Luther’s chamber music, the court masquerades of Louis XIV, processions and mystery plays in late medieval towns, musical theatre and opera or Brueghel’s wedding dance are all famous examples of musical practices in European pre-modern times. However, there are a multitude of lesser known musical practices, particularly in the connection between music and play. By moving beyond existing conceptions of musical practices, this workshop aims to incorporate the study of hitherto neglected and under studied practices. By doing so, the workshop will focus on peripheral practices, through which different and unexplored sounds can be investigated. This will bring delimitations such as of the sacred and the profane, or ‘the animal’ and ‘the human’ to the fore. The first panel explores the church as an institution where playful practices seem unexpected. The second panel looks into the inclusion and exclusion of animals in practices formerly regarded as purely human. By comparing liturgical singing with animal voices and with historical experimentations on animal sounds in bird keeping, we hope to broaden the concept of music. To this end, the third panel gives the opportunity to discuss a new field of study: the nuances of sound, voices and noise. The scope of the workshop is to grasp the numerous playful music practices in their border zones with an interdisciplinary approach in order to generate fresh approaches to the cultural history of pre-modernity.

1. Ecclesia ludens: playful musical practices in ecclesiastical contexts
2. Animal musicus: animal sounds and music with animals
3. A history of sounds: Borders of music, sound and noise