Does the choice of music which a busker plays affect how much money is donated? Perhaps not as so much as you might think.
Over the course of 24 days in 2019, a field experiment was carried out by a research team from Goldsmiths [1] University of London. It featured a professional busker [2] performing at Waterloo station on the London Underground network.
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Its aim was to investigate the extent to which performative aspects influence behavioural responses to music street performances. Two aspects of the performance were manipulated: familiarity of the music (familiar vs. unfamiliar) and body movements (expressive vs.restricted).”
278 bypassers donated, but whether the busker played well known hit songs, or lesser known ones in a similar style, appeared to make no significant difference to the cash received. Neither did body movements.
See: Anglada-Tort, Manuel; Thueringer, Heather and Omigie, Diana. 2019. The Busking Experiment: A Field Study Measuring Behavioural Responses to Street Music Performances. Psychomusicology: Music, Mind, and Brain, 29(1), pp. 46-55
Notes:
[1] Goldsmiths, officially, nowadays, has no trailing apostrophe. Though it may have done in the past, when it was Goldsmiths’ College.
[2] The photo is from the study – the identity of the professional busker is unclear.
Research research by Martin Gardiner