An Introduction to Music Studies

Chapter preview

The relationships between music and the people who produce, perform, and use it are central to the sociology of music. This chapter introduces some of the central ideas of the sociology of music and helps you place it in the context of other approaches. Music is not just the sounds it makes. We like and value some musics and not others, as much because of our social and educational backgrounds, and because of the associations that accompany music, as because of musical style itself. We also include music as part of a wider collection of lifestyle choices. For that reason, the sociological study of music tends to explore the human networks around music, rather than the characteristics of musical style. Nevertheless, it covers contemporary and historical culture from several perspectives, and embraces all types of music. It gives priority to people-centered research methods where possible, to explore music's social meanings; social networks and cultural capital; the shape of the music market; exclusivism and subcultural mentalities; and more general questions about the relationship between music and identity.

Key issues

• Sociologies of music: what are the main questions?

• The problem of “high art.”

• Are geniuses constructed, not born?

• “Art worlds” and the music business.

• “Cultural capital,” social status, and identity.

Introduction

Imagine that the music business has gone topsy-turvy. You walk towards a CD shop and the first music you hear is a piece of Western classical music blasting out over its entire ground floor.