John Shepherd - The Routledge Reader on the Sociology of Music

Shepherd and Devine have done a signal service for anyone interested in the sociology of music, making the most important writing in the field available in one volume.

Howard S. Becker, author of Art Worlds

Ranging from seminal classics to the most up-to-date ideas and debates, this book gives the reader everything she needs to know about the sociological study of music. It is an indispensable guide to understanding the multiple ways in which music is socially structured and how music in turn impacts upon human societies.

David Inglis, University of Exeter

Is there life after the death of the social? Is there anything left to say about music and society after Max Weber or Theodor W. Adorno? This collection of classic texts and new work shows that the inquiry into the social life of music and the musical life of society is not only alive and well, it is also more diverse, more interdisciplinary, more theoreticaland perhaps also less sociologicalthan ever. Musicologists, ethnomusicologists, media theorists, sociologists, anthropologistsread up!

Veit Erlmann, University of Texas at Austin

The state of the art in the sociology of music. It combines insights from past and present, from musicology and sociology, all in one place. The Reader to own.

Ron Eyerman, Yale University

The sociology of music has come a long way since the days of the Frankfurt School and the Birmingham School, and this comprehensive Readerthe first of its kindreveals the distance travelled. It includes some influential early texts as milestones, before proceeding to explore the role of music in social interaction, identity formation, politics, and industrial processes. The combination of senior scholars and those of a younger generation provides an overview of the field that could scarcely be bettered.

Derek B. Scott, University of Leeds and author of Sounds of the Metropolis

The Routledge Reader on the Sociology of Music is an important contribution to the area. Shepherd and Devine have created a volume that respects the multiple and varied interests that sociology brings to the study of music, music-making and the experience of music more generally. This volume provides the readers with classic theoretical statements in the area, more recent debates and essays that address current substantive issues. It is the sort of collection that readers will find to be of value for years to come.

Scott Grills, Brandon University

The Routledge Reader on the Sociology of Music offers the first collection of source readings and new essays on the latest thinking in the sociology of music. Interest in music sociology has increased dramatically over the past decade, yet there is no anthology of essential and introductory readings. The volume includes a comprehensive survey of the fields history, current state and future research directions. It offers six source readings, thirteen popular contemporary essays, and sixteen fresh, new contributions, along with an extended Introduction by the editors. The Routledge Reader on the Sociology of Music represents a broad reference work that will be a resource for the current generation of sociologically inclined musicologists and musically inclined sociologists, whether researchers, teachers or students.

John Shepherd is Vice-Provost and Associate Vice-President (Academic) at Carleton University in Ottawa, where he is also Chancellors Professor of Music and Sociology.

Kyle Devine is Lecturer in Music at City University London and a research associate with the Music and Digitization Research Group at the University of Oxford.

edited by

John Shepherd and Kyle Devine

First published 2015

by Routledge

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and by Routledge

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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

2015 Taylor & Francis

The right of John Shepherd and Kyle Devine to be identified as the author of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

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Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

The Routledge reader on the sociology of music / John Shepherd and

Kyle Devine.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. MusicSocial aspects. 2. Sociology. 3. Arts and society.

I. Shepherd, John, 1947 editor. II. Devine, Kyle, editor.

ML3916.R676 2015

306.4842dc23

2015005915

ISBN: 978-0-415-85546-4 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-138-85636-3 (pbk)

ISBN: 978-0-203-73631-9 (ebk)

DOI: 10.4324/9780203736319

Typeset in Minion

by Florence Production Ltd, Stoodleigh, Devon, UK

Senior Editor: Constance Ditzel

Senior Editorial Assistant: Elysse Preposi

Production Editor: Sioned Jones

Marketing Manager: Amy Langlais

Project Manager: Anne Macdonald

Copy Editor: Carol Lee

Proofreader: Kilmeny MacBride

Cover Design: Jayne Varney

• John Shepherd and Kyle Devine

• Herbert Spencer

• Georg Simmel

• Max Weber

• John H. Mueller

• Alfred Schtz

• Theodor Adorno

• Susan McClary

• John Shepherd

• Peter Martin

• David Grazian

• Lisa McCormick

• Marco Santoro

• Andy Bennett

• Richard A. Peterson

• Antoine Hennion

• Eric Drott

• Marion Leonard

• Anthony Kwame Harrison

• Motti Regev

• Morten Michelsen

• William Weber

• Sara Cohen

• Mary Fogarty

• Dave Laing

• Simon Frith

• Adam Behr

• Lee Marshall

• Trevor Pinch and Karin Bijsterveld

• Christina Baade

• Benjamin Wright

• Paul Thberge

• Tia DeNora

• Nick Prior

• Georgina Born

• Jeremy Gilbert

The Routledge Reader on the Sociology of Music provides an introduction to a rapidly developing and dynamic area of intellectual activity. It combines original contributions that summarize key topics and set agendas for future research with reprints of source readings and classic essays that have shaped the field.

For the better part of a century, scholars have questioned what exactly the sociology of music is, and what it could or even should be. The very fact that these questions remain open is part of what makes the field so vibrant and interestingand it is an issue to which we will return in our Introduction. As a starting point for the book, though, we need to provide our understanding of what constitutes the field. We understand the sociology of music as a kind of conversation, an interdisciplinary meeting point where sociologists with interests in musical phenomena and musicologists with interests in social phenomena can work together to generate concrete and conceptual knowledge about music as a fact of life. The book is thus not about delimiting what music sociology can or cannot be. Rather, it is about feeding music studies and the social sciences into one anotheran exercise that we believe enriches each discipline and affords deeper understandings of both music and society.