Making music sociology: an introduction

Making music sociology: an introduction

Poetics 32 (2004) 195–196 Editorial Making music sociology: an introduction Sociologists have been interested in the role of music in society since ...

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Poetics 32 (2004) 195–196

Editorial

Making music sociology: an introduction Sociologists have been interested in the role of music in society since the earliest days of the discipline. Georg Simmel (1968) writing in 1882, for example, traced the evolution of aboriginal expressions of raw emotion to modern music that expresses conventionalized emotional feeling. A generation later in 1924, Max Weber (1958) showed that the rational structure of early 20th century classical music is a prime expression of the rational society in which it was imbedded. While a goodly number of studies have been published since, they have been widely scattered. In consequence, no coherent field of music sociology has developed, but instead, as Peterson (2000) observes, music has been a research site for answering a wide range of sociologically important questions. Roughly, he finds that over the years music has proved useful in addressing six kinds of questions. These include the links between societal structure and music, the shaping of music worlds, the social construction of musical aesthetics, the institutionalization of music fields, the use of music in status distinction making, and musical components of identity formation. In the introduction to the recent Poetics issue devoted to music, Dowd (2002: 1) finds three substantive tendencies that mark contemporary work in the sociology of music. He says that sociologists ‘‘highlight the shared cognition that lies behind and enables musical life,’’ they ‘‘explicate how musical life is imbedded in larger contexts,’’ and they ‘‘take an eclectic approach to their work.’’ The sociological agenda for understanding music in society is the focus of this double issue of Poetics. The issue had its origin in two events taking place in Atlanta, Georgia in August 2003. The articles by David Grazian, Tia DeNora, Andy Bennett, and Timothy Dowd that together comprise the first part explore the four approaches to making music sociology that were presented in the Thematic Session devoted to ‘‘Developing a Sociology of Music’’ organized by Pete Peterson at the American Sociological Association meetings. The six articles by John Sonnett, Jennifer Lena, Laura Clawson, William Roy, Steven Lee, and Damon Phillips and David Owens that comprise the second part of the issue were drawn from the ASA Culture Section Mini-Conference on the Sociology of Music organized by Timothy Dowd following the ASA meetings. Together they illustrate the range of research topics currently being explored and something of the diversity of music genres being examined. The alternatives highlighted are a start, but they do not exhaust the substantive approaches currently being deployed, and they do not touch all of the genres of music ranging from karaoke to classical, from teen pop to rap, and from world music to extreme metal that are currently being researched. Thus in going forward now the sociologists do 0304-422X/$ – see front matter # 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.poetic.2004.05.001

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Editorial / Poetics 32 (2004) 195–196

not have to go it alone. As never before, all these genres of music and many more are being studied by researchers in other disciplines including musicology, anthropology, economics, women’s studies, cultural studies, popular culture, communications, folklore etc. And beyond such academic scholars, most music genres have attracted numerous dedicated fanscholars who have collected a wealth of knowledge about their music specialty. A number of music research groups can greatly facilitate this collective enterprise. These include the newly established Research Network in the Sociology of Music (under the auspices of the American Sociological Association’s Culture Section), the Research Network on the Sociology of the Arts (under the auspices of the European Sociological Association), and the world-wide International Association for the Study of Popular Music. IASPM publishes several journals and has active branches in the US and most countries around the world. We offer this issue in the belief that it is time to establish a more self-conscious group devoted to the development of music sociology in order to exchange information and ideas, as well as to draw others into the collective enterprise.

References Dowd, Timothy J., 2002. Introduction: explorations in the sociology of music. Poetics 30, 1–3. Peterson, Richard A., 2000. Music. Encyclopedia of Sociology 3, 1924–1930. Simmel, Georg (1882) 1968. ‘‘Psychological and Ethnological Studies on Music.’’ In The Conflict in Modern Culture and Other Essays. Columbia University Press, New York (K. Etzkorn, Trans.), pp. 98–140. Weber, Max (1924) 1958. The Rational and Social Foundations of Music, Southern Illinois University Press, Carbondale. Richard A. Peterson is Professor of Sociology at Vanderbilt University. His most recent publications are ‘‘The Production of Culture’’ in the 2004 Annual Review of Sociology co-authored with N. Anand and Music Scenes: Local, Translocal, and Virtual (2004, Vanderbilt University Press) co-edited with Andy Bennett. He is researching the changing role of the producer in the music industry and the role of music tastes in creating identity. Timothy J. Dowd is Associate Professor of Sociology and Co-director of American Studies at Emory University. Much of his research deals with the sociology of music, examining such issues as the construction of the orchestral canon in the U.S., the extent of diversity in popular music and, more recently, the critical reception of popular music. His research also focuses on the institutionalization of organizational logics and how those logics, in turn, affect such outcomes as career opportunities, organizational foundings, and market construction.

Richard A. Peterson* Timothy J. Dowd Department of Sociology, Vanderbilt University, PO Box 1635 Station B Nashville, TN 37235, USA * Corresponding author E-mail address: [email protected] (R.A. Peterson)