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POPULAR MUSIC, TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY

SOCIOLOGY SSPS Monday 4.10PM-6.00pm

SEMESTER 1 2013-14 Convenor: Nick Prior

Course Code: SCIL10064

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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 music’s 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: 28th October 2) Long essay: 9th December

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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 Music’s 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

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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.

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• 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.

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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. You’ll 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.

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* denotes essential reading material available on LEARN or through e-journals. WEEK 1) Introduction: Popular Music’s 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. Peterson’s 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, “It’s 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.

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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

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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”.

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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 Théberge, 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.

René 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.

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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.

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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 body’s 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; Björk, Medúlla; Cher, “Believe”; Britney Spears, “Piece of Me”; Ginuwine, “Pony”; Kid Beyond, Amplivate.

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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.

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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 Small’s 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 Reykjavík, 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) “’It’s a Social Thing Not a Nature Thing’: Popular Music

Practices in Reykjavík, 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.

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Mitchell, Tony (2009) “Sigur Rós’s 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.

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WEEK 5) Music Consumption in Everyday Life Sociologists have conventionally viewed the consumption of music as a product of the consumer’s social background, or “cultural capital”, in a hierarchy of taste cultures. Bourdieu’s 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]

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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.

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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 gig’s 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.

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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 Won’t 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, Womyn’s 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

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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 Théberge, 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 Théberge, 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 Won’t 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.

René 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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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 25th 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.

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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 Kid’s 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.

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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.

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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 Apple’s 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.

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SHORT ESSAYS

Your short essay is due: Monday 28th 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 isn’t covered until later on in the course). Please consult individual weeks for relevant literatures but feel free to use other readings not listed here.

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LONG ESSAYS

Your long essay is due: Monday 9th 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 can’t 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) What’s 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 Bull’s claim that mobile listening devices place consumers into a space of “largely private and mobile auditory worship” (Bull, 2006: 107).