The Results of Bandstand Dynamics

When performers, who have learned some but not all of the possible songs they might have learned, come together in situations where they have to play for a certain amount of time for whoever is there, what they play is their repertoire for that occasion. These players playing in this place with its demands and using the repertoire that is, one way or another and at one level or another, available to them individually and collectively, create, on the spot and perhaps for this one time only, a repertoire, the specific list of songs they play on that occasion. In the most general case, a working repertoire exists for just that one occasion. Musicians who assemble for a job often have played together before. This chapter looks at two common forms of repertoire that musicians can rely on to create an evening's performance: the working repertoire of a semistable group and the generalized repertoire that characterizes what we might call a playing region or musical community.