Musik Und Gesellschaft – serie

This anthology contains seven texts by Kurt Blaukopf (1914–1999) that exemplify the sociological and epistemological position of this pioneer of Austrian music sociology. Blaukopf’s efforts were aimed at a comprehensive, interdisciplinary approach and analysis of music as a cultural phenomenon and as social practice. The primary aim of this anthology is to make Blaukopf’s work better known in the English-speaking world. It offers the interested reader a fruitful analysis of the relation between music sociology and its sister disciplines, e.g. musicology, a solid analysis in terms of the philosophy of science on the possibilities and limits of music sociology, and a highly topical discussion about the significance of intrinsic artistic aspects in music sociology.

In Anschluss an aktuelle Erkenntnisse soziologischer und sozialpsychologischer Musikrezeptionsforschung erläutert der Band, welche gesellschaftlichen Funktionen das Musikhören heute erfüllt und welche Rolle hier die neuen Rahmenbedingungen im Web 2.0 spielen.

Music sociology occupies a special position in the social and cultural sciences. The terminology alone – in German it is ‘Musiksoziologie’ and not ‘Soziologie der Musik’ – indicates many possible approaches: Is ‘music sociology’ a subdiscipline within sociology or musicology? Or is it a discipline on its own, espousing significant differences from sociology and musicology alike? On the occasion of its 50th anniversary, the Department of Music Sociology at the mdw – University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna – probably the only one in the world to bear the name as a separate department – decided to clarify the state of music sociology. Some of the world’s most prominent representatives of the discipline were invited to participate in this project and present their own viewpoints on the various approaches to music sociology. Their contributions address the particular research objects of music sociology (institutions of musical life; production, distribution and consumption of music;music-making; ‘works’, genres and repertoires; etc.) as well as the different methods of research (stock-taking, surveys, interviews, music analysis, biographical research, etc.).

If art, and especially music, has been framed in cultural sociology as a collective production relying on a variety of actors, technicians have been mostly framed as “support personnel” marginally impacting the meaning of a cultural production.