Series:

Music and Society

2 total works

Cover of Sounds and Society

Sounds and Society

by Peter J. Martin

Published 1 June 1995
In modern, industrial times society demands, and is supplied with, an increasingly wide range of music on a scale unprecedented in our history. Moreover, technology has provided us with the means to control our aural environment in ways which were unimaginable even a century ago. So why, in an otherwise rationalistic age, does music - perhaps the most emotional and ephemeral of cultural forms - matter so much? In this book, Peter Martin argues for a coherent sociology of music, using certain fundamental sociological ideas to generate a much deeper understanding of the role of music in society. Particular attention is given to the question of the nature of musical meaning, the relationship between social structures and musical ones and the music business in capitalist societies. In the course of the argument, the ideas of leading theorists such as Adorno, Schuetz and Weber are discussed. The resulting study is a clear introduction to the implications of sociology as a means of understanding music and should be as relevant to the rock fan as to the devotee of chamber music.

Cover of Music and the Sociological Gaze

In this important new book, Peter J. Martin explores the interface between musicological and sociological approaches to the analysis of music, and in doing so reveals the differing foundations of cultural studies and sociological perspectives more generally. Building on the arguments of his earlier book Sounds and society, Dr Martin initially contrasts text-based attempts to develop a 'social' analysis of music with sociological studies of musical activities in real cultural and institutional contexts. It is argued that the difficulties encountered by some of the 'new' musicologists in their efforts to introduce a social dimension to their work are often a result of their unfamiliarity with contemporary sociological discourse.

Just as linguistic studies have moved from a concern with the meaning of words to a focus on how they are used, a sociological perspective directs our attention towards the ways in which the production and reception of music inevitably involve the collaborative activities of real people in particular times and places.