ABSTRACT
This chapter aims at focusing on three aspects of musical responsibility: (1) what does it mean to take responsibility?, (2) what does responsibility look like? or what do we mean by a responsible improviser?, and (3) what happens when we take responsibility for our improvisation. Pursuing the answers to these questions, the chapter discusses the phenomenon of improvisation in the light of Small’s concept of musicking along with the ethical structure of call and response as developed by Chrétien. On this basis, the chapter develops the importance of responsibility as central to the emergence of who and what we are - we are called into being and called to being ourselves by others. Benson then draws parallels with this notion and the notion of musicking, which thinks of music primarily in terms of performance and relation rather than product.
