How is musical practice connected with everyday life? Eva-Maria Houben shows that performing music as an activity - indeed, as playing - is a meaningful shift from an approach based on structural analysis. Musical practice, Eva-Maria Houben contends, can be understood as open and never finished. Such an emphasis on repetition offers freedom from perfection, productivity, and purpose, thus allowing meaning to unfold in specific situations, places, and relationships. Musical practice can become a form of life and a reality in its own right. The study includes musical examples from the 17th, 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries as well as contemporary music.

Autorentext

Eva-Maria Houben (Prof. Dr. phil.), geb. 1955, lehrt Musikwissenschaft mit dem Schwerpunkt Musiktheorie an der TU Dortmund. Sie ist auch als Komponistin, Organistin und Pianistin tätig.

Klappentext

Is musical practice 'real' - and how is it connected with everyday life? Eva-Maria Houben shows that making music changes as soon as its meaning is not sought in a purpose-oriented production of results, but in performing music as an activity - indeed, as play. Musical practice, Eva-Maria Houben contends, should be understood as open and never finished. Such an emphasis on repetition can free us from perfection, productivity, and purpose, allowing meaning to unfold in specific situations, places, and relationships. Thus understood, musical practice can become a form of life and a reality in its own right.

Eva-Maria Houben (Prof. Dr. phil.), born in 1955, teaches musicology with a focus on musical theory at TU Dortmund, Germany. She is also a composer, organist and pianist.