interview with jenn lena – music sociologist!
Our good friend Jenn Lena has a new book called “Banding Together.” It’s about rise of music scenes and the creation of culture. In the youtube clip, she is interviewed by Eric Schwartz, editor at the Princeton University Press. Spring book forum, anyone?
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Good interview and a great job explaining the connection between taste/consumption and community – can’t wait to see the book!
andrewperrin
January 20, 2012 at 7:56 pm
nice!
@teppofelin
January 21, 2012 at 5:31 am
You’re very kind! And I’m awfully sorry about all the hand waving–I look like I’m trying to land a plane.
One thing I’d like orgtheory readers know is that the book focuses on questions of classification in general, drawing comparisons between various schema in music and outside music (e.g., racial categories, the NRC rankings, Law School rankings, etc.). I wrote with your readers in mind, but the “music” part of this might not make that clear.
Jenn Lena
January 21, 2012 at 2:23 pm
This is great! And long overdue! Putting MUSIC in a tite search limited to Sociology in JSTOR reveals at once the breadth but also the lack of depth in the last 100 years. It is very tangential. Music is arguably as important as religion and politics – and there is some reference to Max Weber and Music – but clearly not so deeply appreciated by sociologists.
Also, trendy enough, there are some recent papers on rap including Turkish rap in Germany – and other forms of “Negro” music. No one seems interested in heavy metal among Aryan youth. (And that’s fine; I am not too interested either.) In any case, this is still a reflection of conflict politics and not truly a study of the sociology of music. How do musicians socialize? What are their modes of interaction. How do traditional tools of analysis such as structure and function apply to these cultural engagements?
While large genres do apply – jazz, country, classical – musicians also cross into different cutlures. When you go to the bar to line dance, you never know who is playing bass in that country band. Could be a jazz musician who heard that a band needed a bassist tonight…
I also like the approach to marketing of genre – the French cafe music. We create music to meet the needs of these “third spaces.” Working in a large hotel, I hear different kinds of music in different places, the lobby, the bar, the elevator.
All in all I am looking forward to the book – and also “Classification as Culture: Types and Trajectories of Music Genres” by Jennifer C. Lena and Richard A. Peterson, American Sociological Review, Vol. 73, No. 5 (Oct., 2008), pp. 697-718.
Michael E. Marotta
January 22, 2012 at 1:53 am
I ordered a Kindle copy of your book today Jenn. Can’t wait to listen to it while I stream the book’s Spotify playlist. Everything is better when accompanied by music in my opinion.
brayden king
January 23, 2012 at 7:21 pm
As I wrote in the acknowledgements, the book would not exist were it not for Brayden’s support. He continues–as you can see–to be an amazing colleague and friend.
Jenn Lena
January 24, 2012 at 3:07 am