Musicking. Christopher Small G.

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       Musicking

      MUSIC / CULTURE

       A series from Wesleyan University Press Edited by George Lipsitz, Susan McClary, and Robert Walser

      My Music by Susan D. Crafts, Daniel Cavicchi, Charles Keil, and the Music in Daily Life Project

      Running with the Devil: Power, Gender, and Madness in Heavy Metal Music by Robert Walser

      Subcultural Sounds: Micromusics of the West by Mark Slobin

      Upside Your Head! Rhythm and Blues on Central Avenue by Johnny Otis

      Dissonant Identities: The Rock ’n’ Roll Scene in Austin, Texas by Barry Shank

      Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America by Tricia Rose

      Club Cultures: Music, Media and Subcultural Capital by Sarah Thornton

      Popular Music in Theory by Keith Negus

      Listening to Salsa: Gender, Latin Popular Music, and Puerto Rican Cultures by Frances Aparicio

      Any Sound You Can Imagine: Making Music/Consuming Technology by Paul Théberge

      Voices in Bali: Energies and Perceptions in Vocal Music and Dance Theater by Edward Herbst

      A Thousand Honey Creeks Later: My Life in Music from Basie to Motown—and Beyond by Preston Love

      Music of the Common Tongue: Survival and Celebration in African American Music by Christopher Small

      Musicking: The Meanings of Performing and Listening by Christopher Small

      Music, Society, Education by Christopher Small

      Singing Archaeology: Philip Glass’s Akhnaten by John Richardson

      Metal, Rock, and Jazz: Perception and the Phenomenology of Musical Experience by Harris M. Berger

      Music and Cinema edited by James Buhler, Caryl Flinn, and David Neumeyer

      (continued on page 231)

      CHRISTOPHER SMALL

       Musicking

      THE MEANINGS OF

      PERFORMING AND

      LISTENING

      Published by Wesleyan University Press, Middletown, CT 06459

       www.wesleyan.edu/wespress

      © 1998 by Christopher Small

      All rights reserved

      Originally produced in 1998 by Wesleyan/

      University Press of New England, Hanover, NH 03755

      CIP data appear at the end of the book

      Printed in the United States of America

      10 9 8 7 6 5

      ISBNS for the paperback edition:

      ISBN-13: 978–0–8195–2257–3

      ISBN-10: 0–8195–2257–0

Wesleyan University Press is a member of the Green Press Initiative. The paper used in this book meets their minimum requirement for recycled paper.

       Contents

       Prelude: Music and Musicking

       1. A Place for Hearing

       2. A Thoroughly Contemporary Affair

       3. Sharing with Strangers

       Interlude 1 The Language of Gesture

       4. A Separate World

       5. A Humble Bow

       6. Summoning Up the Dead Composer

       Interlude 2 The Mother of All the Arts

       7. Score and Parts

       8. Harmony, Heavenly Harmony

       Interlude 3 Socially Constructed Meanings

       9. An Art of the Theater

       10. A Drama of Relationships

       11. A Vision of Order

       12. What’s Really Going On Here?

       13. A Solitary Flute Player

       Postlude: Was It a Good Performance and How Do You Know?

       Bibliography

       Index

       Musicking

       Prelude

      Music and Musicking

      In a concert hall, two thousand people settle in their seats, and an intense silence falls. A hundred musicians bring their instruments to the ready. The conductor raises his baton, and after a few moments the symphony begins. As the orchestra plays, each member of the audience sits alone, listening to the work of the great, dead, composer.

      In a supermarket, loudspeakers fill the big space with anodyne melodies that envelop customers, checkout clerks, shelf assistants and managers, uniting them in their common