How do we talk about musical colonisation? How do we talk about this work of talking about it; that is, interrogating what we mean by colonisation and its counter-logic of decolonisation or decoloniality? What can and must we talk about in this particular moment – when talk of decolonisation is at an all-time high, yet without clear consensus and much misuse of the concept? These questions, and the insights that emerged from them, animated the two-day conference Music’s institution and the (de)colonial, and are reflected and summed up in this article. The article ends with a list for "research strategies and practices for music's institution and the (de)colonial: a conference glossary". The list is a first attempt to be explicit about how we deal with the many challenges we face within this field.