POPULAR MUSIC IN GEOGRAPHICAL ANALYSES

by

LILY KONG DEPARTMENT OF GEOGRAPHY NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SINGAPORE 10 KENT RIDGE CRESCENT SINGAPORE 0511

PROGRESS IN HUMAN GEOGRAPHY 1995 Vol. 19, pp 183-98.

POPULAR MUSIC IN GEOGRAPHICAL ANALYSES

INTRODUCTION As an area of geographical inquiry, popular music has not been explored to any large

extent. Where writings exist, they have been somewhat divorced from recent theoretical and methodological questions that have rejuvenated social and cultural geography (see, for example, Cosgrove and Jackson, 1987; Cosgrove, 1989; 1990; Jackson, 1989; Anderson and Gale, 1992; Barnes and Duncan, 1992). In this paper, I will focus on the interface between geography and popular music, focusing specifically on the contributions of such exploration towards cultural and social understanding.

In what follows, I will first discuss the reasons for geographers' relative neglect of popular music and why this disregard should not persist. Second, I will provide a brief review of trends in existing geographical research on popular music. Finally, I will explore how

existing lines of inquiry might be expanded, using retheorised perspectives in cultural geographical scholarship as springboards for discussion. Particularly in this final section, the divisions between geographers and non-geographers should not be overemphasised at the expense of furthering our understanding of popular music, culture and society. Indeed, I draw heavily on the works of sociologists and cultural theorists for both their theoretical insights and empirical analyses.

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POPULAR MUSIC IN GEOGRAPHICAL ANALYSIS?

Amongst geographers, the relative neglect of popular culture (including popular music) reflects a longstanding cultural geographical focus on elite culture. As Burgess and Gold (1985:15) point out by way of example, that the geographical study of 'serious' literature has

long been encouraged "rather than the wide spectrum of popular culture ... [results from] a view of the relative 'worth' of elite versus popular culture". Indeed, as they go on to illustrate, geographers have for a long time been "profoundly elitist" in their interests. Popular culture has been regarded with disdain as "mere entertainment", trivial and ephemeral. This

hegemony of elite culture has, however, been challenged recently, an acknowledgement of the fact that the very ordinariness of popular culture masks their importance as the "well-springs of popular consciousness" (Harvey, 1984:7).

Even while the movement away from privileging elite culture in research to a more explicit recognition of the significance of analysing popular culture has begun, the fact that the geographical enterprise has remained largely a visually oriented one has meant that popular music, or music of any kind, has not been paid very much attention. The senses of smell, touch, taste and hearing have been neglected as a consequence of the emphasis on "ways of seeing" (Jackson, 1989:171). As Valentine (1993) points out, ways of hearing and ways of smelling, for example, have an ability to structure space differently from vision; yet, they remain largely neglected (see however Porteous, 1985; 1990, on smellscape). Attempts to discuss the importance of "soundscapes" have been focused on "noisescapes" and the objective analysis and qualitative experience of sounds that characterise different urban and rural places, such as natural (for example, birdsongs and wind in the tree) and human-made (for example, traffic, bands in the park) sounds (see Porteous, 1990), although some recent interest has been ignited in the direction of musical research (in 1993, a conference entitled "The place of music" was held at University College London, organised by the Social and Cultural Geography and Economic Geography Study Groups of the Institute of British Geographers in conjunction with the Landscape Research Group; see also Smith, 1994).

Yet, a variety of reasons can be cited for the geographical study of music in general, and popular music in particular. The pervasiveness of music in society is remarkable. No

known society is without music. As Perris (1985:3-4) so clearly outlines, We are indefatigably addressed by music, though we are often barely aware of its presence. Music reaches us from the home stereo and in our cars, it is piped into banks, office buildings and supermarkets, and it sounds behind the action of films and television plays, playing subtly with our emotions and our will. We use music to work by, to jog by, to quiet the baby, for aerobic exercise, for ceremonies, and for religion ...

In specific terms, music from a specific area can convey images of the place. As David Thomas of American band Pere Ubu pointed out Whatever you feel from the music is what it feels like to be there (quoted in Jarvis, 1985:121).

As in the tradition of analysing regional novels for a sense of regional character (see Darby's (1948) well-cited work on Hardy's Wessex, for example), music too can serve as useful primary source material to understand the character and identity of places.

Music is also a medium through which people convey their environmental experiences -- both the everyday and the extraordinary. For example, many everyday taken-for-granted environmental experiences discussed theoretically and empirically via notions such as "sense of place", "space" and "place" (see Tuan, 1974a; 1974b; and Relph, 1976) can be enriched through analyses of musical expressions. Similarly, moments of spectacle or historic import are often captured in song through the filters of music-makers. Indeed, as Reich (1970:247) states, music gives us an understanding of the world, and of other people's feelings, incredibly far in advance of what other media have been able to express.

Just as it is a medium for conveying myriad experiences, music is also the outcome of environmental experience. Musicians write their music as a consequence of their experiences.

Music can thus be said to possess a duality of structure : as both the medium and the outcome of experience, it serves to produce and reproduce social systems.

If geographers are now thoroughly engaged in research on environmental issues in different ways, musicians too have expressed like concerns. In recent years, music has come to carry messages about environmental awareness and protection, as noted by a recent President of the Association of American Geographers (Mather, 1992:1). Indeed, the music and film industries have jumped on the "green" bandwagon in recent years, with many songs and film screenplays reflecting "green" themes. The roles of such forms of popular culture in influencing public attitudes clearly deserve research attention.

If only for these reasons, there exists, undoubtedly, a place for the geographical analysis of music. Though the research agenda can usefully be expanded as I will illustrate later, I will first highlight below how some concerns have already been addressed.

III TRENDS IN GEOGRAPHICAL RESEARCH ON POPULAR MUSIC

While some geographical research exists on popular music, no review has been attempted, so some useful ground may be covered by providing here a brief critical analysis of existing work. Much of the geographical research on popular music (henceforth, music) has been, for a long time, neither theoretically nor methodologically sophisticated. The research agendas reflect broader cultural geographical interests in the tradition of Berkeley cultural geography. These can be classified into five main areas. First, there is a concern with the Giddens (1981:26) uses "structure" to refer to "the rules and resources involved in the production and reproduction of social systems". In this context, I suggest that these resources can include not only the social, economic and political institutions in society but also cultural forms such as music.
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spatial distribution of musical forms, activities, performers and personalities, with the bulk of work originating in the United States (Crowley, 1987; Carney, 1987a; 1987b). Such works do not establish any theoretical arguments; they are, however, methodologically motivating, not because they introduce any theoretically-grounded new techniques, but because of the detailed and painstaking ways in which researchers chart membership data in musical associations; plot participation patterns in musical contests; trace and map out the distribution of birthplaces of music personalities and so forth. Yet, beyond the meticulous attention to details and the wealth of descriptive information derived as a consequence, such works yield little in terms of providing an understanding of such distributional patterns; neither do they provide insights into the "inner workings" of culture (Wagner & Mikesell, 1962:5) nor the broader social and political contexts that give rise to the predominance of particular musical styles and activities in particular places.

A second theme that serves to bind existing geographical research on music is the exploration of musical hearths and diffusion, using concepts such as contagion, relocation and hierarchical diffusion; and examining the agents of and barriers to diffusion (Jackson, 1952; Ford, 1971; Francaviglia, 1978; Carney, 1987c; Glasgow, 1987; and Horsley, 1987). Such works provide valuable information about the spatial dynamics of musical development, often within the American context, and while they are not theoretically ambitious, are nevertheless framed by established conceptual understanding.

A third concern is with delimitating areas that share certain musical traits, with the exercise of delimitation occurring at different scales, such as the global (Lomax and Erickson, 1971; Nash, 1975) and the regional (Lomax, 1960; Burman-Hall, 1975; Gastil, 1975). As with so many other exercises in drawing up culture areas, there is a tendency to treat culture in a homogeneous way, isolating a particular cultural trait and defining the character of an area on that basis. The treatment tends to ignore broader socio-political conditions impinging on the

development of that cultural trait and assumes that conflicts and tensions do not exist with other cultures in the same region.

Another closely-allied collection of geographical writings on music follows the regional tradition in which the character and identity of places are gleaned from lyrics, melody, instrumentation and the general "feel" or sensory impact of the music (Gleason, 1969; Curtis and Rose, 1987; and Curtis, 1987). These works provide rich evocations of places in ways that conventional geographical sources are often lacking.

Geographers have also engaged in thematic analysis of lyrics to explore environmental concerns expressed in music. For example, Jarvis (1985) has identified various themes in the lyrics of rock songs. These include the image of the city, the idea of being on the road and promised lands. Marcus (1975), in his exploration of images of America in rock and roll, discusses similar themes while Henderson (1974) focuses specifically on the attitudes towards and perceptions of New York City as portrayed in popular music from 1890 to 1970.

The value of these five themes as pedagogical tools has also been recognised. Both Meyer (1973) and Lehr (1984) have discussed how music can aid in the teaching of geographical concepts such as culture hearth, cultural diffusion, diffusion path and environmental perception, as well as portray images of different places. Notwithstanding its usefulness in these ways, a few shortcomings also characterise all the preceding lines of inquiry. One is the failure to engage with the social and political contexts in which music is produced. Second, there is no recognition of the socially constructed nature of space and place experience, nor acknowledgement of the role of music in that construction. Instead, space, as in the tradition of spatial organisation studies, is accepted as a given. Third, there is little sense of music as a cultural form that is consumed, and that in the process of consumption, it undergoes further transformation. Fourth, the importance of music in

contributing to the social construction of identities (national, race, gender, class ...) and of space and place has not been explored by geographers.

Some recent contributions do presage various of the issues raised here and suggest how recent turns in cultural geography can serve as points of advancement. While students of sociology and cultural studies may have addressed some of these questions, these potentials remain virtually untapped within cultural geography. Without negating the bulk of contributions by geographers thus far, I will emphasise in what follows the myriad possibilities for complementary approaches, even if in such explorations, it becomes less clear what the distinctions between "the geographer" and "non-geographer" are.

IV CULTURE AND SOCIETY IN THE ANALYSIS OF MUSIC

In many theoretical ruminations leading to the repositioning of cultural geography particularly in the last decade, emphasis has come to be placed on the importance of uncovering symbolic meanings and values, as opposed to the previous concern with the material form. Attention has also been drawn to the ways in which meanings are produced, communicated and consumed; cultural politics and power relations; and the theory of social construction, closely though not exclusively allied with postmodernist thinking. These four broad directions will frame my following discussion of possible agendas for geographers interested in the study of music.

The analysis of symbolic meanings

Whereas traditional cultural geographical research is very much focused on material culture, retheorised perspectives have paid increasing attention to the importance of symbolic

meanings and values. In the context of analysing music, this emphasis can be translated to a concern both for the symbolic place of music in social life as well as the symbolisms employed in music. Two empirical examples will highlight the sort of analysis that could fruitfully be expanded.

In Woods and Gritzner's (1990) analysis, they suggest that country music often portrays a nostalgia for paradise, symbolised by a yearning for a simpler way of life, a looking back to an uncomplicated place and time. This is because the search for a paradise in the future (often characterised as urban living) has almost invariably ended in disenchantment. As a consequence, the rural landscape and agrarian lifestyle of the past are idealised, often among uprooted migrants. There is a "homesickness and bittersweet nostalgia for a way of life that appears to have been irretrievably lost" and the "mist-shrouded past ... under[goes] reevaluation into a sacred place" (Woods and Gritzner, 1990:242). Woods and Gritzner

(1990:246) suggest that this role of country music as a symbolic reminder of and expression of desire for a past time and a distant place is in fact a reflection of the need to create "a secularized form of sacred time and place" (Woods and Gritzner, 1990:241), a need that is tied to a nostalgia for the lost innocence of childhood or youth (Woods and Gritzner, 1990:246); and a desire to project "individual and collective dreams, fantasies, and aspirations" (Woods and Gritzner, 1990:241). What is useful about such an analysis is that it explores the symbolic meanings embedded in a genre of music and engages at the same time the inextricable links between culture, time and place.

Another line of inquiry that should inform future agendas focuses on the symbolisms employed in music. In this regard, Gold's (1993) analysis of the landscape imagery in the Dust Bowl ballads (the highway as symbolic of the migrant's escape routes to the West; and the West as the Promised Land) provides a useful example. His exploration of the roots of the imagery and the symbolisms employed is one step towards an understanding of the influences

that shape cultural form.

Music as cultural communication

It has been argued that music does not possess any kind of "extra-musical" significance, that is, there is no meaning beyond what is objectively there in the form and structural relations of the notes. This is the view held by the school of formalist critics and aestheticians, for whom music is to be understood purely in terms of the laws of mathematical harmony and proportion, and who block any treatment of music in its social and political context (Norris, 1989). My starting line of discussion above, which emphasises the analysis of symbolic roles and meanings, already represents a departure from this position and insists that music is very much about the communication of meanings. Here, I wish to explore this idea further from a theoretical perspective.

Musical texts are to be understood, as Hirschkop (1989:284), borrowing from Bakhtin, suggests, as ongoing social dialogues made in particular social and historical situations, and reflecting those locations. How are these "social dialogues" to be understood? Who do they involve and what is the process of communication? In other words, how can music as a form of cultural communication be theorised? Here, we can draw ideas from the thoughts of cultural geographers working in other substantive areas. In discussing landscape meanings, Barnes and Duncan (1992) use the notions of discourse, text and metaphor, and in so doing, focus cultural geographers' attention on the producers and consumers of meanings and the contexts of such production and consumption. Burgess (1990) borrows from Johnson's (1986) theory of "circuits of culture" to explore the transformation of environmental meanings in the mass media. Likewise, Squire (1994) argues for the appropriateness of theorising tourism within a framework of cultural transformations, using Jakobson's (1960) model of linguistic

communication and Johnson's circuits of culture as anchors for understanding the communication of meanings in tourism. This growing emphasis on the communication and transformation of cultural meanings, and the increasing interest in auteur theory and reader reception theory amongst cultural geographers can be extended to the study of music.

Johnson's (1986) circuits of culture can be a useful way of exploring music. In this framework, it is suggested that producers encode their preferred meanings in cultural forms (such as music). The resulting text is then read by an audience, in a manner sometimes concordant, at others discordant, with the encoded meanings. These meanings are then incorporated into lived cultures and social relations; feedback loops may then provide material for the production of new texts or lead to the modification of existing ones. In other words, meanings are transformed at each stage, reflecting the contexts of production and consumption, as well as factors such as the gender, class, ethnicity and religion of those involved. Theorising music within this framework suggests possibilities for the exploration of the relationship between producers and consumers of music; the contexts of production and consumption, including the structural circumstances of production, such as the differential economic and political power among decision makers from the music business and related industries, and the wide range of intertexts, from music videos to concert tours and pop festivals; as well as intentions and effects.

What Johnson's circuit does not make provisions for is an intermediate process between the production and consumption of the text, and that is, the role of cultural brokers who influence the decoding of meanings. In the present context, the role of music critics and deejays must be understood. As Hirschkop (1989:302) points out, "presenting or performing music is no longer a question of the interpretation of single works; a more appropriate model might be the social questions raised when a DJ decides how to mix which records together."

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On the basis of his theory of circuits of culture, Johnson (1986:280) suggests that culture is best seen as a "kind of reminder" of the "struggles over meaning". In fact, I would suggest that culture is not only a "reminder", it is a struggle precisely because meanings often diverge between producers and consumers, amongst different actors in the production process, and amongst different groups of consumers. It is in these separations that the

contestations of meanings take place, often according to the interests of those involved. Therein lie opportunities for exploring the cultural politics of music.

The cultural politics of music

As producers of music operate within the context of certain political, social and economic conditions, they often do so with particular intentions. It could be to perpetuate an ideology through the exercise of hegemony, or to express protest and resistance. It could also be wholly capitalistic in seeking to maximise profits, or to achieve certain economic effects, such as economic regeneration. At the same time, music may be an expression of personal experiences and predilections. In this section, I wish to focus on the ways in which music is bound up in political relations between social groups.

As Norris (1989:18) points out, to "treat music in political terms" is not "a mere footnote to the history of transient tastes and ideas". Indeed, the cultural politics of both classical and popular music has been explored under the rubric of sociology and cultural studies (for example, Perris, 1985; Meyer, 1991). In the case of popular music, analysis has centred on the ideological use of music for political socialisation; the use of music as an expression of protest and resistance; the hegemonic relationships between First and Third World countries as expressed through musical impositions; and the politics of musical events and activities. While some of these ideas have made their way onto geographical agendas, most work stem from other disciplines.

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The ideological use of music for political socialisation can draw inspiration from sociological and cultural analysis of classical music. Just as sociologists have analysed the ways in which Germans under Hitler were persuaded of the superiority of the Aryan race and were subject to a process of social control through, inter alia, classical music (Warren, 1972; Perris, 1985; Meyer, 1991), the political agendas of leaders seeking to inculcate a sense of loyalty through popular music should find keen analysts amongst geographers interested in questions about the social construction of national identity (see Jackson and Penrose, 1993). This is reflected in recent work on Singapore, for instance, in which the use of music by the ruling elite to perpetuate certain ideologies which seek to inculcate a civil religion that directs favour and fervour towards the country is explored (Kong, forthcoming; Phua and Kong, forthcoming). These works are situated within recent broader discourses regarding the

constructed nature of "national identity", standing as a specific instance of how a cultural form (music) is harnessed towards the construction of a hegemonic vision of a specific nation. In these analyses, it not only becomes evident how geographers can benefit from the perspectives of neighbouring disciplines, the ways in which geographical insights can refigure the terrain of analysis also become evident.

Alongside analysing the ideological uses to which music can be put, a significant body of non-geographical literature exists on the expression of resistance through music, which can usefully expand geographical agendas. The expression of resistance against socio-political conditions is captured in "protest songs", for example. In this respect, Rodnitzsky's (1969) work is a landmark contribution to the evolution of protest songs in the United States, in which lyrics were analysed to reveal dissatisfaction with American society amongst youth. In Britain, Frith's (1983) work is a classic analysis of youth culture and rebellion in the 1950s and 1960s when there was explicit opposition to both peer-group and adult middle class norms expressed through rock and roll music and associated expressions (such as Beatles haircuts, surfing

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styles, facial hair and so forth). In similar vein, attention has been focused on how music can be a means through which subordinate groups negotiate or oppose the dominant meaning system, as Tanner (1978) does in the analysis of punk music as representative of the attitudes of subcultures such as Skinheads towards ruling elites. Apart from the analysis of resistance against dominant values, protests against specific events through music have also found voice in academic discourse, as Auslander (1981) shows in his study of song lyrics written during the Vietnam war, in which he focuses on anti-war sentiments. Even while the contents of lyrics form an important source for analysts, it may also well be that the inarticulateness of lyrics, as in contemporary Chinese popular music (for example, of Cui Jian and Luo Dayou), represent a way of "combatting the talking function of the state, the most articulate organ that speaks for everyone" (Chow, 1993:385). In other words, rather than using the weighty contents of lyrics as expressions of resistance, some Chinese artistes, "operating under the domination of a patriotic rhetoric that cannot be turned off", have chosen to couch their counter-discourse in terms of a music that is "lighthearted, decadent, playing to the rhythms of expensive lifestyles in forgetfulness of the wretched of the earth" (Chow, 1993:395-96). In yet another direction, it has been argued that the popularity of American music broadcasts in socialist Cuba is a form of resistance to the socialist regime because it serves as a link to the alternative capitalist system (Manuel, 1989). Music is thus tied up in multiple ways in the expression of resistance to impositions of values and identities, the specific expressions being contingent on conditions of place and time.

In considering the cultural politics of music, some attention has also been given to the relationships between First and Third World countries as expressed through musical impositions. Couching her discussion in terms of "culture and empire", Smith (1994) draws attention to the ways in which music has contributed to imperialistic politics by orientalising some places while reinforcing the power of others and justifying their projects of imperialism (see Leppert, 1988; Said, 1993). In more contemporary scenarios, the position that Anglo-

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American commercial music is destructive to indigenous music has been challenged by Frith (1989) and Hatch (1989), for example, who argue that imported pop can in fact be a resource of new sounds, instruments and ideas which local musicians can and do use in their own ways to make sense of their own circumstances. This politics of relations between the First and Third Worlds, as well as the intersection between the global (in terms of technological and commercial forces) and the local (in terms of indigenous musical styles) can be understood by focusing on music as the site of struggles. Indeed, as Smith (1994) suggests, while the forces of globalisation, homogenisation and commodification of culture have impinged on the music industry, local forms of resistance may be examined both in terms of the production of alternative sounds, as well as through the experience of music in distinctive localised ways. The local may thus be understood as a product of the indigenisation of global resources (Morley, 1991). Music thus deserves more attention in the rapidly evolving field of social and cultural geography.

The politics of musical events and activities is one other arena in which integrating perspectives of sociology, law and geography might be worthwhile. To cite an example of how pop festivals have been analysed through the disciplinary filter of the sociology of law, Clarke (1982) explores "the emergence of festivals as a social phenomenon with political implications, and ... the attempts over a period of years variously to suppress, control, regulate and accommodate them" in the context of Britain (Clarke, 1982:8). Specifically, he deals with the mobilisation of political support for and against pop festivals, thus including a consideration of those who participate in them as well as those who do not. He investigates how various interest groups responded to pop festivals and how in the course of political struggle over a period of years a system of regulations have arisen which accommodate pop festivals in British life. Without explicitly engaging with geographical questions, there are nevertheless periodic hints of the importance of place and location in considering how pop festivals are received. This calls to mind the innovative analyses of street life and carnival and the policing of such

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activities that geographers have explored (Goheen, 1992; 1993; Jackson, 1988), and which could inject important perspectives to the analysis of pop festivals.

Without at all attempting to be exhaustive in the coverage of existing research, my point in this section is to suggest that future agendas for geographical research on music may draw inspiration from current, often non-geographical, analyses. At the same time, in injecting

retheorised cultural geographical perspectives into the analysis of popular music, geographers also contribute not only to an expanding agenda but also to refigured modes of analysis. Multidisciplinary perspectives can thus be brought to bear on how forms of popular musical practice perpetuate and sustain dominant ideological values as well as represent a challenge to such values when they articulate an opposed "structure of feeling" (Williams' idea, discussed in the context of music by Hirschkop, 1989:299). Analysis can focus on how popular music

represents a microcosmic cultural platform for analysing the politics of interaction between First and Third Worlds; and how they are the sites of the regulation and control of, and struggles between, different groups in society.

Musical economies

Having suggested in the previous section that producers of music operate on the basis of particular intentions, I wish to focus in this section specifically on the economic motivations underlying musical production. Discussion will centre on musical economies wherein lies

another avenue in which the nexus between the cultural and the economic can be explored. As a cultural industry, the music industry can be explored from a variety of directions, reflecting the manifold economic importance of the arts. For example, the arts in general, and the music industry in particular, can provide direct employment to a significant proportion of the population; it can be a major export earner; provide spin-offs into other industries; act as a catalyst of urban renewal; and improve the image of a region making it a better place in which

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to live and work, thus attracting investments (Myerscough, 1988). Reflecting these varied roles, Frith (1991) suggests that industrial cultural policy can take three forms. First, a cultural industries policy encourages the development of technology for manufacturing cultural artefacts for sale in mass markets (such as films and television programmes), and focuses on the development of electronic goods and the media. Second, an industrial cultural strategy may also be a tourist policy, in which cultural forms are developed for a tourist market. Such forms could include museums and arts festivals (including music festivals), which would attract tourists to cities, thus rendering consumers "imports". Third, industrial cultural policy can function as "cosmetic policy", in which culture is a sort of "urban make-up" (Frith, 1991:140). In this case, cultural forms help to make a place look attractive to tourists and to visitors who might end up staying. Investors looking for locations for their new industries may also identify locations by the "quality of life" offered.

While the specific role of music in these industrial policies deserves research attention, few geographers have capitalised on these multiple opportunities to extend their research agendas. Two examples, however, will illustrate possible modes of analyses. In one instance, Hudson (1993) analyses how music as a cultural industry provides the basis for local economic regeneration, examined in the context of the collapse of the steel industry in Derwentside in the 1980s. He illustrates how the re-industrialisation programme can be examined in terms of local efforts to find solutions to local problems, rather than be imposed from outside. At the same time, his analysis draws to light the development of alternative social relationships (through the emergence of a cooperative at the heart of the economic regeneration through music).

In another vein, Sadler (1993) explores how Japanese companies such as Sony and Matsushita have bought into the US music and film industry in order to secure new markets for their technology. While their actions are economically-driven, the cultural significance is also

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evident in the nationalistic outrage in US about how Japan is invading Hollywood. Both studies underscore the importance of exploring the nexus between the cultural and the economic, using music as the site of analysis.

Music and the social construction of identities

Thus far, my discussion has centred on the ways in which cultures are communicated, and focused on the fact that in the communication of cultures, meanings are produced, maintained, transformed, negotiated and resisted. Often, in the process of production,

negotiation and resistance, identities are (de)constructed, internally by each social group for itself, as well as externally by one group for another. Through such (de)constructions, whether of national, gender, ethnic, religious or any other identities, cultural and social boundaries are drawn or dismantled. Music, as one form of cultural communication, is thus a means through which identities are (de)constructed, and an analysis of the role of music in the (de)construction of identity usefully highlights the idea that many of the categories which we consider to be "natural" and immutable are in fact "the product of processes which are embedded in human actions and choices" (Jackson and Penrose, 1993:2).

In a selection of papers by both geographers and non-geographers in which the themes I wish to place firmly on the geographical agenda are foreshadowed, the role of music in the (de)construction of identities is pursued. Valentine (1993), for example, in a paper on the construction of gendered spaces, suggests that k.d. lang's concerts and compact discs are musical transgressions of heterosexual space. She argues that most everyday spaces are assumed to be heterosexual, but the public and private performance of the music of lesbian cultural icon k.d. lang illustrates how spaces that are assumed to be heterosexual can be culturally produced through music as queer space. The paper discusses how k.d. lang's

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concerts create spaces for a lesbian audience in normally heterosexual spaces and also how her music legitimises dissident sexual identities in public space. At the same time, by playing k.d. lang's music in the private space of home, closet(ted) lesbians can articulate their lesbian identity thus culturally invading and subverting the site most commonly identified as heterosexual, the family home.

Just as Valentine attempts to work through the role of music in the cultural production of space and gender identities, other papers discuss the importance of identity constructions at the national level, underlining the importance of this cultural form in the construction of "imagined communities" (Anderson, 1983). Specifically, Lehr (1983) analyses the country music programming of two Canadian AM radio stations to evaluate how successful the Canadian Radio-Television Commission had been in trying to promote national identity through music. He concludes that images of the United States were more prominent than Canadian images and that there was a need for more country music unique to Canadian place themes. In turn, Grimshaw (1993) suggests in his paper on mbira music that such music played an important role in the development of modern Zimbabwe through the development of cultural identity and direction in uncertain times. This underscores the political significance of identity construction through music and suggests that musical texts, like other cultural phenomena, must be scrutinised and unpacked, in order that identities are not accepted as "natural" and "innocent" categories. This is true too of the construction of other identities, such as the racial (Curtis and Boswell, 1983; Maultsby, 1983), subcultural (Hebdige, 1979; Winders, 1983; McRobbie, 1993), community and locality (Herbert, 1992; Street, 1993) and personal (Finnegan, 1989; Frith, 1992).

Often, the construction and reinforcement of identities are made possible through the musical texts (the rhythm, lyrics and distinctive styles), the intertexts (such as posters, video clips, T-shirts and other paraphernalia; style of dressing), as well as from the local activities,

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such as regular group practice sessions, music competitions and informal karaoke gatherings. For example, as McRobbie (1993) illustrates in her analysis of rave culture, rave music and dance "fix" adolescent followers in a "space of identity", drawing upon a plethora of resources, including the "sound" of the music ("an accelerating but monotone beat with a much lighter, often highly melodic fragment ... 'laced' on to the underlying beats-per-minute" (McRobbie, 1993:421)); the abandonment of rave dance; the availability of rave fashion, fanzines and flyers; and the spectacle and display from the laser lights and special effects in rave venues. As McRobbie (1993:424) argues, the distinctive combination of signs, symbols, styles and other significant texts offer an identity for followers. In other words, understanding the

meanings of music includes understanding its texts, contexts and intertexts. It therefore raises implications for the methods used in empirical applications, which I will turn to in my final section.

Methods of analysis

In conceptualising music as cultural communication, it becomes explicitly important to consider the methods of analysis that must be adopted in order to understand the different meanings encoded in and decoded from music. This emphasis on both production and

consumption of meanings necessarily draws attention to the inadequacy of methods that have hitherto been adopted in scholarly, and in particular, geographical treatments of popular music: content analyses of song lyrics, opinion surveys (often regarding musical preferences and favourite artists) (see Denisoff and Levine, 1971), and mapping. As sociologists Denisoff and Levine (1971:912) point out, "content analyses of lyrics from songbooks ... may only reflect the sentiments of the songwriter and tastes of program directors and record industry A & R (Artists and Repertoire) executives" while "listeners may not, in fact, assimilate the lyrics of popular songs". In other words, Denisoff and Levine (1971) view such analysis to be focused only on

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the meanings encoded while paying no attention to their consumption.

In thinking through the question of how to explore the production and consumption of meanings in music, both quantitative and qualitative approaches appear to be useful in different ways. Certainly, the analysis of lyrics is an important way in which to get a handle on the meanings intended by producers. In addition, the "tonal and esthetic structures of popular songs" (Denisoff and Levine, 1971:911) must also be analysed as "words are only part of the total sound (Carey, 1969:721). This becomes especially important if we bear in mind Robinson and Hirsch's (1969) findings in a survey of high school students in two Michigan cities, where more than 70 per cent of the students sampled declared that they were more attracted by the "sound" of the music than by the lyrics. That the analysis of lyrics forms only one part of the overall analysis necessary to understand the production of meanings is even more apparent when we consider the other range of intertextual material that must be included for analysis, such as visuals in the form of music videos, posters and even T-shirts, given that they too communicate meanings and speak of the identities that people wish to develop and portray. In so doing, there is an attempt to address music as a "gestalt" (Denisoff and Levine, 1971:917). Yet, it is imperative that another qualitative technique be included in the arsenal of methods adopted, lest the analysis remains as an interpretive exercise by academics who, from their dominant standpoints, mediated by their cultural (disciplinary) baggages, tell producers and consumers what the music means for them (Burgess, 1990:140). This is the use of interviews with the producers of music, from songwriters and lyricists to recording companies and imagemakers. Only then can the decisions that recording companies make be understood as

influencing the content of music; and the images that artistes portray understood as managed to evoke structures of feelings (Hirschkop, 1989:297). Only then can insights be obtained into questions such as the motivations for and contexts of production, and the meanings and effects intended.

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While scholars have explored the consumption of meanings, this work has tended to emerge from outside geography. Cultural theorists and communications researchers, for

example, have recognised and explored the ways in which listeners participate in popular music, from ways that are physical (singing along, clapping, dancing) to emotional (reminiscing, romanticising) to cognitive (learning, stimulating thought, framing perceptions) (see Lull, 1987:141). The degree of involvement with music has also been theorised as including "exposure" (the amount of contact with music), "consumption" (what is learned or remembered from exposure) and "use" (the personal and social applications and gratifications related to exposure and consumption) (Lull, 1987:143). These ideas open up myriad

possibilities for research agendas and call for the creative use of qualitative research methods. While surveys (regarding degree of exposure to music and musical preferences, for example) remain important, participant observation at musical events and activities and qualitative research interviews, either with individuals or groups, must also make inroads into the analysis of music in the same way that they have influenced the geographical enterprise in general, and branches of cultural and social geography, in particular (see Eyles and Smith, 1988; Burgess et al., 1988a; 1988b; 1990). In this regard, the agendas of music critics and deejays must also be explored through in-depth interviews with them.

V CONCLUSION

In proposing a revised geographical agenda for the analysis of music, I have drawn heavily on perspectives within geography (retheorised cultural geography) as well as those without (sociology and cultural studies). These diverse wellsprings are nowhere more evident than in the lively discussions at the 1993 conference entitled "The place of music" held at University College London. The two day conference brought together academics and

practitioners, geographers and non-geographers, in lively discussions of themes that

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foreshadowed some of my propositions here. Notions of identity, issues of cultural politics, and evidences of interconnections between music (the cultural) and economics emerged insistently in the papers, several of which I have cited above. The publication of a selection of these papers in a special issue of Transactions, Institute of British Geographers (1995) is acknowledgement of the success of this conference in refiguring the terrain of analysis, with geographers drawing from, and contributing to, neighbouring disciplines in the study of music.

This paper is offered as an extension of the conference, and as papers in the conference have done, it illustrates how music is "a unique form of symbolic expression" (Lull, 1987:141-42), which ... can exist alone as a cultural event or product (concert, street performance, private singing and playing, records, tapes, compact discs, digital audio tape, and so on); serve as the content focus for another medium (radio, music video, some movies); or contribute to the overall aesthetics and meaning of another content display (background music for television and film, accompaniment for rituals such as church services, weddings, funeral ceremonies, sporting events, and so on). It is the soundtrack for shopping, driving, studying, and partying, among other activities. Music is sometimes accompanied by extreme physical movement (for instance, dance, aerobics) and is also often experienced in pensive, inactive moments.

In other words, it is integrally a part of our public and private lives. As part of the public sphere, it can be conspicuous or unobtrusive. Its conspicuousness is nowhere more apparent than when we consciously seek after it, for example, as we pay to participate in concerts and in so doing, create for ourselves the opportunity to feel part of a community (Frith, 1992), albeit an imagined one, as Valentine (1993) argues, since members of the audience will never meet or know of others' existence and since there is a temporary perceived bond of comradeship amongst those present. To extend the idea further, the anthropologist Turner's (1974) notion of communitas, discussed in the context of pilgrimages, may be applied here. Turner argues that pilgrimage results in the abrogation of social structure, a state in which individuals are temporarily freed of the hierarchical roles and statuses that they ordinarily bear. Instead, there

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is a condition of unmediated and egalitarian association between individuals. The space thus created is a site of unity and equality. Music too can have that effect.

At the same time, music may also be a part of our public lives that we do not focus on consciously. As Chow (1993:396) points out, it is fairly common, particularly in East Asian cities, to hear a range of popular music being played in shops, restaurants, markets, streetside stalls and so forth. Such music "is a kind of 'easy', non-verbal culture that conditions passersby" (Chow, 1993:396). Because it does not take us away from doing our other things since it is "played by the side", Chow (1993:396) terms it a "listening otherwise". Yet, precisely because of the listeners' lack of control over the music they hear, and because of the unobtrusiveness of such music, the impact of listening otherwise in shaping our understanding of the world is far more insidious than we realise. It alters the impacts that places have on us without our even recognising them as such.

While integrally part of our public lives, technology has made possible a privatisation of music through the use of headphones and in more recent times, the Walkman and Discman. Through these means, music is hidden from others, but its very hiddenness allows us "to hear it full blast" (Chow, 1993:398). This empowers listeners to choose to be "deaf" to the world, and in a way, to erect "a barrier, a blockage between 'me' and the world" (Chow, 1993:398). The private spaces thus created can be an avenue for the expression of one's identity(ies). In all these various public and private ways then, music is an active agent in the social and spatial production and reproduction of everyday life.

In thus putting forward possible agendas for geographers researching music, I am making a bid to put music firmly back into its socio-political context rather than to treat music in the "realm of pure knowledge ideally untouched by mere vicissitudes of time and place" (Norris, 1989:9). This situation within broader milieux is necessary, given that the producers

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and consumers of music are located in specific times and places. It is thus imperative, as West (1993:204) argues in a larger context, to "historicize, contextualize, and pluralize by highlighting the contingent, provisional, variable, tentative, shifting, and changing". Only then can we arrive at a fuller understanding of the place of music in the complex matrices of our everyday lives.

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