Musicking

Prelude - Music & Musicking

In the prelude, Small explores the following:

• What is the meaning of music?
• What is the function of music in human life?
• Music is an intellectual and spiritual achievement; it’s meaning can be found
within musical works – the art object itself
• The meaning & beauty are created whenever any performer approaches it with
love, skill & care
• Music exists with or without occasion – religious, social, political
• The meaning of music exists in the action – singing, playing, composing &
listening
• MUSICKING: “to perform…to make music”
To take part in a musical performance; whether by performing, listening,
rehearsing, practicing, composing, and dancing
• Everyone that are involved in Musicking bears responsibility in the meaning
• It is one of great aspects of human activity
• The art of Musicking helps us understand the relationships within our lives, such
as relationships with people & creatures that we share this planet with; to learn the
meanings within our lives

Chapter 1 - A Place for Hearing

A concert hall is not just a place for hearing, but a place of status, a landmark or focal
point in a cityscape, a symbol of the culture. The scale and detail of the architectural
design can tell the social importance and status of what goes on in the building.

Modern concert halls: 1) highly specialized buildings design for specific performances
2) influences a certain behavior expected in a performance
3) large performance halls are essential a 19th c. invention; the bigger the building, the
more it states that performances performed in that building are an important social
activity in their own right.

Architectural style of older concert halls: 1) emphasizes the continuity with the past of
European culture- Greek/Roman, Italian Renaissance, etc.
2) Architectural entry is meant to be grand and emphasizes the feeling of importance…
upon entering the hall, it gives the feeling of entering another world (ceremonial place)
3) In the hall- infrequent concert goers- self-conscious, lowering voices, in awe.
4) Frequent concert goers- submissive behavior, relaxation, at ease.
Auditoriums: convey an impression of luxury, avoidance of vulgarity/serious and
important behavior; isolation from the world of everyday life (no windows or sound
coming from outside the hall to remind anyone of outside life)
-one way communication- from composer to listener (through musicians)

The Rotunda at Ranelagh: -200 pleasure gardens of 18th c. London

Canaletto’s painting- big space- no seats; people standing, socializing in groups, giving
the impression that back in Mozart’s day, socializing and enjoying music were not two
separate activities- performance seemed the background to other social activities.
Unlike the painting, the way we listen to a performance in a hall is different, but
nonetheless the idea of a concert hall is a social construction, built with certain
assumptions of behavior…parallel between what takes place in the building and the
nature of human relationships.

Chapter 2 - Thoroughly Contemporary Affair

a look behind the scenes at the concert hall and at the process of producing a concert.

details the extensive planning that goes into such an event, and sees little possibility of
spontaneity. discusses some of the many ways the planning of such an event is
onstrained.

these include the booking of conductors, artists and orchestras, choosing and obtaining
repertory (parts and scores), creating programs and notes, and all the functioning of the
workers in and of the hall (from cleaning people to ticket sellers to technicians to sound
men, piano movers and tuners and etc).

additionally it details the star system which artificially manipulates the “market in
virtuosi” keeping them rare, it looks at the reification of the repertory into a fairly limited
canon of works (all pre-ww1), discusses the role of advertising, the music critic, and
transportation systems which all are in play in the production of such an event, and notes
that all of the above processes limit therefore the public’s input into what is actually
performed.

states that even with so many details going into single concert all this planning must
necessarily remain invisible, creating the illusion of a magical world free of commerce
and labor, even as all the relationships of the concert hall are ‘mediated by the passing of
money”

relates the wealth of western style industrialized cultures to this style of mucisking, and
states that this style of musicking, when it newly appears in other cultures, signifies the
emergence of a new middle class wishing to identify itself with the philosophies of
industrial societies.

remarks on the difference between these events and the original circumstances in which
these works were first performed.
Chapter 3 – Sharing with Strangers

- Whenever we go to see a sporting event, or a performance of some sort, we

accept, without thinking, that the audience and performers will be strangers.
- Back then, people who specialized in instrumental music were not just
instrumentalists, but they had other jobs as their main career (i.e. shoemaking,
smithing, etc.). The musicians were important because of the roles they played in
society and its rituals, like in celebrating death, marriage, birth, etc. Performers
and audience frequently became one and the same because everyone participated.
The performance was a part of the ritual.
- Musicking also had a role in social rituals of aristocracy; they hired musicians,
who were often also their servants, gardeners, valets, etc. Musicians were there to
perform as well as help their employers perform. Composers didn’t write for the
patron just to listen but to perform.
- In church, music was an offering to God which the choir sang on behalf of the
congregation.
- No admission was paid for these forms of performance.
- Back to modern day: audiences are strangers and are ok with that. Yet they’re not
strangers because the audience is self-selected – meaning, concert-goers go to
certain concerts because of who they are or feel they are.
- Audiences for symphonies are often older white, well educated, middle-upper
class, business people. Privacy and solitude are expected to be respected and is
not unusual during a performance. Audience also expected to be polite.
- Orchestra and audience are also strangers – they have different entrances/exits,
different seats, and never meet during the event.
- The concert hall, in a way, sets up relationships: privacy of individual expected,
good manners assumed, and performers and performance are not subjected to
audience response. Author (Christopher Small) suggests this is some kind of
ideal setting to those who attend because it is accepted as the norm.
- Ideas on the silence of the audience: Originally, [positive] noise during
performance (especially in between movements) was considered positive because
it conveyed active listening. Now, any noise is considered as being disruptive.
Since we no longer “make noise” (and no longer participate actively), this makes
us spectators, rather than participants.
- Public performances are open to anyone with the money for admission. The
experience is shared with strangers. 60s and 70s rock festivals were places where
people shared musical AND social experiences. Sociability was part of the
musical experience.
- Establishing of behavioral norms: the more the performance behavior deviates
from middle-class norms, the more enforcing of the norms is required. (i.e. the
need for more security guards/bouncers at, for example, a rock or rap concert)
- Relationship of the performer to the audience: popular artists aim to show their
solidarity with their audience. This is lacking at symphony concerts.
- Conclusion: a performance’s success should be gauged by its ability to create a
set of relationships that participants feel to be ideal and are able to “explore,
 affirm and celebrate the relationships”. Participants are the only ones who will
know what the nature of the relationship will be.

Interlude 1 – The Language of Gesture

• Tries to lay down a foundation for understanding a symphony concert.

• Question: What is musicking that human beings should like to practice it?
What are human beings that they should like to practice musicking?
• If musicking is an activity thru which we bring into existence a set of
relationships that model the relationships of our world, and we learn about and
explore and celebrate those relationships, then musicking is a way of knowing our
world of human relationships. (50)
• Smalls discusses the ideas of English anthropologist Gregory Bateson as similar
to his own.
• Bateson’s fundamental intuitions is a denial of Cartesian dualism ~ the idea that
the world is made up of two different and even incompatible kinds of substance…
matter and mind. The mind is a substance, but a process of life. Bateson defines
the mind simply as the ability to give and to respond to information.
• Creatures shape the environment as much as it shapes them.
• The farther we go up the scale of complexity, previous experience enters more
into the processing
• Human beings are not completely objective in their knowledge of the world, but
we need not conclude from that that we are completely subjective and can know
nothing for certain about it.
• Image formation is an active and creative process (54)
• There is a broad group between “purely objective” and “purely subjective” and it
is in that gap that human freedom and creativity live. (55)
• Asks the question, “What kind of information is it that all living creatures
need to be able to give and to respond to, and what does it concern?”
• Bateson states that it is not enough to send and receive messages through a
relationship. For creatures to understand the complete message, it need to know
about the context of that message~ METAMESSGAGES
• Verbal languages have proved less than adequate in articulating and dealing
with relationships. (58)
• Relationships are continuous opposed to one-thing-at-a-time descriptions…verbal
languages.
• Gestural language is continuous, as are relationships themselves.
• Patterns are built on relationships. (59)
• Human beings are, on the whole, more alert to pattern than they are to number,
more alert , that is to relationships that to quantities, which may be why we tend
to think in metaphors.
• Gestures carry a picture in their meaning.
• Paralanguage ~the language of body posture, movement, and gesture continue to
perform functions in human life that word cannot, and where they function most
specifically is in the articulation and exploration of relationships. (61)
 • It is likely that the gestural dialogue will tell us more about the actual
relationships between the conversers.
• The capacity to play can be seen at least in all mammals, but most highly
developed and persistent among human beings.(62)
• The communicative gesture....is a way of articulating and exploring relationships.
The function of discourse is the same as it has always been, but the ancient
gestures of relationship have been elaborated over the history of the human race
into the complex patterns of communicative gesture that we call ritual. (63)

Chapter 4 - A Separate World

In essence, this chapter discusses how musicians/performers have in a sense become a

completely separate entity from the audiences they play for. The chapter covers such
topics as the process in which the performers enter the stage, warm-up, play for the
audience and as they are all individuals off the stage they must become a collective entity
during performances and “...mere instruments on which the conductor plays.” The author
continues to explore how an orchestra musician is more or less like any other occupation
in that they will “engage in shop talk, gossip and locker-room humor.” The chapter
discusses how music was originally written for amateur musicians but over time it grew
into a setting reserved for the wealthy and fortunate and by the time the mid 1800’s came
around, music was reserved for listening to rather than performing and that only
professionals should partake in playing music. The concert hall and paying admission to
concerts were also novel ideas that came about as a result of the previous two
developments. The goal of any composition became less about giving the performers
something to play and more about making an impact on the listening audience.

Chapter 5 – A Humble Bow

refers to the conductor and his role in putting together an orchestra concert. The chapter
opens with the author painting a mental picture of a symphonic concert. The author
discusses how the conductor is the main focus of the concert, although he makes no
musical sound at all. The conductor is the main connection between the composer and the
players, and the players and the audience. After a brief history of the rise of the modern
conductor, the author questions if conductors are completely necessary and give some
examples of orchestras that have not used conductors (although most have failed). If there
is no conductor, it is solely up to the musicians to not only learn their parts, but to
interpret the music and convey their ideas to the audience, as a whole, cohesive unit.

Chapter 6 – Summoning Up the Dead Composer

Most concerts feature the music of the Great Composers; all of whom are dead. This
meets concert goers needs’ to connect with the myths (trials, tribulations, values) about
these composers. Myths about a composer are rooted in history, current societal values
and individual values. The myth in which a person believes tells them about themselves.
Audiences therefore view the dead composer's score as stable and unchanging word. In
the sacred space of the concert hall a ritual (concert) is led by a conductor who interprets
the work of a composer. This ritual unites listeners and performers in exploring,
affirming and celebrating ways of relating to one another and the world.

Interlude 2: The Mother of All the Arts

• Concepts: ritual, myth, metaphor, art and emotion – intimately and intricately
linked together; to speak of one leads to another; all are concerned with
relationships.
• Ritual: never meaningless, a form of organized behavior in which humans use the
language of gesture, or paralanguage, to affirm, to explore, and to celebrate their
ideas of how the relationships the cosmos operate, and thus how they themselves
should relate to it and to one another.
• Those who take part in it articulate relationships among themselves that model the
relationships of their world as they imagine it to be and as they think or feel that
they ought to be.
• Used to define a community; as an act of confirmation of community, an act of
exploration, and as an act of celebration.
• Emotion that is aroused is a sign that the ritual is doing its work; participant feels
at one with the relationships created.
• “secular” (emphasizes ritual’s links with tradition; malleable and negotiable) and
“sacred” (emphasizes its links with the unquestioned and seemingly unchanging
values of a society; validated by supernatural and deities; to take part in acting out
a myth) interpretations of rituals.
• Myth: fictitious or imaginary person or event; stories of how the relationships of
our world came to be as they are. Provide models or paradigms for human
experience and behavior and lay the foundation for all social and cultural
institutions.
• Myth is always concerned with contemporary relationships, here and now. Value
lies not in its truth to any actual past but in its present usefulness as a guide to
values and conduct.
• Telling of myths give legitimacy and support to an actual social order or to
support the beliefs of those who would change it.
• To engage in a ritual is to engage in a form of behavior that we call metaphorical.
• To think metaphorically we project patterns that derive from the concrete
experience of our bodies and our senses onto more abstract experiences and
concepts such as morals, ethics and social relations.
• Metaphoric associations depend on the shared bodily experiences of members of
the same social group.
• Metaphor is concerned with relationships in which he physical and sensuous
experience of human beings and our bodily experiences of the world are used to
understand those often extremely complex and abstract concepts with which we
need to be able to deal.
• Ritual is the mother of all the arts!
 • Both ritual and the arts are gestural metaphors, in which the language of
biological communication is elaborated into ways of exploring, affirming and
celebrating our concepts of ideal relationships.
• Ritual does not just use the arts but itself is the great unitary performance art in
which all the arts have their origin.
• Ritual is Action! Its meaning lies in the acts of creating, wearing, exhibiting,
performing and using.
• Only works created since about the 19th century that appear not to possess a ritual
function and to have become simply isolated, self-contained works.
• All art is performance art. It is first and foremost an activity. The act is
important, not the created object.
• It is the object that exists to bring about the action.

Chapter 7 - Score and Parts

Small addresses music notation and its performance in the modern concert hall-how
classical musicians are dependent on the written musical form. A score is a set of "coded
instructions". He uses the word "reassurance "-how that performing classical pieces the
same way each time doesn't disturb anybody, and this reassures those who attend these
things are as they have been and will continue to be so. Small feels there should be some
interpretation (or, if you like "leeway") in the performance of classic symphonic works.

Chapter 8 - Harmony, Heavenly Harmony

- conductor's first gesture dictates what type of sound will be produced

- the ensemble's power is exerted without apparent effort
- the player's lack of effort is reflected in the smoothness in the attack of each note they
play
- the sharp attacks we hear come from instruments of more recent arrival in the
orchestra such as the harp, glockenspiel and other percussion instruments
- these "sharp attack" instruments add color to the piece of music, rather than forming
part of the basic texture of the sound
- in the sound world of the symphony orchestra "noise" means sounds whose pitch
either does not stay steady enough to be perceived as pitch or cannot be reduced in
the perception of the players and the hearers to one of the seven tones of the diatonic
scale or the five alternative chromatic tones that lie between them
- the orchestra will present an eventful sound in which a great deal of change will
happen in a short amount of time (ex. Changes between loud and soft, complex and
simple, slow and rapid, gentle and raucous)
- the orchestra will present a purposeful sound carrying its hearers forward through
time and a creating cycle of tensions and relaxations
- the idea of a purposeful sound depends on the acceptance by those playing and those
listening of a number of conventions, in much the same way as does speaking and
understanding of a spoken language
- all ways of "musicking" have some kid of syntax- some way of controlling the
relationships between the sounds that are made
- musical meaning is not accounted for by syntax alone- no meaning is created until a
performance takes place- it is the performance that makes the meanings and the
syntax is part of that meaning but is not the whole of it
- the use of syntax is a complex of procedures called tonal functional harmony, which
establishes and governs the relationships, both simultaneous and in succession,
between notes, which is to say sounds with determinate pitch, sounds that are not
noise
- tonal functional harmony is a technique by means of which simultaneous
combinations of tones, or chords, of a very specific type called triads are arranged in
succession to create meaning
- the ability to play the game of arousing, frustrating or teasing, and finally satisfying
the listener's expectation is a major element of the skills of composers in the Western
concert tradition (ex. Wagner's Tristan und Isolde in which the pair of lovers find
satisfaction only at the moment of resolution of the dissonance, in the death that is a
euphemism for orgasm
- everyone understands tonal harmony to a certain degree- if not, they would not feel
the tensions and relaxations that the harmony provokes
- film and television music are an example of how composers manipulate the meanings
generated by the tonal harmony
- tonal harmony is a paradoxical technique because it is not just the relationships
between the tones that form the basic chordal structure but also the relationships
between the chords
- harmony operates within the closed circle of pitches that is called equal temperament-
the small gap between the start and end of the circle is called the comma
- the system is called the equal temperament because it makes every one of the twelve
half-tone steps that in Western music comprise the octave equal to every other
- the way the relationships between the pitches are organized stands behind and
governs all the other sound relationships of a musical performance

Interlude 3 – Socially Constructed Meanings

Ritual is a means which we experience our proper relation with which we "connect".
Reality is socially constructed.
We should not allow the verbal bias of our present-day society to make us assume that
they are the only means by which concepts can be passed on.
Each musical performance articulates the values of a specific social group and no kind of
performance is any more universal or absolute than any other.
Reality may be socially constructed, but no individual is bound to accept unquestioningly
the way it is constructed.
"To music" is not just to take part in a discourse concerning the relationships of our world
but is actually to experience those relationships, we need not find it surprising that it
should arouse in us a powerful emotional response. The emotional state that is aroused is
not, however, the reason for the performance but the sign that the performance is doing
its job.
The meaning of a composition lies in the relationships that are brought into existence
when the piece is performed.
The relationships are of two kinds: the interpretation of the written music and those
between the participants in the performance.
The relationships at the end of the performance are not the same as those of the
beginning. Who we are has evolved a little. We need make no effort of will to enter into
the world that the performance creates, it envelopes us, whether we will it or not.
When we "music" we engage in a process that connects. We are affirming the validity of
its nature as we perceive it to be, and we are celebrating our relationship to it.

Chapter 9 – An Art of the Theater

This chapter encompasses various relationships between actors, musicians,

music and the roles or characters they portray. Throughout time actors or
composers have expressed various emotions and or roles through acting or
music. Emotions may include love, hate, depression, joy, etc. Roles
portrayed by actors or composers may be such gender roles which have come to
be known as traditional. As listeners or observers we don't necessarily
need any training in identifying these relationships but know how to
recognize them in part because they are often over exaggerated and enhanced.

Chapter 10 - A Drama of Relationships

1. Dramatic orchestral work, which evolved in the mid 1700’s, was the symphony,
and was created strictly for entertainment. Output of symphonies was numerous
and demand was high, just as pop songs are today.
2. Symphony is a dramatic narrative in which relationships occur. The composer
develops the symphony through musical gestures and listeners and performers
experience his symphony in performance as a sequence of events in time, a drama
of opposition and revolution.
3. Composers set a standard for other composers to live up to, for example Brahms
was influenced by and felt insecure because of Beethoven’s symphonies serving
as models for other composers to follow.
4. Order is established, disturbed, and reestablished is the basic premise behind
western story telling for the past three hundred years.
5. Symphonies have drama that can be expressed in comedy, tragedy, or epic.
6. The shaping of a narrative needed to be changed in order for the creativity of the
composer to come through.
7. Enjoyment needs to be presented from the beginning of the symphony because if
it wasn’t, why would we enjoy listening to it?
8. We hear sounds and place them into our relationships to create meaning.
9. The structure of the symphony creates its own drama of relationships, depending
on the way it’s written and performed. It tells us a story that will either catch our
attention or surpass us, just as quickly as it hits our eardrum.
 10. Structure of a symphony: Order is established, disturbed, and new order is
established which forms from the old.
11. Discusses trained musician’s reaction to symphonic work vs. untrained non
musician, and perhaps the untrained musician is able to hear the drama, story of
the symphony more easily, because of the lack of desire or knowledge to listen for
structure. They are listening to the story, more than the structure.
12. Formality may get in the way of understanding the meaning, and it makes
musicking more difficult. We must remember to switch the meaning on again,
and not lose that ability to listen and be touched for meanings sake.
13. Struggle and conflict are the engines that drive the symphonic drama and the
sense of struggle between opposing forces is never far away, even in the most
placid moments.

Chapter 11 - A Vision of Order

Small explains how the order of a symphonic work is disrupted by two conflicting forces,
a protagonist which has masculine characteristics and the antagonist which has feminine
characteristics; both create extreme tension and sometimes violence before coming to any
resolution. He describes how these driving forces play out in Beethoven's 5th symphony
ending in the protagonists victory and in Tchaikovsky's 6th symphony ending in the
protagonists demise. Small also suggests, through the composers work, whether
conscious or not, we can get a sense of the conflicts and anxieties the composers might
have been going through personally as well as what was happening in their culture at that
time.

Chapter 12 - What is really going on here?

Author clarifies the definition of Musicking:

Musicking is a language of relationships, gesture and ceremony. These (virtual or ideal)
relationships are created between a person and oneself, other people, the environment,
and the supernatural. Overall, these relationships have two categories; the sounds that are
made and the people who take part. Taking part in this ceremony (musical performance)
the values and feelings of these proper (ideal) relationships can be explored, affirmed,
and celebrated which brings meaning to the performance.

The gestures in Musicking are what effortlessly carries the complete message without the
use of words, because words would only take away from the message, even though one
should be able to convey, on some level, the experience of Musicking in words.

The ceremony of Musicking is the performance of the Meta-Narrative (a beginning, a

sense of conflict or suspense, and a resolution; fairytale) where the musicians are crucial
for the experience to take place; whereby to make those who participate feel spiritually
refreshed and nourished after the ceremony is complete. During this ceremony there is an
allowance of Participation Discrepancies which do not ruin the overall experience.
Three questions can be explored in order to realize the effects within Musicking:
What is the relationship between those taking part and the physical environment setting?
What is the relationship among those taking part?
What are the relationships between the sounds that are being made?
Each of these questions can be explored to broad or very specific relationships.

Chapter 13 - A Solitary Flute Player

As the author further explores the concept of "Musicking", he chooses to muse on a

unique musical performance situation. In this hypothetical (or possibly real) example, a
lone herdsman is playing a hand made flute as he guards his flock in the African night.
The main question is what kind of relationships could exist in this performance when he
is completely alone. Some of the relationship found include: the life he breathes into the
flute, the connection between this flute which he has created and the models it is based on
in his society, and the connection between the way he plays and the assumptions,
practices, and customs of his society.

The Postlude – Was it a good performance? & How did you know?

If musicking is an aspect of language of biological communication as a condition of

survival then
all are born with the gift of musicking no less than the gift of speaking and understanding
speech.
In the West there are few opportunities for informal and continuous cultivation in
musicking as in speech communication.
African societies are saturated with these opportunites with every single individual
making some contribution.
The challenge of music educators is how to provide that kind of social context for
informal and formal interaction.
As a first year zoology student the author was to draw the dissections done in class. The
act of drawing was a condition for survival in the class and taught them the relationships
between the body parts.It was not about the finished product of the drawing.
The zoology students compared, discussed, analyzed, assessed and evaluated each other
noncompetitively.
Similarly in musicking our exploration, affirmation and celebration of relationships
expand between 1) one performance and another 2) different styles and genres all the way
to 3) other traditions and cultures.
Musicking is more powerful in articulating human relationships than speech.
Many agencies militate against the musicality of ordinary people 1) the assumption that
m.ability is rare, 2) the media diefying stars, 3) family members passing judgment on one
another (your sister has the good voice), 4) being told you are tone deaf and even 5)
Schools. Teachers often look for and develop the talent of gifted students instead of
developing the musician in each student.
Those who have been silenced have been wounded in a very crucial and intimate part of
their being.
All musicking is serious and none is intrinsically better than any other way of musicking.
The author feels that the relationships articulated by symphony concerts are too
hierarchical, distant and one dimensional.
The PA systems in public arenas (shopping malls, airlines etc.) express an unequal power
to the listener because they have no choice in the matter.
Mozart never practiced after age seven but relied on his musical activities to keep him in
trim.
Music exists to give performers something to perform. First came performance.
Music's language is not of words but of gestures, gestures we call performance.