This chapter aims to understand the phenomenon of leisure-time music activities from the perspective of musical agency. It explores how individuals’ and groups’ recreational practices involving music can be seen as a means for expanding their capacities for acting in the lived-in world. The exploration proceeds through theoretical and experiential accounts. It first draws on literature from general sociology, music sociology, and the sociology of music education in order to elaborate on the broader notion of agency, as well as the more field-specific concept of musical agency. It then explores various music-related agency modes through narrating the author’s own experiences of participating in, leading, and observing leisure-time music activities. The chapter aims to dissolve the binary opposition between recreational music production and music consumption. It argues that the two poles instead can be understood as inseparably intertwined venues for the constitution of agency, musical taste and music-related learning trajectories.
