Sam,

I'm sorry, I have to disagree with you. I think that musicking can and should be transitive as well as intransitive.

I went back to the authority on the subject--Christopher Small and dug out his original definition:

To music is to take part, in any capacity, in a musical performance, whether by performing, by listening, by rehearsing or practicing, by providing material for performance (what is called composition), or by dancing. [Small 9]

This definition clearly does not provide for a transitive situation [after all, it's pretty hard to "take part" to something], but, I feel this is due to a narrowness in the provided definition, not in the verb usage. Having different definitions for transitive and intransitive cases is by no means rare in our language. Websters provided me with the example of fly [intransitive]: to move or float through the air vs. fly [transitive]: to cause to move or float through the air. We can apply the same principal to music, coming up with to cause to become a component, in any capacity, of a musical performance, whether by listening to, rehearsing, composing for, or dancing to.

I think that this will help clear up some of the ambiguity inherent in the word music. For example, if I use the original definition that Small provides to interpret the phrase “musicking to a little Temptations”, the first definition provides no hint of whether the subject is dancing to a recording of the Temptations, writing a new song for the group, or performing a cover of “My Girl”. Perhaps Small wanted it this way, but I still feel that we can have a little order without diminishing the relative specificity of music as a verb rather than a reified noun.

This is possible because intransitive verbs, by their very nature convey a sense of passivity, whereas transitive form corresponds to activity. This means that as English speakers we would naturally choose the form of the verb that best suits our purpose, making the distinction as to whether the subject in question is directly involved in the production of the physical sound waves. In this case, if I wished to signify that I am rocking out to a Bob Dylan song, I would say “I am musicking to some Bob Dylan”, the verb being intransitive. If, on the other hand, I wanted to express that I am practicing a Dylan riff on my guitar, I would denote that “I am musicking a little Bob Dylan”—the verb transitive.

Anyway, that’s how I see it. Feel free to tell me where I screwed up.

On a related note:
Top 5 songs to music (to)
1. The 8th Avenue March—Bob Mintzer
2. Sweet Child of Mine—Guns ‘n Roses
3. Baba O’ Riley—The Who
4. Halftime—Ying Yang Twins
5. Turn it Up—Chamillionaire

miss you

-bern