Rhythms of Power: Interaction in Musical Performance

This paper applies methods of interactional analysis to the video recording of a musical performance in Fez, Morocco, with the understanding that performance is most essentially a communicative phenomenon (Bauman, 1984). Music and interaction are the subject of Monson’s (1996) groundbreaking work on improvisation and interaction in jazz. Monson demonstrates that “jazz can be seen as a musical language, improvisation as musical conversation, and good improvisation as talking or ‘saying something’” (1996, p. 73). Much of her analysis examines social context at the expense of sequential context, particularly the openings and closings that are so ripe for analysis. One chapter in her book, however, takes on the formal concerns of interactional analysis, and in it Monson sets forth a model for future research.