1

POPULAR MUSIC, TECHNOLOGY AND

SOCIETY












SOCIOLOGY SSPS
Monday 4. 1 0PM-6. 00pm
SEMESTER 1 2013-1 4
Convenor: Nick Prior
Course Code: SCIL10064

2

Popular Music, Technology and Society


Semester 1, 2013-14

Venue: Seminar Room 6 (CMB
Basement)

Time: Monday 4.10 PM-6.00 PM

Subject and School: Sociology
Honours, School of Social and
Political Science

EUCLID code:
SCIL10064








Course Summary

Popular music is one of the primary leisure and entertainment resources in late
modern society and understanding links between technology, music and everyday
life is an attractive way to exercise the sociological imagination. The course offers a
representative selection of ways of studying popular music from a broadly cultural
sociological perspective that attunes itself to the question of technology. It will be
based on a mix of theoretical and empirical approaches to popular musics socio-
technical organisation and its active role in ordering everyday life. The aim is to
assess how music is created and consumed in increasingly complex networks of
culture, examine the changing sites and locales that situate or circulate musical
forms and describe the challenges faced by music sociology as it grapples with an
increasingly digitalised and globalised social and technological landscape.












Course Convenor: Nick Prior
Room, 6.20, Chrystal Macmillan Building
Office Hours: Thursdays, 10am-12pm.
0131 6503991
n.prior@ed.ac.uk


IMPORTANT DEADLINES

1) Short essay: 28
th
October
2) Long essay: 9
th
December
3

Objectives

1) To engage students in debates around popular music and its mediation and
deepen their understanding of music as a social force.

2) To demonstrate how structural correspondences between music, technology and
social formations arise and change over time.

3) To discuss how contemporary issues central to the production and consumption
of popular music shed light on these changes.

4) To provide an understanding of relevant theoretical debates and issues.

Outcomes

By the end of the course students should be able to:

1) Evaluate a range of concepts and approaches within cultural sociology to the
development of popular music.

2) Critically assess accounts of technological innovation in changing forms of musical
production and consumption.

3) Recognise the formation of popular music genres as a social accomplishment
dependent on micro and macro social processes.

Course at a Glance

1) Introduction: Popular Musics Mediations

2) Technology and Popular Music

3) Human After all? The Voice in Popular Music

4) Scenes, Networks and the Creative Process

5) Music and Everyday Life

6) Keeping it Real: Performance, Gigs and the Live Experience

7) OK Computer: Sampling, Simulation and Software

8) Decks are Different: Dance Music, Turntablism and the DJ

9) From Bits to Hits: Video Games and Popular Music

10) iPod Therefore I Am: Digitalisation and Mobile Listening
4
4) Assess the relevance of theory in understanding the impact of popular music on
everyday life.

5) Recognise and comment on issues raised by the digitalisation of popular music,
such as changing practices of music making and listening.

6) Critically reflect on their own experiences of popular music as producers or
consumers.

Format

Two hour sessions comprised of 1 hour lecture and 1 hour of discussion, group work
or workshops. Workshops and discussions will be based on materials and
experiences students bring to the class.

Readings, Activities and Seminar Questions

Each week you will be expected to read one or two articles provided on LEARN or
available through e-journals in preparation for the class. These are listed in the
essential reading boxes. For some sessions you will be expected to carry out an
additional task that feeds into the seminar discussions. These are indicated in the
activity boxes. Seminar questions will be provided during the class.

Textbooks

There is no single textbook that covers the whole of the course, but here are a few
that are designed as introductory texts in popular music studies and cover some
relevant content. They are all available from the library and some are in the HUB.

The Popular Music Studies Reader, edited by Andy Bennett, Barry Shank and
Jason Toynbee, London: Routledge, 2006.
Strange Sounds: Music, Technology and Culture, Timothy D. Taylor, London:
Routledge, 2001.
The Auditory Culture Reader, Michael Bull and Les Back (eds), Oxford: Berg,
2003.
Cultures of Popular Music, Andy Bennett, Maidenhead: Open University,
2001.
Pop Music, Pop Culture, Chris Rojek, Cambridge: Polity, 2011.
Making Popular Music: Musicians, Creativity and Institutions, Jason Toynbee,
London: Arnold, 2000.
Studying Popular Music Culture, Tim Wall, London: Hodder Arnold, 2003.
Performing Rites: Evaluating Popular Music, Simon Frith, Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1996.
Popular Music and Society, Brian Longhurst, Cambridge: Polity, 1995.

Journals

Here is a selection of relevant journals, some dedicated to popular music, others
containing articles on technology, media, culture and society. They are all available in
the library, either as hard copy or in electronic form.

5
Journal of Popular Music Studies
Popular Music
Popular Music and Society
Music Week [this is a business digest of developments in the music industry]
Scottish Music Review
Poetics
Information, Communication and Society
Theory, Culture and Society
First Monday: http://firstmonday.org/
Journal of the Art of Record Production
Music and Arts in Action
IASPM journal: http://www.iaspmjournal.net/

Audio: Listening Posts

You will be expected to engage with musical forms, styles and genres. You should
keep a database of articles, examples and clips, for instance via a database / tagging
site like Del.ico.us (http://delicious.com/) or Evernote (http://evernote.com)

Recommended listening (Listening Posts) will sometimes be combined with the
readings, but you should explore your own and others music collections, attend live
music events and clubs, use Internet archives such as YouTube for access to
musical performances and clips and keep your ears open.

















Submitting Work Electronically

Course work will be submitted online using our submission system, ELMA. You will
not be required to submit a paper copy.

Marked coursework, grades and feedback will be returned online you will not
receive a paper of your marked coursework or feedback.

For information, help and advice on submitting coursework and accessing feedback,
please see the ELMA wiki at https://www.wiki.ed.ac.uk/display/SPSITWiki/ELMA

Assessment Due Dates (for essay titles see pages 28-
29)

The course is assessed by two compulsory components:

1) A short essay, of between 1400-1600 words, worth 25% of total course
mark (see page 28 for title).

Due date: Monday 28th October 2013, 12 noon.

2) Long essay, of between 3,500-4,000 words, worth 75% of total course
mark (see page 29 for titles).

Due date: Monday 9th December, 2013, 12 noon.

6
Late Submission of Essays

The School of Social and Political Science does not operate a system of extensions.
If you are submitting an essay late you should also complete a Lateness Penalty
Waiver (LPW) form explaining any mitigating circumstances.

In the absence of a LPW, or where a LPW is submitted without a genuine case for
mitigation late penalties will be applied.

Note that if you do have good reason for being late with an essay, and you provide
adequate evidence explaining this, you will not be penalised.

Please see the Sociology Honours handbook for full details of our procedures.

Plagiarism

You must ensure that you understand what the University regards as plagiarism and
why the University takes it seriously. This is your responsibility. All cases of
suspected plagiarism, or other forms of academic misconduct, will be reported to the
College Academic Misconduct Officer. Youll find further information in the Sociology
Honours (or Visiting student) handbook, and at the following site:

http://www.sps.ed.ac.uk/undergrad/honours/what_is_plagiarism

LEARN

There is a LEARN page for this course located on the LEARN pages in your MyEd
portal (www.myed.ac.uk). If you are registered for the course you will automatically
have access. Lecture slides, web-links and other resources will be added during the
course. Important announcements regarding the course will also be posted here, as
will supplementary links, readings and discussions if appropriate.

External Examiners

The External Examiners for this course for session 2013-2014 are as follows:

Dr Esther Dermott, University of Bristol
Dr Michael Halewood, University of Essex

Reading List and Week by Week Readings

The following section represents a fairly extensive list of articles, books and other
materials, organised by lecture and session. Please do not be intimidated by the list.
You are only required to read one or two articles from the boxes per week. The
supplementary readings are designed to be consulted during the writing of the
essays.





7
* denotes essential reading material available on LEARN or through e-journals.

WEEK 1) Introduction: Popular Musics Mediations

The introduction will outline the field of concerns, introducing
sociological conceptualisations of music, social change and
modernity. It will describe historical formations of the popular,
including the emergence of post-war youth and rock n roll,
counter-cultural ideology and pop rebellion. An engagement
with Richard A. Petersons work on the advent of rock music will
open up questions around the organisation of pop and the
structuration of the record industry, whilst definitional struggles
over sound, noise, technology, music, popular will set up
key terms in the course. The central concept of mediation will
be introduced, as a way of understanding how popular music is
shaped in complex, highly technologised, global societies like
ours.











Supplementary Readings

Timothy J. Dowd and Willam G. Roy, 2010, What is Sociological About Music,
Annual Review of Sociology, 36: 183-203.

Terry Bloomfield, 1991, Its Sooner Than You Think, or Where are We in the History
of Rock Music?, New Left Review, I/190, Nov-Dec: pp. Available at:
http://www.newleftreview.org/?page=article&view=1657

Andy Bennett, 2001, Cultures of Popular Music, Maidenhead: Open University Press,
chapter 1, Post-War Youth and Rock N Roll, pp. 7-23.

Tim Wall, 2003, Studying Popular Music Culture, London: Hodder Arnold, chapter 2,
Industries and Institutions: pp. 67-120.

Richard Middleton, 1990, Studying Popular Music, Buckingham: Open University
Press, chapters 1, 2 and 3.

John Williamson and Martin Cloonan, 2007, Rethinking the Music Industry, Popular
Music, vol. 26, no. 2: pp. 305-322.

Jason Toynbee, Making Popular Music: Musicians, Creativity and Institutions,
London: Arnold, chapter 1, Market: the Selling of Soul(s): pp. 1-33.

ESSENTIAL READINGS

* Richard A. Peterson, 1990, Why 1955? Explaining the Advent of Rock Music,
Popular Music, vol. 9. No. 1: pp. 97-116.

* Simon Frith, 1988, The Industrialisation of Music, Music for Pleasure: Essays in the
Sociology of Pop, Oxford: Blackwell: pp. 11-23.

The Listening Post
Bill Haley; Elvis Presley;
Little Richard; Bing
Crosby; BB King; Chuck
Berry; Bob Dylan; The
Rolling Stones; The
Beatles.

8
Georgina Born, On Musical Mediation: Ontology, Technology and Creativity,
Twentieth-Century Music, vol. 2, no. 1: pp. 7-36.

Antoine Hennion, 2003, Music and Mediation: Toward a New Sociology of Music, in
The Cultural Study of Music, Martin Clayton, Trevor Herbert and Richard
Middleton (eds), London: Routledge: pp. 80-91.

Pierre Bourdieu, 1990, The Field of Cultural Production, Cambridge: Polity, chapter
1, The Field of Cultural Production, or: The Economic World Reversed: pp.
29-73.

Howard Becker, 1982, Art Worlds, Berkeley: University of California Press, chapter 1,
Art Worlds and Collective Activity: pp. 1-39.

Howard Becker, 2006, A Dialogue on the Ideas of World and Field, Sociological
Forum, 21: pp. 275-286. Available at:
http://home.earthlink.net/~hsbecker/world.htm



































9
WEEK 2) Technology and Popular Music

Popular music and technology are inseparable. Developments
we associate with the rise of popular musical forms are always
already tales of technology. This session will introduce students
to historical and contemporary material on music production,
recording and processing. It will outline basic theoretical
approaches to technology and society, introduce students to
innovations in music technology and show how these disturb
ideologies of authenticity, livenesss and creativity. Historical
material may cover: early sound techniques, sound proofing,
noise abatement and urban modernity; the rationalisation of the
studio; experiments with tape and musique concrete; the
significance of users; the case of the Moog synthesizer and the
Roland TB303 drum machine.













Supplementary Readings (sub-ordered by theme)

Theories of Technology and Society

Donald Mackenzie and Judy Wajcman (eds), The Social Shaping of Technology,
Buckingham: Open University Press.

Graeme Kirkpatrick, 2008, Technology and Social Power, Basingstoke: Palgrave
Macmillan.

Daniel Lee Kleinman, 2005, Science and Technology in Society, Oxford: Blackwell,
chapter 1, Science is Political/Technology is Social: Conerns, Concepts, and
Questions, pp. 1-14.

David Bell, 2006, Science, Technology and Culture, Maidenhead: Open University
Press, chapters 3 and 4.

Wiebe E. Bijker, Thomas P. Hughes and Trevor Pinch (eds), 1989, The Social
Construction of Technological Systems, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, Part
1.

Walter Benjamin, 1936, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, in
Illuminations, 1999, London: Jonathan Cape, pp. 211-244.

ESSENTIAL READINGS

* Andrew Goodwin, 1992, Rationalization and Democratization in the New
Technologies of Popular Music, in James Lull (ed), Popular Music and
Communication, 1992, London: Sage.

* Simon Frith, 1986, Art Versus Technology: The Strange Case of Popular Music,
Media, Culture and Society, vol, 8: pp. 263-79.

The Listening Post
Thomas Edison, Mary
Had a Little Lamb; Pierre
Schaeffer, Etude aux
Chemins de Fer; Wendy
Carlos, Switched on
Bach; The Beatles, Here
Comes the Sun; Phuture,
Acid Trax; Oval,
Systemisch; Ryoji
Ikeda, Dataplex.

10
Friedrich Kittler, 1999, Gramophone, Film, Typewriter, Stanford: Stanford University
Press.

Don Ihde, 1990, Technology and the Lifeworld, Bloomington and Indiana: Indiana
University Press.

Don Ihde, 2002, Bodies in Technology, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Nelly Oudshoorn and Trevor Pinch (eds), (2003) Users Matter, Cambridge, Mass.:
MIT Press, Introduction and chapters 1, 2 and 12.

Bruno Latour, 2005, Reassembling the Social, Oxford: Oxford University Press, Part
1.

Jonathan Sterne, 2003, Bourdieu, Technique and Technology, Cultural Studies, vol.
17, no. 3/4: pp. 367-389.

Popular Music and Technology: General Readings

Paul Thberge, 1997, Any Sound You Can Imagine: Making Music/Consuming
Technology, Hanover and London: Wesleyan University Press, Introduction
and chapter 4.

Greg Milner, 2009, Perfecting Sound Forever, London: Granta.

Timothy D. Taylor, 2001, Strange Sounds: Music, Technology and Culture, London:
Routledge,

Evan Eisenberg, 2005, The Recording Angel: Music, Records and Culture From
Aristotle to Zappa, New Haven and London: Yale University Press.

Michael Chanan, 1995, Repeated Takes: A Short History of Recording and its Effects
on Music, London: Verso.

Hans-Joachim Braun (ed.), 2002, Music and Technology in the Twentieth Century,
Baltimore and London: John Hopkins University Press.

Mark Katz, 2004, Capturing Sound: How Technology Has Changed Music, London:
University of California Press, chapter 1: pp. 8-47.

David L. Morton Jr., 2004, Sound Recording: The Life Story of a Technology,
Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press.

Christoph Cox and Daniel Warner (eds), 2004, Audio Culture: Readings in Modern
Music, New York and London: Continuum, chapters 21-25 Music in the Age
of Electronic (Re)production: pp 113-164.

Ren Lysloff and Leslie C. Gay, Jr (eds), 2003, Music and Technoculture,
Middletown, CT.: Wesleyan University Press, chapters 2, 4, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15
and Afterword.

11
Simon Frith, 2002, Performing Rites: Evaluating Popular Music, Oxford: Oxford
University Press, chapter 11, Technology and Authority, pp. 226-248.

Richard Middleton, 1990, Studying Popular Music, Buckingham: Open University
Press, chapter 3, Over the Rainbow? Technology, Politics and Popular
Music in an Era Beyond Mass Culture: pp. 64-100.

Steve Jones, 1992, Rock Formation; Music, Technology and Mass Communication,
London: Sage, chapters 1, 2, 3 and 4.

Popular Music and Technology: Case Studies

Nick Prior, 2008, Putting a Glitch in the Field: Bourdieu, Actor Network Theory and
Contemporary Music, Cultural Sociology, 2: 3, 2008: pp 301-319.

Jonathan Sterne, 2003, The Audible Past: Cultural Origins of Sound Reproduction,
Durham and London: Duke University Press.

Peter Shapiro (ed.), 2000, Modulations: A History of Electronic Music, New York:
Caipirinha Publications.

Emily Thompson, 2004, The Soundscape of Modernity: Architectural Acoustics and
the Culture of Listening in America, 1900-1933, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT
Press.

Trevor Pinch and Frank Trocco, 2002, Analog Days: The Invention and Impact of the
Moog Synthesizer, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

Steve Waksman, 1999, Instruments of Desire: The Electric Guitar and the Shaping of
Musical Experience, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

Dave Tompkins, 2010, How to Wreck a Nice Beach: The Vocoder from World War II
to Hip-Hop, Chicago: Stop Smiling Books.



















12
WEEK 3) Human After All? The Voice in Popular Music

The voice is conventionally heard as containing the life of the
person, part of their essence. Pop singers are heard as
personally expressive, where the bodys character and
presence is communicated through the grain of the voice. This
session looks at questions of vocality, embodiment and
technology. How did the microphone and amplification allow
singers to express and audiences to hear differently? Why do
we hear the voice as natural despite its technologisation? To
what extent do modern studio techniques such as pitch shifting
and vocoding unsettle gender categories and the status of the
body? How useful are concepts like cyborg in understanding
deconstructions of the natural in contemporary pop?















Supplementary Readings

Kay Dickinson, 2001, Believe?: Vocoders, Digital Women and Camp, Popular
Music, vol. 20, no. 3: pp 333-347. [e-journals]

Nick Prior, Software Sequencers and Cyborg Singers: Popular Music in the Digital
Hypermodern, New Formations, 66, Spring 2009: pp81-99. [WEBCT]

Ian Penman, 2002, On the Mic: How Amplification Changed the Voice for Good, in
Undercurrents: The Hidden Wiring of Modern Music, London: Continuum, pp.
25-34.

Martin Pfleiderer, 2010, Vocal Pop Pleasures: Theoretical, Analytical and Empirical
Approaches to Voice and Singing in Popular Music, IASPM Journal, vol. 1,
no.1: http://www.iaspmjournal.net

Martin Clayton (ed), 2008, Music, Words and Voice: A Reader, Manchester:
Manchester University Press.

Alexander Weheliye, 2002, Feenin: Posthuman Voices in Contemporary Black
Popular Music, Social Text, vol. 20, no. 2.

ESSENTIAL READINGS

* Roland Barthes, 1977, The Grain of the Voice, in Image, Music, Text, London:
Flamingo, pp. 179-189.

* John Potter, 1998, "Singing and Social Process", in Vocal Authority: Singing Style
and Ideology, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: pp. 158-189.

The Listening Post
Frank Sinatra, My
Way; Billie Holiday,
Strange Fruit; Bing
Crosby, White
Christmas; Kraftwerk,
Man Machine; Peter
Frampton, Do You Feel
Like We Do; Daft
Punk, Homework; Bjrk,
Medlla; Cher,
Believe; Britney
Spears, Piece of Me;
Ginuwine, Pony; Kid
Beyond, Amplivate.

13
David Bell, 2006, Science, Technology and Culture, Maidenhead: Open University
Press, pp. 74-78.

Steven Connor, 2001, The Decomposing Voice of Postmodern Music, New Literary
History, 32: 467-483.

Simon Frith, 1996, Performing Rites, Oxford: Oxford University Press, chapter 6,
The Voice: pp. 183- 202.

Michael Chanan, 1995, Repeated Takes: A Short History of Recording and its Effects
on Music, London: Verso, chapters 5 and 7.

Don Ihde, 2007, Listening and Voice: Phenomenologies of Sound, Part IV, Voice,
pp. 147-181.

Michel Chion, 1999, The Voice in Cinema, New York: Columbia University Press,

Allen S. Weiss, 2002, Breathless: Sound Recording, Disembodiment, and The
Transformation of Lyrical Nostalgia, Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University
Press,

N. Katherine Hayles, 1999, How We Became Post-Human, Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, chapters 1 and 11.

Donna Haraway, 1991, Simians, Cyborgs and Women: the Reinvention of Nature,
London, Free Association, chapter 8, A Cyborg Manifesto: Science,
Technology and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century: pp. 149-
181.

Lucy A. Suchman, 2007, Human-Machine Reconfigurations, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.





















14
WEEK 4) Scenes, Networks and the Creative Process

How do bands, styles and genres form? This session will
explore the interplay between micro processes of interaction,
social networks and the collective creative process. It will
introduce students to Smalls concept of Musicking and show
how spatial and socio-technical dynamics impact upon the
emergence of urban scenes and styles. Drawing on the case of
the influential music scene of Reykjavk, Iceland, it will explore
how divisions of labour in music making map onto processes of
identity formation, including urban, national and regional
identities.






















Supplementary Readings

Christopher Small, 1988, Musicking: The Meanings of Performing and Listening,
Middletown, CT.: Wesleyan University Press, Prelude: Music and Musicking,
pp. 1-18.

Jason Toynbee, 2000, Making Popular Music, New York: Arnold, chapter 2, Making
up and Showing Off: What Musicians Do: pp. 34-67.

Dibben, Nicola (2009) Nature and Nation: National Identity and
Environmentalism in Icelandic Popular Music Video and Music Documentary,
Ethnomusicology Forum, vol. 18, no. 1: 131-151.

Nick Prior, 2008, Putting a Glitch in the Field: Bourdieu, Actor Network Theory and
Contemporary Music, Cultural Sociology, 2: 3, 2008: pp 301-319.

Keith Negus, 1999, Music Genres and Corporate Cultures, London: Routledge,
chapters 1 and 10.
ACTIVITY: MUSIC GENRES
Find out as much as you can about a particular
musical genre, style or scene (see case study box for
examples). When, how and where did it form? Be
prepared to present this material to your seminar
group. Emphasis must be on how scenes, styles or
genres are influenced by the social milieu, social and
regional networks, technologies and practices.

ESSENTIAL READINGS

* H. Stith Bennett, 1980, The Realities of Practice, in Simon Frith and Andrew
Goodwin (eds), 1990, On Record: Rock, Pop and the Written Word, London:
Routledge, pp. 221-237.

* Nick Prior (forthcoming) Its a Social Thing Not a Nature Thing: Popular Music
Practices in Reykjavk, Iceland, Cultural Sociology.

The Listening Post
Student led, dependent on
chosen case study.

Possible case studies
include: Chicago blues;
the Liverpool Sound;
grunge; Bristol and trip
hop; women in Punk;
glitch electronica;
Madchester; hip hop;
New Orleans jazz;
dubstep; bassline; reggae;
ska; techno; Britpop; J-
pop; Goth; rave; nu rave;
acid house; salsa; riot
grrrl; emo; post-rock;
skate punk; Detroit techno;
amateur music making in
local towns.

15

Mitchell, Tony (2009) Sigur Rss Heima: An Icelandic Psychogeography,
Transforming Cultures, vol. 4, no. 1.
http://epress.lib.uts.edu.au/journals/index.php/TfC/article/view/1072/1111

Mavis Bayton, 1988, How Women Become Musicians, in Simon Frith and Andrew
Goodwin (eds), 1990, On Record: Rock, Pop and the Written Word, London:
Routledge, pp. 238-257.

Sara Cohen, 2007, Decline, Renewal and the City in Popular Music Culture: Beyond
the Beatles, Aldershot: Ashgate.

Ryan Hibbert, 2005, What is Indie Rock?, Popular Music and Society, vol. 28, no. 1:
55-77.

Andy Bennett, 2001, Cultures of Popular Music, Maidenhead: Open University Press.

Sheila Whiteley, Andy Bennett and Stan Hawkins (eds), 2004, Music, Space and
Place: Popular Music and Cultural Identity, Aldershot: Ashgate.

Andy Bennett, Barry Shank and Jason Toynbee, The Popular Music Studies Reader,
London: Routledge, Parts 2 and 3.

Thomas Swiss, John Sloop and Andrew Herman (eds), 1998, Mapping the Beat:
Popular Music and Contemporary Theory, Oxford: Blackwell.

Andy Bennett and Richard A. Peterson (eds), 2004, Music Scenes: Local, Translocal,
and Virtual, Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press.

Ruth Finegan, 1989, The Hidden Musicians: Music-Making in an English Town,
Middletown, CT.: Wesleyan University Press, chapters 1, 2, 3 and 10.

Pierre Bourdieu, 1990, The Logic of Practice, Cambridge: Polity.

Sarah Thornton, 1995, Club Cultures: Music, Media and Subcultural Capital:
Cambridge: Polity Press, chapters 1 and 2.

Robert Stebbins, 1976, Music Among Friends: The Social Networks of Amateur
Musicians, in Popular Music: Critical Concepts in Media and Cultural
Studies, edited by Simon Frith, 2004, London: Routledge.

Charles Leadbeater and Paul Miller, 2004, The Pro-Am Revolution: How Enthusiasts
are Changing our Economy and Society, Demos. Available at:
http://www.demos.co.uk/files/proamrevolutionfinal.pdf

Jane F. Fulcher, 2007, "Symbolic Domination and Contestation in French Music:
Shifting the Paradigm from Adorno to Bourdieu", from Opera and Society in
Italy and France from Monteverdi to Bourdieu, edited by Victoria Johnson,
Jane F. Fulcher, and Thomas Ertman, Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press: pp. 312-329.


16
WEEK 5) Music Consumption in Everyday Life

Sociologists have conventionally viewed the consumption of music as a product of
the consumers social background, or cultural capital, in a hierarchy of taste
cultures. Bourdieus influence on sociological studies of the musical habitus is
fundamental to this type of work. However, sociologists have begun to rethink the
adequacy of this work and particularly its reluctance to deal with the aesthetic and
affective dimensions of culture. This session pursues a central claim: that music is a
mechanism for the management of everyday life; it is therefore an expressive, vital
force that helps order the social and the emotional. From domestic settings to social
memory, romantic encounters to collective occasions, bottom up approaches to
music can show us the mundane ways music engages with self and memory. Be
prepared to reflect on your own feelings, tastes and interactions with music.











Supplementary Readings

Tony Bennett, Mike Savage, Elizabeth Silva, Alan Warde, Modesto Gayo-Cal, David
Wright, 2009, "Tensions of the Musical Field", from Culture, Class, Distinction,
Tony Bennett, Mike Savage, Elizabeth Silva, Alan Warde, Modesto Gayo-Cal,
David Wright, London: Routledge: pp. 75-93.

Antoine Hennion, 2007, The Things That Hold Us Together: Taste and Sociology,
Cultural Sociology, vol. 1, no. 1: 97-114.

Tia DeNora, 2004, Historical Perspectives in Music Sociology, Poetics, 32: pp. 211-
221.

Antoine Hennion, 2008, Listen!, Music and Arts in Action, vol. 1, June: 36-45.

Simon Frith, 2003, Music and Everyday Life, chapter 7 of The Cultural Study of
Music, Martin Clayton, Trevor Herbert and Richard Middleton (eds), London:
Routledge: pp. 92-101.

Julian Tanner, Mark Asbridge and Scot Wortley, 2008, Our Favourite Melodies:
Musical Consumption and Teenage Lifestyles, British Journal of Sociology,
vol. 59, no. 1: 117-144.

Richard A. Peterson and Roger M. Kern, 1996, Changing Highbrow Taste: From
Snob to Omnivore, American Sociological Review, vol. 61, October: pp. 900-
907.

ESSENTIAL READINGS

* Tia DeNora, 2000, Music as a Technology of Self, chapter 3 of Music and
Everyday Life, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: pp. 46-74.

* Tak Wing Chan and John H. Goldthorpe, 2007, Social Stratification and Cultural
Consumption: Music in England, European Sociological Review, vol. 23,
no. 1: pp. 1-19. [e-journals]

17
Bernard Lahire, 2008, The Individual and the Mixing of Genres: Cultural Dissonance
and the Self-Distinction, Poetics, 36: pp. 166-188.

Michael Bull, 2000, Sounding out the City: Personal Stereos and the Management of
Everyday Life, Oxford: Berg, Part 1.

Brian Longhurst, 1995, Popular Music and Society, Carmbridge: Polity, Part III,
Audience.

Stuart Hall and Paddy Whannel, 1964, The Young Audience, in On Record, edited
by Simon Frith and Andrew Goodwin, pp. 27-38.

John Connell and Chris Gibson, 2003, Sound Tracks: Popular Music, Identity and
Place, chapter 9, Aural Architecture: the Spaces of Music, pp. 192-220.

Pierre Bourdieu, 1982, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste,
London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, chapter 3, The Habitus and the Space
of Life-Styles: pp. 169-225.

Tim Wall, 2003, Studying Popular Music Culture, London: Hodder, Part 4, Audiences
and Consumption, pp. 165-210.

Simon Frith, 1996, Performing Rites, Oxford: Oxford University Press, Part III, Why
Music Matters, pp. 249-280.
























18
WEEK 6) Keeping it Real: Performance, Gigs and the Live
Experience

Live music presents a special case for sociological analysis. Its
perceived immediacy, presence and resonance amongst
audiences, its aura, is dependent upon a great deal of social,
cultural and technological work. This session will look at
various aspects of the live gig, from theorisations of
performance to the micro rituals of attendance, from the
resurgence of live festivals to the spatial organisation of the live
setting. Why are live performances so seductive? To what
extent is listening itself a performance? What happens when
gigs go wrong?





























Supplementary Readings

Simon Frith, 2007, Live Music Matters, Scottish Music Review, vol. 1, no. 1.
Available at:
http://www.scottishmusicreview.org/index.php/SMR/article/view/9/8

Sean Albiez, 2006, "Print the Truth, not the Legend. The Sex Pistols: Lesser Free
Trade Hall, Manchester, June 4, 1976", from Performance and Popular
Music: History, Place and Time, Aldershot: Ashgate: 92-106.

ACTIVITY: THE GIG

1) Go along to a gig. It can be a small, local event or something larger like a
festival.

2) Use this experience to critically interrogate the gigs social production and
organisation: how the gig is structured, the social rituals, the organisation of the
space, the management of boundaries, the role of technologies, the interactions
between band/audience, within the band, within the audience, how liveness is
performed. Refer to the readings to prompt your ideas.

3) Take a notepad and/or make mental notes before, during and after the gig. Be
prepared to talk to others about your findings in class.

ESSENTIAL READINGS

* Philip Auslander, 1996, Liveness: Performance and the Anxiety of Simulation,
in the Popular Music Studies Reader, edited by Andy Bennett, Barry
Shank and Jason Toynbee, 2006: London: Routledge, pp. 85-91.

* Simon Frith, 1996, Performing Rites, Oxford: Oxford University Press, chapter
10, Performance, pp. 203-225.



The Listening Post
Have a scour through
footage on YouTube
showing iconic live
performances from Bob
Dylan, Jimmy Hendrix,
The Who, The Sex Pistols,
Led Zeppelin, Pet Shop
Boys, Madonna,
Kraftwerk, Oasis, Take
That, etc.

19
Mark Duffett, 2003, Imagined Memories: Webcasting as a Live Technology and the
Case of Little Big Gig, Information, Communication and Society, vol. 6, no. 3:
pp. 307-325.

Jason Toynbee, 2000, Making Popular Music: Musicians, Creativity and Institutions,
New York: Arnold, Performance theatre and process, Performance
loud, clear and interrupted, pp. 53-65.

Christopher Small, 1998, Postlude: Was it a Good Performance and How Do You
Know?, in Musicking, Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, pp. 207-
222.

John Richardson, 2005, The Digital Wont Let Me Go: Constructions of the Virtual
and the Real in Gorillaz Clint Eastwood, Journal of Popular Music Studies,
vol. 17, no. 1: 1-29.

Wendy Fonorow, 2006, Empire of Dirt: The Aesthetics and Rituals of British Indie
Music, Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.

Timothy Dowd, Kathleen Liddle and Jenna Nelson, 2004, Music Festivals as
Scenes: Examples from Serious Music, Womyns Music, and SkatePunk, in
Music Scenes: Local, Translocal, and Virtual, Andy Bennett and Richard A.
Peterson (eds), 2004, Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press.

Jacques Derrida, 1974, Of Grammatology, Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press.

Theodore Gracyk, 2007, Listening to Popular Music, or, How I Learned to Stop
Worrying and Love Led Zeppelin, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

Live Music Bibliography: http://www.gla.ac.uk/media/media_96628_en.pdf

Matt Brennan and Emma Webster, 2009, "Analysing Live Music in the UK: Findings
One Year Into a Three Year Research Project", International Association for
the Study of Popular Music Biennial World Conference, University of
Liverpool, 15 July. http://www.gla.ac.uk/media/media_144326_en.pdf

















20
WEEK 7) OK Computer: Sampling, Simulation and Software

Recent innovations in digital technologies have transformed
practices of music making. This session will describe recent
technological developments such as MIDI (Musical Instrument
Digital Interface) and VST (Virtual Studio Technology) within a
social and historical perspective, attending to the multiple ways
the digital unsettles conventional assumptions about originality,
authorship and spatiality. It will ask to what extent the
availability of software studios represent a democratisation of
the means of cultural production, point to the various ethical
problems of sampling (from copyright to colonialism) and
explore the possibility that established models of cultural
production need to be rethought in the light of digitalisation.











Supplementary Readings

Timothy D. Taylor, 2001, Strange Sounds: Music, Technology and Culture, London:
Routledge, chapters 1 and 2.

Paul Thberge, 1997, Any Sound You Can Imagine: Making Music / Consuming
Technology, Middletown, CT.: Wesleyan University Press, chapters 1, 4 and
6.

Nick Prior, 2009, 'Software Sequencers and Cyborg Singers: Popular Music in the
Digital Hypermodern', New Formations, 66, Spring 2009: 81-99.

Paul Thberge, 2004, The Network Studio: Historical and Technological Paths to a
New Ideal in Music Making, Social Studies of Science, vol. 35, no. 5: 759-
781.

John Richardson, 2005, The Digital Wont Let Me Go: Constructions of the Virtual
and the Real in Gorillaz Clint Eastwood, Journal of Popular Music Studies,
vol. 17, no. 1: 1-29.

Ren T. A. Lysloff and Leslie C. Gay, Jr. (eds), 2003, Music and Technoculture,
Middletown, CT.: Wesleyan University Press, chapters 2, 3, 4 and 15.

Michael D. Ayers (ed.), Cybersounds: Essays on Virtual Music Culture, New York:
Peter Lang.

ESSENTIAL READINGS

* Andrew Goodwin, 1988, Sample and Hold: Pop Music in the Digital Age of
Reproduction, Critical Quarterly, vol. 30, no. 3: pp. 34-49. [e-journals]

* Nick Prior, 2008, OK Computer: Mobility, Software and the Laptop Musician,
Information, Communication and Society, vol. 11, no. 7: pp. 912-932. [e-
journals]

The Listening Post
Afrika Bambaataa;
M/A/R/R/S; Bomb
the Bass; DJ
Shadow; Wu Tang
Clan; Fat Boy Slim;
Gorillaz; Aphex
Twin; Autechre,
Matthew Herbert,
Found, Timbaland.

21
David Hesmondalgh, 2006, Digital Sampling and Cultural Inequality, Social and
Legal Studies, vol. 15, no. 1: pp. 53-75.

Tara Rodgers, 2003, On the Process and Aesthetics of Sampling in Electronic Music
Production, Organised Sound, vol. 8, no. 3: pp. 313-320.

Kembrew McLeod, 2005, Confessions of an Intellectual (Property): Danger Mouse,
Mickey Mouse, Sonny Bono, and My Long and Winding Path as a Copyright
Activist-Academic, Popular Music and Society, vol. 28, no. 1: pp. 79-93.

David Beer and Barry Sandywell, 2005, Stylistic Morphing: Notes on the
Digitalisation of Contemporary Music Culture, Convergence, vol. 11, no. 4:
pp. 106-121 [Copy NP].

Robert Fink, 2005, The Story of ORCH5, or, the Classical Ghost in the Hip-Hop
Machine, Popular Music, vol. 24, no. 3: pp. 339-356.

Mark Katz, 2004, Capturing Sound: How Technology Has Changed Music, Berkeley:
University of California Press, chapter 7, Music in 1s and 0s: The Art and
Politics of Digital Sampling, pp. 137-157.

David Beer and Roger Burrows, 2007, Sociology and, of and in Web 2.0: Some
Initial Considerations, Sociological Research Online, vol. 12, no. 5. Available
at: http://www.socresonline.org.uk/12/5/17.html

David Beer, 2008, Making Friends with Jarvis Cocker: Music Culture in the Context
of Web 2.0, Cultural Sociology, vol. 1, no. 2: pp. 222-241.

Greg Hainge, 2007, Vinyl is Dead, Long Live Vinyl: The Work of Recording and
Mourning in the age of Digital Reproduction, Culture Machine: The Journal,
no. 9. Available at:
http://www.culturemachine.net/index.php/cm/article/view/81/68

Jan Marontate, 2005, Digital Recording and the Reconfiguration of Music as
Performance, American Behavioural Scientist, vol. 48, no. 11: pp. 1422-
1438.

Timothy Warner, 2003, Pop Music Technology and Creativity: Trevor Horn and the
Digital Revolution, Aldershot: Ashgate.

Peter Manning, 2004, Electronic and Computer Music, Oxford: Oxford University
Press, Part IV.

Kodwo Eshun, 1998, More Brilliant Than the Sun: Adventures in Sonic Fiction,
London: Quartet Books.







22
WEEK 8) Decks are Different: Dance Music, Turntablism
and the DJ

From informal curator to superstar, the role of the DJ signifies
shifts in the way music is socially organised and performed.
This session looks at the historical emergence of the DJ in afro-
Caribbean, American and European cultures and the misuse of
the turntable as a musical instrument. Inspecting the techniques
and cultural position-takings of the DJ raises interesting
questions regarding analogue vs digital formations, authenticity
and originality. To what extent does the DJ represent the death
of the author-artist? Is the DJ a collector, producer, conductor or
listener? How do struggles over the status of vinyl signify
discourses of craft and nostalgia?












Supplementary Readings

Dave Haslam, 1997, DJ Culture, chapter 13 of The Clubcultures Reader: Readings
in Popular Cultural Studies, Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 168-179.

Andy Bennett, 2001, Cultures of Popular Music, Maidenhead: Open University Press,
chapter 8, Contemporary Dance Music and Club Cultures, pp. 118-135.

Christian Marclay and Yasunao Tone, Record, CD, Analog, Digital, chapter 49 of
Audio Culture: Readings in Modern Music, Christoph Cox and Daniel Warner
(eds), London: Continuum, pp. 341-347.

Rebekah Farrugia and Thomas Swiss, 2005, Tracking the DJs: Vinyl Records,
Work, and the Debate over New Technologies, Journal of Popular Music
Studies, vol. 17, no. 1: pp. 30-44.

Simon Reynolds, 1998 Energy Flash, London: Picador.

Tony Langlois, 1992, Can You Feel It? DJs and House Music Culture in the UK,
Popular Music, vol. 11, no. 2: pp. 229-238.

Charles Mudede, 2003, The Turntable, Ctheory, article a126, available at:
http://www.ctheory.net/articles.aspx?id=382

Simon Reynolds, 1999, Generation Ecstasy: Into the World of Techno and Rave
Culture: London: Routledge.
ESSENTIAL READINGS

* Bill Brewster and Frank Broughton, 1999, Planet Rock, chapter 10 of Last Night a
DJ Saved My Life, pp. 254-287.

* Mark Katz, 2004, The Turntable as Weapon: Understanding the DJ Battle, chapter
6 of Capturing Sound: How Technology Has Changed Music, Berkeley:
University of California Press, pp. 114-136.




The Listening Post
Grandmaster Flash; Lee
Scratch Perry; Jazzy
Jeff; Frankie Knuckles;
Christian Marclay; Juan
Atkins; Carl Craig;
Derrick May; Carl Cox;
Jeff Mills; Paul
Oakenfold.

23

Jason Toynbee, 2000, Dance Music: Business as Usual or Heaven on Earth,
chapter 5 of Making Popular Music: Musicians, Creativity and Institutions, pp.
130-162.

Hillegonda Rietveld, 1998, This is our House: House Music, Cultural Spaces and
Technologies, Aldershot: Ashgate.

Timothy D. Taylor, 2001, Strange Sounds: Music, Technology and Culture, London:
Routledge, pp. 195-200.

Ulf Poschardt, 1998, DJ Culture, London: Quartet Books.

Sarah Thornton, 1995, Club Cultures: Music, Media and Subcultural Capital:
Cambridge: Polity Press.

David Toop, Iron Needles of Death and a Piece of Wax, 2000, in Modulations: A
History of Electronic Music, Peter Shapiro (ed.), 2000, New York: Caipirinha
Publications.

Peter Shapiro, 2002, Deck Wreckers: The Turntable as Instrument, in
Undercurrents: The Hidden Wiring of Modern Music, London: Continuum, pp.
163-180.





























24
WEEK 9) From Bits to Hits: Music and Video Games

In the early days of gaming, 8bit music was defined by its lo-fi
quality and lack of variety. Today, famous orchestras, bands
and singers are commissioned to write pieces of music specially
for games. In some countries, video game soundtracks are
amongst the top selling albums. Meanwhile, the sounds of the
8bit chip are making a techno-nostalgic return in pop songs
across genres whilst games such as Guitar Hero are making for
a more intimate connection between popular music and digital
play. This session will examine the birth and development of
this new form and medium for music. It will discuss the
importance of gaming in contemporary culture, show how shifts
in the status afforded to game music is more than a technical
matter, examine the new wave of 8bit sounds in popular music
culture such as chiptunes, Bitpop and Game Boy music
and identify a current of rhythm action games that potentially
blur the boundaries between production and consumption.
















Supplementary Readings

Aphra Kerr, 2008, Spilling Hot Coffee? Grand Theft Auto as Contested Cultural
Product, chapter 1 of The Meaning and Culture of Grand Theft Auto: Critical
Essays, Nate Garrrelts (ed.), London: McFarland: pp. 17-34.

Karen Collins, 2008, In the Loop: Creativity and Constraint in 8-bit Video Game
Audio, Twentieth-Century Music, vol. 4, no. 2: 209-227.

Karen Collins, 2006, Loops and Bloops: Music of the Commodore 64 Games,
Soundscapes: Journal of Media Culture, vol. 8.
http://www.icce.rug.nl/~soundscapes/VOLUME08/Loops_and_bloops.shtml

Douglas Brown, 2008, Rez: An Evolving Analysis, Refractory: A Journal of
Entertainment Media, May 25
th
2008
http://blogs.arts.unimelb.edu.au/refractory/2008/05/24/rez-an-evolving-analysis-
douglas-brown/

ESSENTIAL READINGS

* Karen Collins, 2008, Press Reset: Video Game Music
Comes of Age, chapter 4 of Game Sound: An
Introduction to the History, Theory, and Practice of
Video Game Music and Sound Design, Cambridge,
Mass.: MIT Press, pp. 63-84.

* Holly Tessler, 2008, The New MTV? Electronic Arts and
Playing Music, chapter 1 of From Pac-Man to Pop
Music, Karen Collins (ed.), Aldershot: Ashgate: pp.
13-26.



The Listening Post
1) Music from games: Pac-
Man; Super Mario Bros;
The Legend of Zelda;
Katamari Damacy; Dragon
Quest; Sonic the
Hedgehog; Grand Theft
Auto; Rez; Street Fighter;
Final Fantasy; Quake.

2) Music with games:
contemporary 8bit music:
Welle: Erdball; Printed
Circuit; Freezepop;
Tobiah; Receptors;
Neotericz; Death By
Television; Mr. Pacman;
Nintendude; Crystal
Castles; 8 Bit Mayhem;
pixelh8.

3) Music as games: Guitar
Hero; Rock Band; e-jay;
Singstar; Lips; Rez.

25
Karen Collins (ed.), 2008, From Pac-Man to Pop Music, Aldershot: Ashgate,
especially introduction and chapter 10.

Karen Collins, 2008, Game Sound: An Introduction to the History, Theory, and
Practice of Video Game Music and Sound Design, Cambridge, Mass.: MIT
Press.

Grethe Mitchell and Andrew Clarke, 2007, Videogame Music: Chiptunes Byte
Back?, Conference Paper, DiGRA (Digital Games Research Association),
2007. Available at: http://www.digra.org/dl/db/07311.12224.pdf

Matthew Belinkie, 1999, Video Game Music: Not Just Kids Stuff, Video Game
Music, http://www.vgmusic.com/vgpaper.shtml

Jon Dovey and Helen W. Kennedy, 2006, Game Cultures: Computer Games as New
Media, Maidenhead: Open University Press, chapter 1, Play, Technology
and Culture, pp. 22-42.

Henry Jenkins, 2006, Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide, New
York and London: New York University Press, Introduction, pp. 1-24.

Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin, 2000, Remediation: Understanding New Media,
Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, chapter 4, Computer Games, pp. 88-13.

J. Patrick Williams, Sean Q. Hendricks and W. Keith Winklery (eds), 2006, Gaming
as Culture: Essays on Reality, Identity and Experience in Fantasy Games.

J. Patrick Williams and Jonas Heide Smith (eds), 2007, The Players Realm: Studies
on the Culture of Video Games and Gaming, London: McFarland.

Steven E. Jones, 2008, The Meaning of Video Games: Gaming and Textual
Strategies, London: Routledge.

David B. Nieborg and Joke Hermes, 2008, What is Game Studies Anyway,
European Journal of Cultural Studies, vol. 11, no. 2: pp. 131-146.

Edward Castronova, 2005, Synthetic Worlds: The Business and Culture of Online
Games, London: University of Chicago Press.

The Meaning and Culture of Grand Theft Auto: Critical Essays, Nate Garrrelts (ed.),
London: McFarland.











26
WEEK 10) iPod Therefore I Am: Digitalisation and Mobile
Listening

Talk of a new musical economy is based on the assumption that digital formats and
practices have become the new orthodoxy. From illegal downloads to mobile phone
ring tones, digital radio to the rise of the CD, digital technologies seem to be
transforming where, what and how we consume music. This session will address the
personal and public dimensions of digital music consumption. It will consider what the
rise of the personal stereo and MP3 player mean for the rhythms and experiences of
urban life, examine contemporary practices of music collecting and ask to what
extent the rise of the MP3 represents a disintermediation of the music industry.





















Supplementary Readings

Dylan Jones, 2005, Journey to the Centre of the iPod, chapter 19 of iPod Therefore
I Am: A Personal Journey Through Music, London: Phoenix.

Michael Bull, 2000, Filmic Cities and Aesthetic Experience, chapter 7 of Sounding
Out the City: Personal Stereos and the Management of Everyday Life,
Oxford: Berg, pp. 85-96. [WebCT]

Tia DeNora, Music and the Body, chapter 4 of Music in Everyday Life, Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, pp. 75-108.

Paul Du Gay, Stuart Hall et al, 2000, Doing Cultural Studies: The Story of the
Walkman, London: Sage.

Michael Bull, 2007, Sound Moves: iPod Culture and Urban Experience, London:
Routledge.

Michael Bull, 2005, No Dead Air! The iPod and the Culture of Mobile Listening,
Leisure Studies, vol. 24, no. 4, October 2005: pp. 343-355.
ACTIVITY: SEMINAR

In the week leading up to this session, keep some impressionistic notes of
your experience with personal MP3 players. Think about where, when and
how you listen to music and whether the MP3 player changes these aspects.
How do you manage your mood with music? How does it structure your
experience of the city, your thoughts and emotions in transit, your routines
and habits?


ESSENTIAL READINGS

* Michael Bull, 2007, Sounding Out Cosmopolitanism: iPod Culture and
Recognition, chapter 3 of Sound Moves: iPod Culture and Urban
Experience, London: Routledge: pp. 24-37.

* Nick Prior (forthcoming) The Plural iPod: A Study of Technology in Action,
Poetics.

27

Sophie Arkette, 2004, Sounds Like City, Theory, Culture and Society, vol. 21, no. 1:
pp. 159-168.

Gabriel Cosentino, 2006, Hacking the iPod: A Look Inside Apples Portable Music
Player, chapter 9 of Cybersounds: Essays on Virtual Music Culture, Michael
D. Ayers (ed.), New York: Peter Lang.

S. Hosokawa, 1984, The Walkman Effect, Popular Music, vol. 4: 165-80.

Steven Levy, 2007, The Perfect Thing: How the iPod Shuffles Commerce, Culture
and Coolness, London: Simon and Schuster.

John Ryan and Michael Hughes, 2006, The Fate of Creativity in the Age of Self-
Production, chapter 11 of Cybersounds: Essays on Virtual Music Culture,
Michael D. Ayers (ed.), New York: Peter Lang.

Jean-Paul Thibaud, 2003, The Sonic Composition of the City, chapter 18 of The
Auditory Culture Reader, Michael Bull and Les Back (eds), Oxford: Berg, pp.
329-342.

Andrew Leyshon, 2003, Scary Monsters? Software Formats, Peer-to-Peer
Networks, and the Spectre of the Gift, Environment and Planning D: Society
and Space, vol. 21, pp. 533-558.

Marcus Breen, 2004, The Music Industry, Technology and Utopia: an Exchange
Between Marcus Breen and Eamonn Forde, Popular Music, vol. 23, no. 1:
pp. 79-89.

Leander Kahney, 2005, The Cult of iPod, San Francisco: No Starch Press, especially
chapter 2, New Listening Habits.

Jonathan Sterne, 2006, The mp3 as Cultural Artifact, New Media and Society, vol.
8, no. 5: pp. 825-842.

David Hesmondalgh, 2007, Digitalisation, Music and Copyright, CRESC Working
Paper Series, no. 30. Available at:
http://www.cresc.ac.uk/publications/documents/wp30.pdf

Steven Johnson, 1997, Interface Culture: How New Technology Transforms the Way
We Create and Communicate, New York: Basic Books.

Evan Eisenberg, 2005, The Recording Angel: Music, Records and Culture From
Aristotle to Zappa, New Haven: Yale University Press, Finale Quasi Una
Fantasia, pp. 217-240.







28




















































SHORT ESSAYS

Your short essay is due: Monday 28
th
October 2013, 12 noon. Please see submitting
work electronically on page 5 for details of how to hand in your essay.

The title of the essay is:

With reference to a single example, show how a sociological analysis of
popular music might benefit from an examination of the role of
technology.

Possible examples: microphones, the electric guitar, the recording studio, the
synthesizer, the drum machine, the jukebox, the CD, the iPod, the computer, the
turntable, MIDI.

Word count: short essays should be between 1400-1600 words long, excluding the
bibliography. You must include a word count on the title page. Essays above 1600
words will be penalized using the Ordinary level criterion of 1 mark for every 20 words
over length. Anything between 1,601 and 1,620 words will lose one point, between
1,621 and 1,640 two points, and so on. Note that the lower 1400 figure is a guideline
for students which you will not be penalized for going below. However, you should note
that shorter essays are unlikely to achieve the required depth and that this will be
reflected in your mark.

Do not put your name or matriculation number on the front of the essay. Please do put
your Exam Number on the front of the essay.

Readings: this essay should be based, predominantly, on the first 5 weeks of the
course (unless you choose a technology that isnt covered until later on in the course).
Please consult individual weeks for relevant literatures but feel free to use other
readings not listed here.

29









LONG ESSAYS

Your long essay is due: Monday 9
th
December, 2013, 12 noon.

Long Essays must be between 3500 and 4500 words in length, including
footnotes / endnotes but excluding the bibliography. Essays above 4,500 words
will be penalized using the Ordinary level criterion of 1 mark for every 20 words
over length: anything between 4,501 and 4,520 words will lose one point,
between 4,521 and 4,540 two points, and so on.
Note that the lower 3,500 figure is a guideline for students which you will not be
penalized for going below. However, you should note that shorter essays are
unlikely to achieve the required depth and that this will be reflected in your
mark.
You must include a word count on the title page.
Do not put your name or matriculation number on the front of the essay, only
your Exam Number.
Submission procedures are the same as the short essay you must submit an
electronic copy via ELMA.

The titles of the essays are:

1) The industrialisation of music cant be understood as something that
happens to music since it describes a process in which music itself is
made (Frith, 1988: 12). Discuss.

2) Assess the claim that the history of popular music is inseparable from the
history of technology.

3) Write a sociological account of the voice in popular music.

4) With reference to one particular music genre or scene, examine the
relationship between musical and social practices.

5) How is popular music implicated in the constitution and maintenance of
the self?

6) Whats so special about live music and how might we understand the
enduring popularity of live music from a sociological perspective?

7) Critically examine the impact that the Internet has had on music
consumption.

8) To what extent does the rise of the DJ transform our notions of
authorship, authenticity and the audience in popular music?

9) To what extent and how are computer games transforming the production
and consumption of popular music?

10) Assess Bulls claim that mobile listening devices place consumers into a
space of largely private and mobile auditory worship (Bull, 2006: 107).