Musical Behaviours, Dispositions, and Tendencies: Exploring Church Music-Making Through a Theory of Practice
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to examine two churches’ music-making practices and their reflection of, and response to, the musical and theological fields in which they are located. Using central concepts from Bourdieu’s Theory of Practice (1977) including habitus, capital, and field in connection with religion, the study considered how worship leaders and musicians strategized their musical behaviours and “disrupted” or affirmed traditional norms of music-making in each contemporary worship music-making setting. The study further explored whether such musical behaviours reflected and shaped habitus both institutionally and individually, and if so, the ways in which the process occurred.
This research utilized a qualitative, multiple case study design (Yin, 2014) to examine the music-making practices of two churches in the Kitchener-Waterloo region. Data were collected from May to July 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic, influencing each church’s musical positioning. Results from cross-case analysis indicated that worship leaders’ and churches’ values were enacted musically through sub-themes of repertoire selection, modes of performance, and participative choices, positioning each church differently within the religious field. Musicians spoke to tensions they encountered between the pursuit of musical excellence and a focus on participation and inclusivity, reflecting contrasts in theological approaches and worship leaders’ strategization of musical behaviours. Worship leaders, as facilitators, can be understood to direct musical behaviours, “thoughtfully disrupting” (Higgins, 2015) or critically accepting perceptions of excellence and “legitimate musical knowledge” (Green, 2006).
Based on data findings, the study expands upon the concept of “dialogical habitus” (Akrivou & Di San Giorgio, 2014; Catron, 2022) in relation to reflection and conscious conversation among agents within church music settings. Findings suggest that when there was a disjunct between habitus and an interrogation of the doxa, or rules of the field, dialogical processes of reflection contributed to a transformation of (religious musical) habitus – institutionally and individually. The study posits that while shifting field conditions influence changes in habitus, it is also the dialogical processes that can contribute to inter-subjective spaces of encounter, knowing, and being, thus re-shaping dispositions, tendencies, and pedagogical practices within church music, music education, and community music settings.