Christopher Small gave us the term “Musicking.” To do music, which we do when we listen, play, discuss or anything else that is … well … musicking. What do we mean by music though? Is the music we do when we music a form of reproduction of some pre-determined great Art? Or is it a live and social activity of creation in the moment? This is how Charles Keil described it, and like it! I think he nicely describes how at The QC we aim to perform Music … everyone creating socially from the bottom up. We also do this live, together with our audience …

“Music is about process, not product; it’s not seriousness and practice in deferring gratification but play and pleasure […] that we humans need from it; “groove” or “vital drive” is not some essence of all music that we can simply take for granted, but must be figured out each time between players; music is not so much about abstract emotions and meanings, reason, cause and effect, logic, but rather about motions, dance, global and contradictory feelings; it’s not about composers bringing forms from on high for mere mortals to realize or approximate, it’s about getting down and into the groove, everyone creating socially from the bottom up.”

Charles Keil

Keil, Charles. “The Theory of Participatory Discrepancies: A Progress Report.” Ethnomusicology 39, no. 1 (1995): 1–19. https://doi.org/10.2307/852198.

Small, Christopher. Musicking : The Meanings of Performing and Listening.  (Hanover : University Press of New England, 1998).

French, Marilyn. Beyond Power. On Women, Men and Morals. (New York: Summit, 1985 )