Making It in a Cover Music Scene: Negotiating Artistic Identities in a “Kmart‐Level Market”

This research examines how musicians understand art and commerce in a music scene dominated by cover bands. Drawing on thirty semi‐structured interviews and one hundred hours of ethnographic observation, I find that most musicians self‐identify as artists yet perceive social status to be rooted in commercial success. This research details what it means to “make it” in an art world that offers little institutional support or remunerative reward for artistry. Musicians employ three approaches to negotiate the disconnect between artistic identities and commercially defined status: segregating their artistic and commercial pursuits, locating artistry in their commercial work, and justifying their commercially viable activities as a means to attaining a comfortable lifestyle. This on‐the‐ground account of commercial influences’ effects on musicians informs post‐Bourdieusian research on fields of cultural production. I suggest that future research on culture producers must distinguish between social status—a position in a social hierarchy—and interpersonal respect. When esthetics are marginalized as a basis for status, musicians’ status becomes bound to employment opportunities and expansible relative to the extent of the scene.     

Occupational rhetoric and ideology: A comparison of copy and original music performers

This study focuses on similarities and differences between occupational rhetorics and ideologies of two groups of local level popular musicians, those who compose and perform their own music and those who perform music made commercially successful by other bands/performers. The analysis of in-depth interviews with twenty-five local level musicians demonstrates that the latter have developed an ideology which legitimates definitions of themselves as audience-oriented technicians who view the performance of music as an economic enterprise; musicians who perform original music share an ideology which stresses creativity over economic reward and legitimates a definition of themselves as primarily artists. Both types of musicians and their ideologies are discussed in relation to larger structural forces of the popular entertainment industry.Revised version of a paper presented at the annual meeting of the Popular Culture Association in the South, Knoxville, TN (October, 1988). The author wishes to thank the two anonymous reviewers for helpful suggestions made on an earlier draft. The author also wishes to thank the Faculty Research Committee at Western Kentucky University for their support during the course of this project.     

La carrière des artistes et les transformations de la production musicale. Relations de travail et relation au travail dans le monde des musiques rap et électroniques

The interaction between the artistic and managerial poles of the world formed by the persons specialized in rap and electronic music in France is described as well as musicians' occupational culture. The aesthetic and organizational characteristics of these musical genres are shown to influence the division of labour in recording and production. Owing to the combination of artistic and managerial activities typical of these musicians, occupational networks are fluid. This blurring of roles is especially visible in the recording labels used from home studios. Technical changes in the “tools” for this work have led these artists to become professionally involved in management and advertising. Cultural motivations also explain this involvement: the critical stance adopted by the “cultures” of rap, electro, techno, etc., tends to make obsolete the image of the artist as a creator who avoids the engineering aspects of the commercial distribution of his recordings. In contrast, rap and electronic musicians' careers develop through participation in many and various projects, which nurtures their artistic production, improves the quality of their groups and enhances their reputations. Accepting more short-term professional engagements supposedly increases their control over their career profiles. However these musicians voice concerns, in particular, about bonds between the individual and the groups whom they cross (and who cross them) — concerns that can be extended to other types de workers caught up in an occupational world organized “by project”.     

SCHOOLS OF ACTIVITY AND INNOVATION

Explanations of artistic innovation have generally focused on political or psychological factors influencing individual socialization. This article suggests an alternative approach focusing on the organizational processes in an art world, specifically the production of concert music. Concerts are produced through the collective activity of musical specialists. Compatible collaborators identify each other by constructing "schools of activity" that group conventional concert practices and practitioners. Different schools, however, do not simply represent alternative conventions, rather they represent degrees of convention that correspond to varying aesthetic interests in innovation and virtuosity. The first part of this article examines the organization of artistic activity and the formation of schools. The second part presents data from the concert world illustrating the organization of alternative types of artistic practice.     

Richard Davis 1943-1981

This article examines some of the key issues discussed and debated in the literature on ‘world music’ in anthropology and ethnomusicology. In particular, it focuses on the kinds of aesthetic and musical decisions made by non-Western musicians as they produce music for a global market; as both producers and consumers of global music, musicians labelled by the term ‘world music’ must consider both local and global audiences when they take the stage or enter the recording studio. The article then relates these issues to the other articles in this issue of TAPJA, which explore a variety of local responses to the world music phenomenon.     

'SALSA NO TIENE FRONTERA': ORQUESTA DE LA LUZ AND THE GLOBALIZATION OF POPULAR MUSIC

This article discusses key dynamics in the globalization of popular music, more specifically the interplay between technology, social and commercial structure, and meaningful sound forms. It analyses Orquesta de la Luz, an all-Japanese salsa band, as an example of the transgression of ethnic, geographical, linguistic and national boundaries of Latin American music. The band demonstrated the intertwined nature of the global and the local, in addition to the historical formation of modern Japanese culture. Their worldwide fame derived from their musicianship, their synchronicity with the world music boom, and finally the diffusion of digital technology in popular music production and consumption. This article argues that economic and technological conditions are as much constitutive of the band's unique practices as are aesthetic ones. It then goes on to question the dichotomies, ‘universalism vs. particularism’ and ‘creativity vs. copy’. This discussion builds towards an examination of the relationship between purist aesthetics (hyperrealism) and the Japanese concept/method of learning; it also explores the notion of cultural authenticity that located the activities of the band. Paradoxically, Orquesta de la Luz demonstrated that Japanization does not necessarily imply synthesis with vernacular elements for purist musicians. Theoretically, this ‘becoming Other’ reveals a parallel capacity for self-exoticization and self-orientalization with respect to Japanese identities. Orquesta de la Luz's musical search for the roots of otherness is closely tied with the feeling among many Japanese youth for the loss of Japan's ‘genuine’ cultural identity. Another focus of this study, then, is to shed light on the relevance of exoticism in the band's foreign reception and to assess their Latino image in the Japanese context.     

All the way from … authenticity and distance in world music production

World music and the narratives it produces are at the very centre of a formerly transnational production and consumption process. However, the shortened distance between the sites of production and consumption of this good, brought on by migration and greater participation, has created a dilemma for the UK-based artists who perform it: how to maintain authenticity without the added value of ‘distance’. Therefore, the aim of this article is to examine the ways in which musicians and other participants attempt to overcome this problem and in doing so (re)-construct particular aspects of their identity. Rather than being just another critique on authenticity, this article uses distance as an organizing concept in understanding the challenges facing world music production in the UK.     

The sampling continuum: musical aesthetics and ethics in the age of digital production

This article argues for a view of popular music production that better accounts for sampling than has historically been the case by viewing it as a continuum of activity. Weighing evidence from interviews with musical practitioners against the legal and industry frameworks, we illustrate, first, how sampling has been legally differentiated from other types of musical copying. Secondly we show that, despite this, comparable ethical codes exist within and across musical methods wherein sampling is part of the spectrum of activities. Thirdly, we discuss the ubiquity of digital technology within popular music production and the resultant closer relationship between sampling and other musical techniques moving onto, fourthly, how the sampling aesthetic has become integrated into musical practice in a manner insufficiently accounted for by its legal and industrial contexts. This ‘post-sampling’ reality places sampling and other musical techniques along a spectrum, in practical and ethical terms, and musicians would be better served by sampling being treated as part of the overall musical palette, allowing both scholars and the law to concentrate on ideologies of practice across the tools that musicians use rather than between different specific techniques.     

The Production of Popular Music as a Confidence Game: The Case of the Chicago Blues

In this article I argue that the production of live music shares many formal properties with that of confidence games: specifically, (1) a set of structural relationships in which operators, ropers, insiders, shills and marks are enmeshed, (2) the deployment of carefully planned strategies of deception, and (3) a pattern of success owed in part to the moral and financial motivations of insiders, the willingness of the state to assist in the enterprise, and the desire among victims to be swayed by the production. Drawing on ethnographic research conducted in some of Chicago's most popular blues clubs, I examine these three components of live music production qua confidence game. I also briefly discuss how one group of participants—local blues musicians—reacts to their own performances as musicians/confidence artists. Finally, I conclude by exploring the broader implications this case suggests regarding other types of live music production.     

Keep the hope alive: young Indonesian musicians’ views of the future

Using ethnographic and interview data, this article explores hopes for the future of young Indonesian musicians. The young people are seen to consider their future trajectories in multiple, hierarchical music fields. The article also takes into account the ontological insecurity of jobs as a professional musician, arguing that there is continuous reproduction of a doxa, namely ‘survival of the fittest’ in Indonesia. Yet despite abundant risks to livelihoods, young Indonesian musicians expressed optimistic views about the future. The analysis of data below bridges the gap between the traditionally separate youth studies fields of youth transitions and youth cultures. Our interpretation critically contextualises the dialogue between these two fields based on the experiences of young Indonesian musicians as a part of the Global South.     

Fashion,the passage,the body

Studies on transnational cultures have shown that local, national identities are not necessarily subordinated to, or erased by, the globalizing forces of the economy. Rather, the local mediates transnational cultures as well as it is transformed by the crossing of cultural boundaries. Likewise, emerging interdisciplinary and cultural studies approaches to Latin(o) popular music examine the ways in which musical production, circulation and reception create cultural spaces that challenge hegemonic notions of national identity and discrete cultural boundaries. This article examines the figure of the Queen of Salsa, Celia Cruz, and the tensions among the multiple, transnational subjectivities that are constituted through her musical repertoire, her performances on stage, the aesthetics of her body, and her public statements in interviews. Having spanned more than sixty years of performances and recordings, Celia Cruz's diverse repertoire and musical selections have served as a performative locus for the negotiations of her Cubanness (her exile and national identity) and a hemispheric, Latin American identity that also includes the United States. Likewise, her construction of blackness as an Afro-Cuban woman transforms and is transformed by her collaborations with African-American musicians and singers, from jazz to hip-hop. Celia Cruz has also crossed racial and cultural boundaries by collaborating with Anglo musicians and by tropicalizing rock music. Her staged persona and her body aesthetics also reveal the fluidity with which the Queen of Latin music assumes diverse racial, national and historical identities while she simultaneously asserts her Cubanness through the use of Spanish on stage. Celia Cruz serves as a complex and intriguing icon of the relational nature of nationalism and transnationalism.     

“The Spider Is Alive”: Reassessing Becker's Theory of Artistic Conventions through Southern Italian Music

Howard Becker wrote that art is constructed, and understood, according to conventions. However, Becker does not adequately explain how artists negotiate historical circumstances affecting their work. Using the southern Italian phenomenon of tarantism and its music, I address how contemporary musicians employ conventions to transform sounds with deviant connotations. The alteration of musical conventions reflects material social conditions in the Salento region and provides insight into the formation of a Salentinian cultural movement's ideology. By accounting for how social groups contend with history, I argue that sociologists must reconsider the theory of artistic conventions.     

“You Don't Get to Sing a Song When You Have Nothing to Say”: Oliver Mtukudzi's Music as a Vehicle for Socio-Political Commentary

Abstract

Oliver Mtukudzi's music is known for both its musicality and because it addresses social and political issues. Mtukudzi uses his music to tackle the political realities of Zimbabwe and issues related to AIDS, gender and street children. The use of riddles and innuendo is common within Shona music and it is these tools that Mtukudzi uses to deal with these issues that are not commonly addressed by many other musicians. This article analyses his lyrics and music to examine these particular issues. Particular attention is paid to music because the embedded subtexts of music help to illuminate the subtexts of the lyrics.     

The world according to iTunes: mapping urban networks of music production

In this article, I present a social network analysis that explores and maps relational urban networks of production within the global recorded music industry. Within the analysis, recorded music albums are viewed as temporary market‐based projects that bring together teams of skilled creative workers in recording studios across the globe. New tools and techniques for networking studios in geographically distant locations give mobile musically creative workers the ability to coordinate musical recordings on a global scale, resulting in new relational geographies of music production. An innovative approach is taken to the social network analysis to assess the connectedness of cities and determine the centrality and power of cities within networks of production for three major Anglophone digital music markets. The result is a mapping of the relational urban networks of music production as indicated through the interdependencies between projects, studios and local urban agglomerations.     

Is “cost disease” contagious? The case of early music ensembles

The article aims to supplement traditional explanations of why performing arts institutions tend to run a deficit. The case of early music ensembles shows that the traditionally cited mechanisms do not suffice to explain why these institutions catch Baumol’s “cost disease.” Baumol’s model may be supplemented by another, based on two related hypotheses: the deepening deficit of early music ensembles is related to their going professional and is due to the fact that they are simultaneously competing with subsidized orchestras on two markets: the concert market and the labor market for musicians.     

Musicians' social representations of health and illness: a qualitative case study about focal dystonia

Musicians are artists who use the entire body when playing their instruments. Since over-practicing may lead to physical problems, musicians might encounter focal dystonia, a hand's motor disorder. The cause seems to be the brain's confusion between afferent and efferent information transfer provoking a disharmony with the instrument. Although focal dystonia may have serious consequences for a musician's career, it is unclear how musicians perceive this trouble. This case study describes two musicians with focal dystonia. Qualitative research was used to study their social representations of health and illness. The results show the central role of the hand during music playing, the passion for music and the understanding for focal dystonia as "brain panic". Therapists should account for those specific features inherent to this population in order to better help them in their quest for art through music. Giving a voice to musicians may improve their quality of care.     

Gender and Performance Capital among Local Musicians

This article extends Bourdieu’s field theory to explain how learning spaces in the Toronto folk and metal scenes create gendered access to a field-specific form of cultural capital: performance capital, or the instrumental and interpersonal skills required to perform music. Folk musicians develop performance capital in open-access spaces, such as workshops and open stages at local folk clubs, while metal musicians learn in private spaces such as garages, basements, and rented rehearsal rooms. Folk’s learning spaces are open to all aspiring musicians, while access to heavy metal’s learning spaces relies on social networks from which women are often excluded. These different processes of capital development can lead to greater or lesser opportunities for women to become cultural producers: In Toronto, women make up approximately five percent of heavy metal musicians, but almost half of practicing folk musicians.     

Contemporary South African Jazz and the Politics of Place

Abstract

Drawing on popular music scholarship on music and place, as well as interviews with jazz musicians, scholars, and journalists active on the jazz scenes in Durban and Johannesburg, this article considers how locales are perceived to uniquely influence music-making. Extending Bakhtin's notion of “utterance” to music, it argues that the musical character of recent South African jazz subtly registers demographic, political, economic, and environmental specificities peculiar to contemporary Durban and Johannesburg. It is argued that contemporary South African jazz, as it is experienced by its performers and listeners, may be profitably conceptualised as speaker and addressee of locale.     

Where the mystical meets the market: creativity and commerce in the production of popular music

Taking as my theme the familiar opposition between commerce and creativity, this paper contrasts different sociological approaches to the production of popular music and questions some of the assumptions about the rational nature of the market and mystical character of creative inspiration, that are often implied when these terms—‘creativity’ and ‘commerce’—are used in this binary oppositional manner. In arguing for a sociology of the mundane practices that produce‘commercial’ and ‘creative’ texts, I suggest that the production of popular music does not so much involve a conflict between commerce and creativity, but a struggle over what is creative, and what is to be commercial.     

La division sexuelle du travail chez les musiciens français

Data from a survey of French musicians conducted for the Ministry of Culture are used to analyze the processes producing inequality between men and women in music. Two models of a sexual division of labor coexist along with a differentiation depending on the style (learned vs. popular music). These two models closely link together working conditions, careers and the organization of home life for male and female musicians; and they underlie the construction of musicians', identities. In the world of popular music, bodily stereotypes of femininity (youth, seduction) and masculinity (the aestheticization of deviance, the bohemian life) dominate. In the world of learned music, a hierarchical model of masculine authority prevails with the figure of the conductor at the summit.