time of the interaction under investigation.

As a process-focused interview method, IPR allows researchers to obtain insight into interactions through observation and by directly asking the interviewee to comment independently on interactions as they unfold. While watching a video of these interactions, interviewees are asked by the researcher to describe their underlying thoughts and feelings as they occurred during the interactions. A key feature of an IPR interview is to focus interviewees on their thoughts and feelings as they remember these having occurred during the session (or other event) rather than encouraging critique or self-confrontation.

Using IPR, I was able to access the participants’ thoughts and feelings about their experiences as they remembered them to have occurred in the music/movement

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workshops. Although I conducted semi-structured interviews in the pilot study and unstructured interviews in the main study, IPR gave me an opportunity to explore unspoken experiences in greater detail and to learn something new about their experiences of the workshop: things participants had no time to say, things that did not seem appropriate at the time, feelings, images, thoughts, sensations, fears and things that got in the way of them responding in the way they wanted. IPR can be used in many settings but for the purposes of my research I used the following process (adapted from Allen 2004: 159–170):

 The video recordings of all the workshops and post-workshop interviews were used to conduct the IPR interview. I acted as the facilitator to the participants’ recall.

 I invited the participants to play the video-recording in chronological order and to press the pause button when anything at all occurs to them that they might like to talk about regarding their experience at the time: any thought, feeling, sensation, memory, idea.

 When the participant paused the recording, I prompted their recall with questions that helped to focus the feedback on thoughts and feelings they had at the time and assisted and encouraged them to stay in the past tense. I used prompts such as: What do you remember thinking at this point? How were you feeling then? Do you recall any physical sensation? Do you recall any images, sensations? If you could change what you were doing at this point, what would it be? Did the setting affect you? Do you know what that was about? What was it like to carve the shape of a phrase in the air with your hand?

 I asked the participants to press ‘play’ when they were ready to move on until they came to something else that triggered a response, at which point they paused the recording again.

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them know that this was an opportunity for them to think about the original experience more fully than there had been time to in the workshop and in the post-workshop interview. I gave them the stop/start/pause button and invited them to pause and re-start the recording whenever they wanted.

IPR gave the participants the opportunity to reflect on their experiences through re- experiencing the workshops and interviews. Used in conjunction with my other data this allowed me to enrich my analysis and interpretation of the data and to deepen my understanding of the complexity of their experience as they told it in order to attribute meaning to emerging themes.