Coordinating actions as active agents in a dynamic musical environment: comment on “musical engagement as a duet of tight synchrony and loose interpretability” by Tal-Chen Rabinowitch

In this commentary, we welcome the contribution offered by the review of existing literature and the proposed tight-loose framework for tolerant group membership (TGM). We outline several considerations needed to further nuance the proposed frame- work. These relate to the modalities and properties of musical synchronisation, acknowledging the embodied context of music-making and the need to consider who is making music and their perspectives and expectations. We take a stance against the implicit arguments that the “cause and effects are in the music”, arguing that music-making should always be considered as a situated embodied experience, where an acting person in a context is central, avoiding the implications that certain musical structures lead to certain outcomes. Before that is discussed, we first discuss processes of synchronisation.