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Hook‐Ups and Train Wrecks: Contextual Parameters and the Coordination of Jazz Interactions
Author(s) -
Dempsey Nicholas P.
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
symbolic interaction
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.874
H-Index - 47
eISSN - 1533-8665
pISSN - 0195-6086
DOI - 10.1525/si.2008.31.1.57
Subject(s) - salient , jazz , context (archaeology) , musical , frame (networking) , sort , frame analysis , ethnography , psychology , sociology , social psychology , cognitive psychology , computer science , visual arts , art , history , artificial intelligence , telecommunications , cognitive reframing , archaeology , information retrieval , anthropology
This article discusses the importance of several parameters of context integral to jazz musicians' ability to hear musical signs as meaningful, such as performers' individual backgrounds and the various other styles of music available in the aural landscape, and how those parameters influence what the musicians play. Several examples from an ongoing ethnography of jazz jam sessions suggest that context is constituted by several variables, that different variables may become salient at different times, and that different interactants vary in their ability to attend to these variables. This study thus extends and elaborates frame analysis by showing that, while an interaction frame of the sort described by Goffman (1974) may perdure, it is subject to change, and the nature of the context it provides for interactions can change whenever a new interaction is initiated.