Achieving (a)synchrony through choral chanting: Co-operative corrections in taiko ensemble rehearsals

Abstract

This article introduces two types of choral chanting observed in correction sequences in a performance-based setting. Drawing excerpts from video-recorded taiko ensemble rehearsals, I use multimodal conversation analysis to examine how members use in correction kuchi-shōga, a semi-conventionalized repertoire of taiko-specific ideophones. I first show a typical, collaborative case and then examine a “competitive” case, where members challenge, quasi-synchronously, each other's version of kuchi-shōga. The analysis explicates (a) how kuchi-shōga is laminated with the pointing gesture in the form of choral chanting, (b) how this configuration is contingently (re)structured upon a distinctive temporal organization characterized by the rhythmic constraints of the taiko music, and finally, (c) how these temporal constraints afford the use of choral chanting as an embodied allocation device, locally tailored to particular interactional needs. Based on Goodwin's co-operative action, I argue that kuchi-shōga is members’ resource, accumulated and sedimented through repeated transformative operations on materials inherited from (absent) predecessors. These findings contribute to literature on instructional activities, and that on rhythm and temporalities in embodied interaction, reinforcing the significance of a culturally-sensitive analysis of co-operative action in performance-based settings.