Musical Practice as a Form of Life: How Making Music Can be Meaningful and Real (Music and Sound Culture)

How is musical practice connected with everyday life? Eva-Maria Houben shows that performing music as an activity - indeed, as playing - is a meaningful shift from an approach based on structural analysis. Musical practice, Eva-Maria Houben contends, can be understood as open and never finished. Such an emphasis on repetition offers freedom from perfection, productivity, and purpose, thus allowing meaning to unfold in specific situations, places, and relationships. Musical practice can become a form of life and a reality in its own right. The study includes musical examples from the 17th, 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries as well as contemporary music. Is musical practice 'real' - and how is it connected with everyday life? Eva-Maria Houben shows that making music changes as soon as its meaning is not sought in a purpose-oriented production of results, but in performing music as an activity - indeed, as play . Musical practice, Eva-Maria Houben contends, should be understood as open and never finished. Such an emphasis on repetition can free us from perfection, productivity, and purpose, allowing meaning to unfold in specific situations, places, and relationships. Thus understood, musical practice can become a form of life and a reality in its own right. Table of Contents Preface First Part 1. Access to the Topic 2. Musical Practice 3. Finding Speech Second Part 1. Keys 2. Many Performers 3. Solo 4. Duo 5. Trio 6. Quartet 7. Beyond Borders 8. In the “Ark of the Moment” List of Works Bibliography Besprochen in:The Wire, 430 (2019), Tim Rutherford-Johnson