#christopher small

[micromontage]

Music is not a thing at all but an activity. Something that people do. The apparent thing music is a different, an abstraction of the action whose reality vanishes as soon as we examine it at all closely.

Christopher Small, "Musicking"

[health-and-efficiency]

[protoslacker]

CS: Well, as far as the whole question of relationships is concerned, I go back to Gregory Bateson, Bateson in what he calls "The Question of the Epistemology of the Sacred," he's on the right track. I got and get enormous faith from Bateson. Relationships are not just social relationships in the narrow sense. RC: No, it's formal relationships as well, CS: It's also how we relate to ourselves, and to the cosmos if you like, putting it in the windiest possible terms. And this whole notion of the pattern which connects which I keep bringing in, that our notion of music seems to be of something being beautiful, is in relation to what we think is the pattern.

Christopher Small and Robert Christgau in Perfect Sound Forever. Christopher Small Interview by Robert Christgau, Part 3 of 3

Part 1 of 3

Part 2 of 3

Robert Christgau writes Expert Witness weekly at Medium among many other things.

[dollyspectra]

Excerpt from Music, Society, Education by Christopher Small.

In embracing experimental and popular music alike in the 21st century, attempting general mindfulness, and embracing the arts as a calling - a passion to not exist simply in leisure time - I feel that I've thwarted the classical-protestant mentality of structured time and transcended to a much happier, natural place in my daily work and life. I am alive in myself as an artist. Carve out some time today to mingle your work and play. Keeping them separate isn't for everyone, and in fact, it can squash your happiness if it's hindering you from living in the present. If you have a spare day, try to spend it not looking at the clock at all. Just let the day take you on a journey without calculation, and see what it does for your art and your ability to thrive. And most of all, during your "normal" day to day, try living in the present. It's proven to reduce anxiety and you'd be surprised where you can find pleasant moments and make memories.

I'd like to take up the initiative of tagging artists I find inspiring in these posts so that they may add comments if they wish, or simply sit back and read. I offer all of you food for thought, and much love, as always.

xo Dolly Spectra

kimbramusic austinkleon actuallygrimes 

[fleursetcouronnes]

A Rousseauian Conception of Music?

"There is no such thing as music.  Music is not a thing at all but an activity, something that people do.  The apparent thing 'music' is a figment, an abstraction of the action, whose reality vanishes as soon as we examine it all closely.  This habit of thinking in abstractions, of taking from an action what appears to be its essence and of giving that essence a name, is probably as old as language; it is useful in the conceptualizing of our world but it has its dangers.  It is very easy to come to think of the abstraction as more real than the reality it represents, to think, for example, of those abstractions which we call love, hate, good and evil as having an existence apart from the acts of loving, hating, or performing good and evil deeds and even to think of them as being in some way more real than the acts themselves, a kind of universal or ideal lying behind and suffusing the actions.  This is the trap of reification, and it has been a besetting fault of Western thinking ever since Plato, who was one of its earliest perpetrators." —Christopher Small, Musicking: The Meanings of Performing and Listening

I'm intrigued.  I think I'll go ahead and read the rest of this book.

[dancingarchitect]

I had not realized until yesterday that this giant of contemporary musical thought had died. His work and ideas are certainly present in my own understanding and upcoming research.  A couple of key pull quotes:

In ''Musicking,'' published in 1998, he argued that music is an action, not an object -- a verb, not a noun, as the title implied...

Mr. Small's aim, he wrote, was to ''decipher the signals that are everywhere being given and received.'' He stressed that all people involved in a musical performance -- the musicians, audience, roadies, publicists, cleaning crew -- are part of its ritual.