Christopher Small's Musicking: The Meaning

Whether it’s a music festival, DJ set, or classical concert, these musical experiences outline social experiences in everyday life. In Musicking: The Meanings of Performing and Listening, Christopher Small discusses the different types of appropriate behavior for various concert settings. Specifically, Small describes the classical music experience as a gathering of “middle-class white people” with posh etiquette and an interaction of consumers and producers. Many behaviors I observed at the Taiwan studies lecture series presentation of solo pianist Chen Pi-hsien at the Conrad Preby Music Hall parallels Small’s description of a classical Western concert. While Chen Pi-hsien draws in a multicultural audience by defying the typical with a culture clash between
Most people found their own experience in Pi-hsien’s performance by sitting respectfully and careful not to make a single noise. Even though people, including myself, came in groups of friends or family, the classical music setting transformed everyone’s behavior. Small argues that “our silence during the performance is a sign of condition, that we have nothing to contribute our attention to the spectacle that has been arranged for us” (Small 44). We, as the audience, convince ourselves to behave in a more elegant and composed way, creating this permanent expectation of attentive presence for professional classical concerts in the Western culture. Since the majority of the audience at Pi-hsien’s show seem familiar with these standards, the disruptive cell phones, laptops and unwrapping of a cough drop appear more exaggerated and disrespectful. Small would consider this behavior untypical and bizarre for a Western style concert. Thus, a challenge to keep ourselves quiet and patient exposes the particular socially accepted behavior of Small’s “middle-class white people”, posh and