Abstract
The issue gathers most contributions presented at the panel "Interaction and discouse in music settings" organized by the editors in July 2011 at the International Pragmatics Conference 2011. It deals with interaction and discourse in a variety of musical settings, ranging from activities carried out under the guidance of conductors and teachers − orchestral and choir rehearsals, vocal masterclasses and ensemble music workshops −, to ordinary conversation among friends and written accounts of musicians' life stories addressed to an unknown readership. While making reference to various musical traditions (Western art music, jazz, gospel, church hymnes, pop music), the issue aims at sheding new light on the social and embodied nature of collective music making, and on the way interaction in musical contexts relies on the interplay between different expressive resources. Across the eight papers collected here, the issue explores what kind of coordination and participation are required so as to accomplish the joint activity of playing music; it looks at how musicians engage in the definition of their roles in interaction in different contexts, and through a variety of semiotic resources that may go from playing to talking, writing, gesturing, singing, and using artifacts like written scores and batons. Finally, it examines how language can serve the purpose of musical socialization and musical performance, but also how music itself can be a communicative resource in interaction in non-musical settings.