Sounding the encounters within music lessons

If the meaning of music lies in action, “in what people do” (Small, 1998), what can an examination of the soundscapes formed within a music lesson reveal about the participants’ actions within the context of a music lesson? The aim of this paper is to discuss the soundscapes created during a music lesson, as a site formed by and (in)forming the various encounters and the negotiation of power-relationships among the participants: in this particular case, were refugee/migrant students and cultural mediators, and Greek/Europeans teachers. The discussion is based on a short-term fieldwork project conducted during music and choir lessons provided in a refugee camp and an urban facility in Greece, involving immigrants/refugees as students and cultural mediators, and Greek/ Europeans as teachers and assistants. Sound is an essential part of any experience, therefore an analytical examination of music lessons ought to consider it in its widest possible sense. Examining all actions that fall into the practice of “musicking” (Small, 1998), as well as considering that individual subjects are the agents of all the actions that are informed by their social and cultural background (Ortner, 2006), soundscapes of the music lessons will be discussed by means of “flow”, indicating the smoothness of subjects’ participation in a (musical) activity (Turino, 2008), and its disruption.