Music Communities

Both scholarly and popular discourse recognise that the production and consumption of music tends to be organised within 'scenes' or 'worlds', and that these are formed of social networks. From the brass band movement of the nineteenth century to the latest virtual 'happening', to participate in a music community is to participate in a network. While network ties may be competitive and antagonistic as well as co-operative, music scholars generally recognise that networks are beneficial for those involved. Art, as Howard Becker famously put it, is collective action. Artists rely upon the contribution of others to make their mark, and the vitality of a musical world is partly a function of the relationships between participants. They may share moral or financial support, or organisational expertise. Musicians in particular may share skills and techniques, collectively determine musical status, and, most importantly, generate new musical ideas through collaboration and exchange of knowledge.

These observations on music networks overlap significantly with research into social capital. Social capital theorists have consistently found that dense networks foster reciprocity and trustworthiness, facilitating action impossible in their absence. They may also sustain esoteric and specialised cultural forms, by supporting those with interests discouraged in wider society, as is echoed in cultural sociological research on taste. However, this overlap remains largely unnoticed by both music scholars and social capital researchers. We propose to make it explicit, exploring the significance of social networks for music and the arts. We wish to do so, moreover, with specific reference to formal social network analysis (SNA), a methodological approach relatively common in the social capital literature but almost absent in music research. While the term 'network' is often used as a metaphor, and communities described qualitatively, the sociology of music and musicology fields are at a very early stage of applying the mathematically-based techniques of network analysis used in disciplines as diverse as innovation research, security and terrorism studies, and financial regulation. A small number of studies of music have been published, including work on punk scenes by Nick Crossley at the University of Manchester. We wish to contribute further by applying these techniques ourselves, and encouraging their adoption by music and arts scholars more broadly.

SNA has great potential for arts and humanities research. Many music historians recognise the importance of networks, and compile vast data on relationships, particularly with the explosion of online social network data. SNA intersects quantitative, qualitative and computational methods, and allows us to map and analyse musical worlds in precise, systematic ways. Given a list of music scene participants, and their links within the group and to other organisations or resources, SNA generates measures of connectivity: not simply the number of ties each member has, but also measures of their position within the music world, and further measures of the network as a whole. We can then examine questions such as whether originality and movement against the mainstream is sustained amongst a denser, more cohesive community; or whether it is associated with weak links to other worlds and a diversity of social and financial resources. We aim to investigate such questions by examining network data in detail from the following music worlds: classical, punk, folk and jazz, both by analysing data we have already collected on punk, classical and folk scenes, and by collecting further data from directories, discographies, interviews, biographies and journals of record for these scenes and for the international jazz world.

The project has high potential for academic and public impact. First, our Inception and Consultation Meetings are specifically intended to plan and ensure delivery of a high-quality book co-edited by the applicants, provisionally entitled Music Worlds, after Howard Becker's canonic Art Worlds.

A second impact is that researchers with closely-related interests in the study of music will forge collaborative bonds, and that the advantages and insights which SNA can provide as a methodology, will be projected to an important constituency. Music scholars will have the opportunity to learn a new application or the chance to collaborate with a practising SNA researcher as appropriate. Doctoral and early career researchers in the arts and social sciences will also have the rare opportunity of hearing leading American sociologists of culture discuss their research.

A third academic and public impact will be the publishing of materials on a website. This will host teaching materials, so that those who do not attend the Training Course could potentially teach themselves the relevant software from home. It will also host datasets, sound clips, full-colour graphics and visualisations of social worlds related to the edited book which will not suit hard copy publication. As stated in the Case for Support it will also include interactive functionality and links to sociomusicology and SNA resources. Finally, we will investigate webinar opportunities to stream the Seminar live.

A further strand of our impact generation will be through engagement with different music worlds. The prospective list of Seminar attenders includes researchers working with network data on punk, jazz, calypso and classical music. We wish to incorporate further music scenes through engagement with practising musicians, animateurs and those writing about music outside the academy, to build opportunities for the sourcing of new network data (for example, via interviews) and perhaps future collaborative research.

An additional avenue will be via the policy world. We will seek early engagement at the Inception Meeting with the Arts Council England, the Musicians' Union, and the Institute of Cultural Capital, Liverpool. We will frame the Project to policy-makers as an investigation into talent and creativity, and publicise the Seminar and website to specific contacts at think tanks, NESTA and DCMS. An important vehicle will be a briefing paper, 'How to Leverage Networks for Creativity and Cultural Vitality', collaborating with RSA to ensure that its message is communicated directly to policy-makers and the public. As discussed in the Case for Support, we are establishing relationships with a number of music broadcasters and journalists and will pursue those, releasing findings selectively, as the Project progresses.

In sum, we aim to build social capital and collaboration among researchers in disparate but allied disciplines; and encourage graduate and early career researchers in the music field to diversify their research. We also hope to exploit opportunities to engage with cultural researchers currently within the 'Connected Communities' programme, due to our particular interest in relational sociology applied to the study of culture. This will ensure the building of a research infrastructure on which to build a longer-term, extensive research programme beyond the lifetime of the Project.