What Is Sociological about Music?

Abstract

The sociology of music has become a vibrant field of study in recent decades. While its proponents are well aware of this field"s contributions and relevance, we focus here on demonstrating its merit to the broader sociological community. We do so by addressing the following questions: What is music, sociologically speaking? How do individuals and groups use music? How is the collective production of music made possible? How does music relate to broader social distinctions, especially class, race, and gender? Answering these questions reveals that music provides an important and engaging purchase on topics that are of great concern to sociologists of all stripestopics that range from the micro-foundations of interaction to the macro-level dynamics of inequality.

The Ties Among the Notes: The Social Capital of Jazz Musicians in Three Metro Areas

“…Musicians are located in physical places that are populated by musical genres and musical instruments, with some genre and instruments more central to those places than others. Given that genres spawn communities of similarly oriented musicians and fans (Lena, 2012;Roy & Dowd, 2010), musicians who claim central genres in a given locale could have a greater potential for social capital than those who claim peripheral genres, as the former are able to tap into the networks of connections (including those of working musicians) that undergird such genre centrality. Similarly, those playing central instruments (e.g., piano) in a given locale may have many potential and connected colleagues sharing comparable musical concerns, while those playing peripheral instruments may lack such a ready-made grouping.…”

The Business of DIY. Characteristics, motives and ideologies of micro-independent record labels

“…The distinction is reinforced by the fact that the latter companies hardly deal with the release of non-commercial an unprofitable music. By responding to genres outside the mainstream supply, small record companies create opportunities to enter into competition with the majors and to contribute to the diversity of contemporary music (Peterson andBerger 1975, Dowd andRoy 2010). Especially the interactive internet may play an important role, by the mostly free dissemination and promotion of music (Oliver 2010).…”

A New Approach to Relationships in Live Music: Redefining Emotional Content and Meaning

“…Music is perceived as a rather fixed object of study. Following Small (1998) and Roy and Dowd (2010), we perceive (the experience of) live music as an activity not as an object, an activity laden with emotions and concrete individual and collective meaning going beyond traditional disciplinary boundaries. Therefore, we need to review the look at emotions and meaning resulting from the music experience.…”