Listening, mediation, event: anthropological and sociological perspectives

This paper outlines an approach to listening drawn from the anthropology and sociology of music, arguing that there is a pressing need for comparative empirical studies of listening. I suggest that the terms of the discussion should shift from listening to the broader category of musical experience,...

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Main Author: Born, G
Format: Journal article
Published: Taylor and Francis 2012
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author Born, G
author_facet Born, G
author_sort Born, G
collection OXFORD
description This paper outlines an approach to listening drawn from the anthropology and sociology of music, arguing that there is a pressing need for comparative empirical studies of listening. I suggest that the terms of the discussion should shift from listening to the broader category of musical experience, in this way allowing questions of the encultured, affective, corporeal and located nature of musical experience to arise in a stronger way than hitherto. I propose a focus on the relations between musical object and listening subject, where this entails analysis of the social and historical conditions that bear on listening, and of the changing types of subjectivity brought to music. The point is that neither these conditions, nor the forms of music's mediation, nor the relations between musical object and subject can be fully known in advance. I sketch three perspectives from anthropology and sociology that indicate the kinds of insight offered by empirical research which takes listening-as-musical-experience, and the situated, relational analysis of musical subjects and objects, as its focus.
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spelling oxford-uuid:3cfa1be1-ccc0-4e3a-84ac-8bb95dd2beef2022-03-26T14:16:44ZListening, mediation, event: anthropological and sociological perspectivesJournal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:3cfa1be1-ccc0-4e3a-84ac-8bb95dd2beefSymplectic Elements at OxfordTaylor and Francis2012Born, GThis paper outlines an approach to listening drawn from the anthropology and sociology of music, arguing that there is a pressing need for comparative empirical studies of listening. I suggest that the terms of the discussion should shift from listening to the broader category of musical experience, in this way allowing questions of the encultured, affective, corporeal and located nature of musical experience to arise in a stronger way than hitherto. I propose a focus on the relations between musical object and listening subject, where this entails analysis of the social and historical conditions that bear on listening, and of the changing types of subjectivity brought to music. The point is that neither these conditions, nor the forms of music's mediation, nor the relations between musical object and subject can be fully known in advance. I sketch three perspectives from anthropology and sociology that indicate the kinds of insight offered by empirical research which takes listening-as-musical-experience, and the situated, relational analysis of musical subjects and objects, as its focus.
spellingShingle Born, G
Listening, mediation, event: anthropological and sociological perspectives
title Listening, mediation, event: anthropological and sociological perspectives
title_full Listening, mediation, event: anthropological and sociological perspectives
title_fullStr Listening, mediation, event: anthropological and sociological perspectives
title_full_unstemmed Listening, mediation, event: anthropological and sociological perspectives
title_short Listening, mediation, event: anthropological and sociological perspectives
title_sort listening mediation event anthropological and sociological perspectives
work_keys_str_mv AT borng listeningmediationeventanthropologicalandsociologicalperspectives