Cross, I. and Spiro, N. (2025) Intersubjectivity in performance. In: Music Performers' Lived Experiences: Theory, Method, Interpretation: Volume One. Routledge. ISBN 9781032403724 (hardback) 9781003352778 (e-book)
Abstract
This chapter explores musical interaction across contexts and cultures. It outlines ways in which explicit and implicit knowledge and judgment play key roles in performance. It considers affect, empathy, and connectedness in shaping intersubjectivity, and how the community of agency involved in making music together may become a merging of agencies. It discusses the explicit and implicit forms of intersubjectivity implicated in musical performance, the former being evident in the agreement on performance plans typical in expert ensemble performance of western art music (and in some jazz contexts), while the latter are attributable to seemingly spontaneous yet successful bouts of music-making both by experts and non-experts. Both forms of intersubjectivity are shown to derive from shared cultural norms and expectations as well as from intersubjective processes associated with affiliative social interaction. The chapter suggests that any ongoing performance may elicit and be motivated by the changing affective and empathic states and experiences within and between performers, interaction in music being intertwined with the intersubjectivities that may underpin it and to which it may give rise as well as the cultural contexts in which it is embedded.
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