Music Worlds and Body Techniques: On the Embodiment of Musicking

Abstract

Despite the large amount of sociological work on human embodiment very little has been done on the embodiment of music or musicking. In this paper I seek to open this area up by way of two key concepts: ‘body techniques’ and ‘music worlds’. Specifically I seek to explore the role of body techniques within music worlds. The first part of the paper engages with the work of the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Culture Studies on subcultures, considering how this might shed light upon the body techniques used by audiences in music worlds. The second part turns to artists, support personnel and their body techniques. In this second part specific attention is given to the interplay between body techniques and other key elements of music worlds, namely networks, conventions, resources and places.

Embodying culture: Body pedagogics, situated encounters and empirical research

“…Yet common to and defining of their central focus was a concern to explore the interaction over time of those institutionalized social, technological and material means through which cultural practices are transmitted, the varied experiences of those involved in this learning, and the embodied outcomes of these processes (Shilling, 2007, p. 13; 2010). This concern devoted attention to cultural transmission, learning and knowing as institutional phenomena that involve the sensory and physical education of individuals (Crossley, 2007, 2015). It also promoted engagement with anthropological insights into how cultures ‘enskill’ people into their practices via the structuring of ‘attention’ and ‘attunement’ (Ingold, 1993, 2001), and a sensitivity to how individual–environment connections shape the self- and inter-corporeal body work involved in occupational and other culturally shaped practices (Twigg, Wolowitz, & Cohen, 2011).…”

Making music, making language

“…In music education, students learn a body technique that helps them acquire new ways of knowing and relating to the world, as well as learning to know themselves (Crossley, 2015). For example, explicit instruction on posture is part of what is done in CYMP.…”

Translocality, Network Structure, and Music Worlds: Underground Metal in the United Kingdom

“…Use of SNA in music sociology is increasing, with fascinating results (Allington et al ; Crossley ; Crossley and Emms ; Crossley et al. ; McAndrew and Everett ; Millward et al ).…”

“…IN THIS PAPER, we use formal social network analysis (SNA) to explore the network structure of the U.K.'s translocal underground heavy metal music world (UMW). This is intended as a contribution both to current debates on “music worlds” and also to the emerging literature on musical networks and the potential of SNA for their analysis (Allington, Dueck, and Jordanous ; Becker , , ; Crossley , ; Crossley and Bottero ; Crossley and Emms ; Crossley, McAndrews, and Widdop ; Finnegan ; Gilmore , ; Lopes ; Martin , ; McAndrew and Everett ; Millward, Widdop, and Halpin ). The paper forms part of a larger project being conducted by the first‐named author, which employs a mixed‐method approach to investigate various aspects of the UMW, combining a questionnaire survey of participation patterns among 474 insiders with ethnographic observation and 29 qualitative interviews with occupants of a variety of roles within this music world (Emms ).…”