Music Scenes, Space and the Body

Abstract

The concept of scene is now a primary conceptual framework for studying the production and consumption of popular music. In a formative essay, Straw (1991) offered the important observation that scene could be theorized as both a local and trans-local phenomenon. Peterson and Bennett (2004) have added a new dimension to this conceptualization of music scenes through positing virtuality as a further medium for scene involvement. Missing from each element of this tripartite model of scene -local, trans-local, and virtual -is any consideration of how music scenes are enacted through the process of embodiment. In this article, we argue that embodiment is critically important for how music scenes are constructed, enacted and maintained by participants. The corporeal element of scene introduced through its embodiment by social actors, we argue, is key to our understanding of the music scene as an anchoring place within everyday urban, regional and, increasingly, rural landscapes.

Musical Relationships: Intersections of Race, Gender, Genre, and Listening Situation

“…These studies show the importance of both materiality (Born, 2011) and embodiment (Driver and Bennett, 2015) for the cultural analysis of music, illuminating how musical relationships are constructed in particular places and times. DeNora (2000) therefore calls for more ethnographic studies focusing on materiality and mediation; however, an exclusive focus on such themes risks ‘collapsing social context into a series of inter-subjectively negotiated interpretations’ (Prior, 2011: 134), leaving large-scale structures of power and inequality undertheorized.…”

“…Locating people in musicking situations means accounting for embodiment in interaction with music (Benzecry and Collins, 2014; Driver and Bennett, 2015). The concept of embodiment highlights how experience is mediated through bodily presence, not just cognitive categories, so that experience is fundamentally shaped by situations of the body (Cerulo, 2019).…”

The extended leisure experiences of music scene participation

“…The literature on music communities, music scenes and music subcultures is deep and not without distinction in terms of how the terminology is used and which categorization is appropriate when referring to music fans' social worlds (Bennett, 1999;Crossley & Bottero, 2014;Davis, 2006;Driver & Bennett, 2014;Frith, 1981a;Hesmondhalgh, 2005;Hunt, 2008;Taylor, 2010). Straw (1991) outlined a distinction between a 'music scene' and a 'music community', stating that scenes were microcosms of communities with clear boundaries delineating its adherents from the larger musical community, such as the distinction between subgenres of heavy metal music (Spracklen & Spracklen, 2012).…”

“…Taylor (2010) stated it best that 'Music exists only in time; it is dynamic, energetic, and in a constant state of motion ' (p. 897). Further, based on our methodology for understanding the ELE of music scene participation, we also embrace the 'tripartite model' of scenes in that they are local, translocal and virtual (Driver & Bennett, 2014), all the while being both personal (Davis, 2006) and communal (Spracklen & Spracklen, 2012). Acknowledging the importance of the individual in a community (or scene), and that their involvement is restricted to neither a specific geographic nor temporal plane, emphasizes the residual and extensive properties of leisure experiences.…”

Music Worlds and Body Techniques: On the Embodiment of Musicking

“…As Driver and Bennett (2015) observe in a recent article, there is surprisingly little sociological work on the link between music and human embodiment (important exceptions include DeNora [2000, 2003] and Shilling [2005]). Their own paper offers a partial corrective to this, focused largely upon the affective attachment of participants to a local hard-core punk scene and the visceral nature of that participation.…”