Musical time as a practical accomplishment: A change in tempo

Weeks, Peter

doi:10.1007/bf00193569

Cited by 25 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 11 publications

(6 reference statements)

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“…In terms of the latter group, two writers explore the effects of the media, particularly musical notation and electronic recordings on music, namely, John Shepherd (Shepherd et al, 1977;Shepherd, 1991) and Richard Middleton (1990). But, it is only when we encounter work in the phenomenological (Schutz, 1964(Schutz, , 1976Malholtra, 1981;Bensman, 1983)and ethnomethodological traditions (Sudnow, 1978(Sudnow, , 1979Bryant, 1977 and a later description of his experiment in Garfinkel & Wieder, 1992: 189-192;Weeks, 1990) that we find any serious attention to musicians' practices in the context of typical practical problems, collaboratively achieving synchrony and interpretations of musical texts. Since a major preoccupation of this paper is temporality, I shall turn to a fuller review on work in that area.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Synchrony lost, synchrony regained: The achievement of musical co-ordination

Weeks

1996

Hum Stud

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As part of a series of Ethnomethodological Studies of Work, this paper focusses upon a short stretch of a final concert performance of the Saint-Saens Septet by a set of amateur musicians in which timing errors occur but in response to which various manoeuvres 'successfully' restore synchrony. I set out to demonstrate that these afford a strategic access for ethnomethodologists to sets of musicians' practices whereby musical synchrony is ongoingly accomplished. The central curiosity of this study is the set of distinctive practices whereby a musical text set out in a spatial, linear sequence of markings is realized in a collective performance that unfolds not only in precise time values but also in synchrony.This paper analyzes three errors in a short passage and the ways in which they are 'corrected' either by the errant musician himself or by the other musician in response. In these cases, the restoration of synchrony and the routine performance of the piece thereafter are accomplished successfully in the sense that those listening to the tape of it generally fail to notice any problem! This contrasts to my detection of problems during both my participation in the performance and repeated listening of the resulting audio-tape, I argue that it is this systematic difference in possible hearings that musicians are oriented to when attempting to 'fake it'. Thus, the essential interest is in members' methods for maintaining as well as restoring synchrony.What can we retrieve of members' in situ, embodied practices where talk is absent from a close description of the resultant order, the details of the musical performance? I claim that Schegloff's stipulated requirement that CA ground its claims in the details of the talk is not appropriate for the study of music. In contrast with conversation in which we are competent participants, one requires musicians' insider knowledge in order to recover just what members are doing. Repeated listening is not enough.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Synchrony lost, synchrony regained: The achievement of musical co-ordination

Weeks

1996

Hum Stud

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“…As pointed out by previous ethnomethodologically inspired research (Sudnow 1978(Sudnow , 1979Weeks 1990;Haviland 2007Haviland , 2011, all these "multimodal" cues allow mutual coordination and, more broadly, organisation of the activity itself: music making is thus a collaborative and practical accomplishment (Weeks 1996) in reference to which the researcher can question how intersubjectivity is achieved (Schutz 1964).…”

Section: Studying Choral Rehearsals From a Conversation Analytical Pementioning

confidence: 95%

“…Correction is indeed the core of the activity (Keating 1993) and is what precisely distinguishes the rehearsals from the public performance where, even if something goes wrong, "musicians feel a strong pressure to 'keep going on'" (Weeks 1996, 201). Previous research (notably Weeks 1985Weeks , 1990Weeks , 1996Weeks , 2002 has focused on "instructional" and "error-correction" sequences, showing that they are typical of an ensemble's rehearsals and that, in these contexts, they are usually initiated and realised by the director (see also Veronesi 2014, this issue, for Conduction workshops; Parton 2014, this issue, for orchestra rehearsals). As pointed out by Macbeth (2004, 729), correction sequences are "one of the ways in which members display and recognize that instructing is going on" and, for this reason, a peculiar activity of instructional and learning situations.…”

Section: Studying Choral Rehearsals From a Conversation Analytical Pementioning

confidence: 97%

Singing in “another” language: how pronunciation matters in the organisation of choral rehearsals

Merlino

2014

Social Semiotics

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In this paper, I analyse the rehearsals of a choir and focus on sequences during which participants correct and practise the pronunciation of an item. In order to sing in a choir, singers orient both to musical relevancies (such as melody, pitch and rhythm) and to the linguistic features of the words they sing (such as articulation of consonants or vowels, cutting of the syllables, accent): these features are fundamental to singing and can be the object of correction. I hereby take into consideration "second language" singing and show that, during this activity, the correction of a word pronunciation can be initiated and realised either by the director or by the singers themselves. I analyse the structure of these sequences and show their implication for the organisation of the activity and for the participatory dynamics of the rehearsals. Based on the videorecordings of the rehearsals of the choir of a music school, my analyses take into account both the audible and visible resources participants orient to; they thus contribute to a conversation analytical and multimodal perspective on the interactional and institutional activity of music rehearsals.

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“…The Lindy hop is a social dance first developed by African American dancers combining the many cultural influences in Harlem in the late 1920s to the music of the swing era jazz bands (Batiuchok, 1988). Without the 'masterplan' that would be provided by a fixed choreography (equivalent to a rehearsed musical score (Haviland, 2011;Weeks, 1990)) social dancers work as improvising performers, and draw on other features of their local environment and prior experience to structure the dance. The conventional phrasing and even tempo of recorded music provides one obvious mutual resource for coordination.…”

Section: Rhythm and Interaction In A Lindy Hop Performancementioning

confidence: 99%

Rhythmical coordination of performers and audience in partner dance: delineating improvised and choreographed interaction

Albert¹

2016

Preprint

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This paper explores rhythm in social interaction by analysing how partnerdancers and audience members move together during a performance. Theanalysis draws an empirical distinction between choreographed andimprovised movements by tracking the ways participants deal with variationsin the projectability and contingencies of upcoming movements. A detailedspecification of temporal patterns and relationships between rhythms showshow different rhythms are used as interactional resources. Systematicdisruptions to their rhythmical clapping shows how audience members workwith dancers to sustain the accountability and relevance of mutualcoordination. This reveals how dancers initiate, sustain and completedistinct phases of spontaneous movement as embodied social action.

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Musical time as a practical accomplishment: A change in tempo

Cited by 25 publications

References 11 publications

Synchrony lost, synchrony regained: The achievement of musical co-ordination

Synchrony lost, synchrony regained: The achievement of musical co-ordination

Singing in “another” language: how pronunciation matters in the organisation of choral rehearsals

Rhythmical coordination of performers and audience in partner dance: delineating improvised and choreographed interaction

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