Blackwell Reference Online

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Music has been a focus of sociological inquiry since the earliest days of the discipline. Max Weber, for example, used the development of the system of musical notation as a prime illustration of the increasing rationalization of European society. Nevertheless, music has not become the locus of a distinctive fundamental approach in sociology as have topics like socialization, deviance, and the like. While no musical sociology has developed, and there is no comprehensive text on the sociology of music, numerous aspects of music making and appreciation have been the substantive research site for addressing central questions in sociology. Five ongoing research concerns can be identified. First, sociologists have been concerned with the relationship between society and culture . What began as an attempt to link distinct types of societies with distinct kinds of music has become an effort to identify specific links (e.g., the circumstances of a nation's founding and its national anthem, or the construction of “Englishness” in contemporary British pop music). Other contemporary studies exploring the society-music link focus on the globalization of music culture. They show the resilience of local forms of musical expression in spite of media globalization. Second, there have been many studies of specific art worlds or scenes where music makers, managers, devoted fans, and tourists ... log in or subscribe to read full text