The Place of Music
Edited by Andrew Leyshon, David Matless, and George Revill
“A truly interdisciplinary endeavor, this book not only gives music its place, but also begins the more difficult task of making space sing. This unique and rigorously accomplished juxtaposition questions the various meanings and the very ontology of space even as it challenges us to rethink the way music functions as culture. Contributors explore the relationship of music and space empirically, conceptually, historically, and socially. They point toward a new direction, shape, and timbre for future work in music studies, geography, and social theory.”
—Lawrence Grossberg, PhD, Morris Davis Distinguished Professor of Communication Studies, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
“This refreshingly eclectic and impressively interdisciplinary volume builds some much needed bridges between musicology and the social sciences. The editors have constructed an engaging tour through the political economy of noise and the cultural politics of sound to the aesthetics of listening and the poetics of performance. The result is a fascinating overview of the powerful engagement between music, space, and identity. The Place of Music is a quintessential geographical affair, which serious scholars throughout the arts, humanities, and social sciences ignore at their peril.”
—Susan J. Smith, DPhil, Ogilvie Professor of Geography, University of Edinburgh, Scotland
Table of Contents
PrefaceIntroduction, Leyshon, Matless, and Revill
1. The Global Music Industry: Contradictions in the Commodification of the Sublime, John Lovering
2. The Early Days of the Gramophone Industry in India: Historical, Social, and Musical Perspectives, Gerry Farrell
3. Welcome to Dreamsville: A History and Geography of Northern Soul, Joanne Hollows and Katie Milestone
4. Victorian Brass Bands: Class, Taste, and Space, Trevor Herbert
5. Locating Listening: Technological Space, Popular Music, and Canadian Mediations, Jody Berland
6. Borderlines: Bilingual Terrain in Scottish Song, Steve Sweeney-Turner
7. England's Glory: Sensibilities of Place in English Music, 1900-1950, Robert Stradling
8. Samuel Coleridge-Taylor's Geography of Disappointment: Hybridity, Identity, and Networks of Musical Meaning, George Revill
9. Global Undergrounds: The Cultural Politics of Sound and Light in Los Angeles, 1965-1975, Simon Rycroft
10. From "Dust Storm Disaster" to "Pastures of Plenty": Woody Guthrie and the Landscapes of the American Depression, John R. Gold
11. Sounding Out the City: Music and the Sensuous Production of Place, Sara Cohen
12. Desire, Power, and the Sonoric Landscape: Early Modernism and the Politics of Musical Privacy, Richard Leppert
About the Editors
Andrew Leyshon, PhD, is Reader in Geography at the University of Bristol, United Kingdom.David Matless, PhD, is Lecturer in Geography at the University of Nottingham, United Kingdom.
George Revill, PhD, is Lecturer in Geography at Oxford Brookes University, United Kingdom.
Audience
Students and scholars of cultural studies, geography, musicology, sociology, and communication, as well as other readers interested in issues of space, politics, and culture.May serve as a text for advanced undergraduate and graduate-level courses.