From the earliest days of the discipline, music has been a focus of sociological inquiry. Max Weber, for example, used the development of the system of musical notation as a prime illustration of what he saw as the increasing rationalization of European society since the Middle Ages (Max Weber 1958). Like Weber, many since have used music and music making as a strategic research site for answering sociologically important questions. Nevertheless, music has not become the focus of a distinctive fundamental approach in sociology comparable to topics like ”socialization,” ”organization,” ”deviance,” and ”culture.” That is why the subject of this entry is the ”sociology of music” and not ”musical sociology” and why it takes such a long bibliography to suggest the range of work in the field.
While no musical sociology has developed, over the decades numerous aspects of music making or appreciation have been the substantive research site for addressing central questions in sociology. Broadly, these can be grouped together as six ongoing research concerns, and together they can be said to constitute the scattered but rich sociology of music. These six focuses will be considered in turn.
MACROSOCIOLOGY
Many sociologists have been concerned with the relationship between society and culture. Talcott Parsons, among others, believed that there was a close fit between the two, so that it would be possible to compare societies and changes taking place in society by studying elements of their cultures including music. This is what led Max Weber (1958) to focus on music as an example of the rationalization of Western society and led another early sociologist, Georg Simmel ([1882] 1968), to see music as a mirror of socio-psychologi-cal processes. The most ambitious cross-national attempt to directly link the structure of society with musical expression has been that of Lomax (1968).
Contemporary scholars see the links between social structure and music not as natural but as deliberately constructed, and they focus on the circumstances of that process. For example, Cerulo (1999) has found an association between the circumstances of a nation’s founding and its national anthem. Whisnant (1983) examined the politics of culture involved in constructing the idea of Appalachian folk culture, and Cloonan (1997) examines how ”Englishness” is constructed in contemporary British pop music.
Another line of contemporary studies exploring the society-music link focuses on the globalization of music culture. The specific focuses and methods of these researchers vary widely, but together they show the resilience of local forms of musical expression in the context of the globalization of the media. See, for example, Wallis and Malm (1984), Nettl (1985, 1998), Hebdige (1987), Guilbault (1993), and Manuel (1993).
THE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF AESTHETICS
In line with the constructivist orientationjust mentioned, a number of scholars have examined the processes by which aesthetic standards are set and changed. The seminal works in this line are by Meyer (1956) and Becker (1982). Hennion (1993) studies the evolution of standards in the Paris music world. Monson (1996) carefully examines the conventions ofjazz improvisation. Ellison (1995) shows the close interplay between country music artists and their fans in defining the country music experience, and Frith (1996) examines many of the same issues in the world of rock music.
Alternative kinds of aesthetic standards have been contrasted. The most widely compared are ”fine art,” ”folk,” and ”popular” aesthetics (Gans 1974). Using the example ofjazz, Peterson (1972) shows that music can evolve from folk to pop and then to fine art. Frith (1996) perceptively shows that all three standards are used simultaneously in the rock world and elsewhere.
THE STUDY OF MUSIC WORLDS
In his early studies of interaction among dance-hall musicians, Becker pioneered the study of the conventions that musicians use in making their kind of music together (summarized in Becker 1982). This line of activity has been continued in musical scenes varying from a group of coldly calculating recording session musicians (Peterson and White 1979; Faulkner 1983) to an impassioned gay community (DeChaine 1997). See also Zolberg (1980), Etzkorn (1982), Gilmore (1987), MacLeod (1993), Rose (1994), Monson (1996), Devereaux (1997), and Nettl (1998).
A related and often overlapping line of studies focuses on the socialization of performers. See, for example, Bennett (1980), Kingsbury (1988), Freeman (1996), DeChaine (1997), and Levine and Levine (1996). The socialization of audiences has also been the focus of considerable attention. The focus of inquiry has included popular music fans (Hebdige 1979, Frith 1981, 1996), the Viennese supporters of Ludwig van Beethoven (DeNora 1995), country music fans (Ellison 1995), and hip-hop fans (Rose 1995).
THE INSTITUTIONALIZATION OF MUSIC FIELDS
While the art-world perspective focuses on the interaction of individuals and groups in making and appreciating music, research on institutionali-zation has to do with the creation of the organizations and the infrastructure that support distinctive music fields. DiMaggio (1982), for example, shows the entrepreneurial processes by which the classical music field was established in the United States. Menger (1983) and Hennion (1993) show the structure of the contemporary art music fields of France. Peterson (1990) and Ennis (1992) trace the reconfiguration of the pop music field into rock in the 1940s and 1950s, and Peterson (1997) traces the institutionalization of the country music field and its articulation with the larger field of commercial music in the mid-1950s.
Based on the production of culture perspective, some researchers have shown how elements of the production process, including law, technology, industry structure, industrial organization, careers, and market structures, profoundly shape the sort of music that is produced. The interplay between these processes is traced by Peterson (1990) to show why rock music emerged in the mid-1950s. For other examples of work in the production of culture perspective, see Keil (1966), Ryan (1985), Lopes (1992), Jones (1992), Frith (1993), Manuel (1993), Freeman (1996), and Levine and Levine (1996).
A number of studies have traced the development of specific music organizations and organization fields. Ahlquist (1997) shows the structure of the early-nineteenth-century entrepreneurial opera world, and Martorella (1982) shows the remarkably different field of opera that emerged following the American Civil War. Arian (1971) and Hart (1975) focus on the classical music orchestra. Peterson and White (1979) and Faulkner (1983) discuss the organization of the apparently purely competitive world of recording studio session musicians. Gilmore (1987) focuses on three distinct contemporary classical music fields in New York City. MacLeod traces the field of club-date musicians in the same city. Guilbault (1993) shows the shaping of World Music in the West Indies. Negus (1999) compares the very different methods the major music industry corporations use in exploiting country music, rap, and reggae.
One specific line of studies focuses on the ”concentration-diversity” hypothesis. Peterson and Berger (1975) show that periods of competition in the popular music field lead to a great diversity in the music that becomes popular, while concentration of the industry in a few firms leads to homogeneity in popular music. Using later data, Burnett (1990) challenges this finding, and Lopes (1992) shows how large multinational firms are able to control the industry while at the same time producing a wide array of musical styles.
MUSIC FOR MAKING DISTINCTIONS
All known societies employ music as a means of expressing identity and marking boundaries between groups (Lomax 1968), and a number of authors have shown the place of music in social class and status displays. DeNora (1995) shows the role that Beethoven’s music played in the Vienna of 1800 by marking off the rising business aristocracy from the older court-based aristocracy that championed the music of Haydn and Mozart. DiMaggio (1982) shows how the rising commercial elite of nineteenth-century Boston used support for classical music as a status marker, and recent survey research studies show how music preferences have been used in making social class distinctions. See, for example, Bryson (1996) and Peterson and Kern (1996).
Numerous studies have explored issues of racism in the meanings ascribed to music and its creators. Reidiger (1991), for example, shows how immigrant Irish, Germans, Jews, Swedes, and the like developed the ”black-faced” minstrel show to satirize African-Americans and show their own affinity with the dominant English-speaking class as part of what they came to call the ”white race.” Leonard (1962) and Peterson (1972) show the evolving attitudes of whites toward jazz and African-American culture. The most extensive line of work on race focuses on how jazz was created and interpreted by African-American intellectuals as a form of resistance to the dominant white culture. See especially Jones (1963), Kofsky (1970), Vincent (1995), Devereax (1997), and Panish (1997). The racial shaping of blues, gospel, and rap have been explored, respectively, by Keil (1966), Heilbut (1997), and Rose (1994).
Music is gendered in many ways. Men are more likely to be producers, women consumers; women are often demeaned in the lyrics of rock, rap, and heavy metal, but they are characterized as strong in country music lyrics. Yet, compared to other topics, there has not been much research on gender in music and music making. Four different books suggest the range of topics that could be explored: McClary (1991) on the gendering of opera in which strong female leads do not succeed; Buffwack and Oermann (1993) on the decades of struggle of female country music entertainers for equality with men; Lewis (1990) on the gendered nature of rock videos; and Nehring (1997) on gender issues in pop music.
At least since the ”jazz age” of the 1920s, music has been one of the primary ways in which generations are defined and define themselves. In the 1990s, for example, one slogan of the young was ”If it’s ‘too loud,’ you’re too old.” Hebdige (1979), Frith (1981), Laing (1985), Liew (1993), Lahusen 1993, Epstein (1994), Weinstein (1994), Shevory (1995), and DeChaine (1997), among many others, show how specific contemporary youth groups use music to state distinctions not only between themselves and their parents but between themselves and other youth groups as well.
THE EFFECTS OF MUSIC
As just noted, new musical forms are identified with each new generation, and adults have tended to equate the music of young people with youthful deviance. Jazz, swing, rock, punk, disco, heavy metal, and rap, in turn, have been seen as the causes of juvenile delinquency, drug taking, and overt sexuality. See, for example, Leonard (1962), Hebdige (1977), and Laing (1985). Jazz was under attack for most of the first half of the twentieth century, and more recently heavy metal music has come in for the most sustained attention (Raschke 1990; Walser 1993; Weinstein 1994; Binder 1993; and Arnett 1996).
One of the most persistent research topics involving music has been the content analysis of song lyrics, on the often unwarranted assumption that one can tell the meaning a song has for its fans by simply interrogating lyrics (Frith 1996). Content analyses can be divided roughly into two types, holistic and systematic.
Systematic content analyses identify a universe of songs, draw a systematic sample from the universe, and analyze the lyrics in terms of a standard set of categories, typically using statistics to represent their results. Examples of systematic content analysis include Horton (1957), Carey (1969), Rogers (1989), and Ryan et al.(1996). Most such content analyses have focused on popular music, but one of the most remarkable is John H. Muller’s study of the changing repertoire of classical music over the first half of the twentieth century (1951)—a study that clearly deserves updating. Kate Muller (1973) makes a start. Holistic content analyses typically involve selecting songs that fit the research interest of their author and making judgments of the meaning of a song, or groups of songs, as a whole (Lewis 1990; McLurin 1992; Lahusen 1993; Ritzel 1998).
Finally the ”effects” focus in social movements research returns the sociological study of music full circle to more macro-sociological concerns. Music has been an integral part of most social movements, as has been shown by a number of studies. For example, Denisoff and Peterson (1972) provide a collection of essays that describe the place of music in movements ranging from the International Workers of the World, Nazi youth groups, and folk protest music to avant-garde jazz, country music, rock, and religious fundamentalism. Denisoff (1971) has made an analysis of the use of music in the political protest movement of the 1960s and 1970s, and Neil Rosenberg (1993) has assembled a set of essays on the politicization of folk music in that same era. Treece (1997) describes the role of bossa nova in Brazil’s popular protest movement, and Eyerman and Jamison (1998) examine the place of music in more recent social movements.
Something approaching one-half the works cited here are by scholars who research music topics relevant to sociology, but who are not themselves sociologists. This openness and diversity is important to the continuing vitality of the sociology of music. It is to be hoped that, in forthcoming decades, self-conscious efforts to bring more order to the scatter will facilitate the systematic articulation of research questions, stimulate research on more diverse music worlds, and encourage more cumulation of research findings. These efforts may also show the ways in which music can become a fundamental perspective in sociology similar to socialization, organization, deviance, culture, and the like.
