Micro analysis of musical engagement takes time. It often dwells on split second interaction. The kind of things that, literally, if you blink, you will miss. Sometimes small things have large effects. In popular culture we speak of things like the ‘final straw’, of ‘tipping points’, of how sometimes things can, and have to ‘turn on a dime’. We know that details matter. In communication, and musical communication (or ‘communion’) these nuances can determine many so-called ‘larger’ things for example, the quality of the relationship between two or more people, their mutual perceptions of each other, their gradual and mutual attunment (or not) and their future conduct trajectories. The keynote talk described the importance of micro-ritual interactions in socio-musical situations of care and the kinds of differences that these ritual interactions can make for action and for opportunities for action in space and time.
Care for Music 