City, Culture and Society 10 (2017) 33–40

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City, Culture and Society

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Sonic capital and independent urban music production: Analysing value MARK
creation and ‘trial and error’ in the digital age
Hans-Joachim Bürknera,∗, Bastian Langeb
a
Leibniz Institute for Research on Society and Space, Flakenstr. 29-31, 15537 Erkner, Germany
b
Georg-Simmel Centre for Metropolitan Research, Humboldt University Berlin, Mohrenstrasse 41, 10119 Berlin, Germany

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Since not long ago independent urban music production was stirred up by digital change and dramatic shifts in
Electronic club music music markets. Local scenes of producers, labels, clubs and DJs have been challenged to cope with new digital
Urban music production formats while keeping up balance with the requirements of musical style, local and global audiences, and urban
Sonic capital embeddings of music production. It is the specific combination of pressure coming from disruptive music
Music scene
markets, emerging socio-technical and socio-cultural socialities, and technological options, which determines
Value creation
musicians moving. 'Trial and error' practices have become an appealing undertaking for some, as well as a last
Trial and error
resort for others. For agents in scene-based music production this ambiguous challenge assumes a particular
shape. The paper develops the concept of sonic capital to get analytical clue to scene-based value creation. It
addresses a specific knowledge-based capacity acquired by professional agents and users/consumers to keep up
with the co-evolution of musical styles, technology, markets and urban social environments. On the empirical
basis of interviews with independent label owners, producers and DJs in the Techno and House scene of the city
of Berlin, typical strategies are identified which relate to the task of gaining context-related knowledge,
developing trial-and-error routines, and performing contingent turns in business concepts and creative
procedures. By applying a modification of Bourdieuian notions of capital formation to shifts in the urban music
business, the tangle of recent social, economic and spatial reallocations of value creation becomes more
comprehensible.

1. Introduction
Recent shifts in global and national music markets have entailed
changes in the spatial configurations of various genres of music
production (Hracs, Seman, & Virani, 2016). This development still
awaits systematic exploration by the social sciences. On the one hand,
there is a strong interest to better understand the contextualised local
articulations of musical formats, genres and aesthetical expressions
(Mbaye, 2015; van Klyton, 2015). On the other hand, many scholars
have been particularly interested in analysing new modes of indepen-
dent and scene-based value creation (see for example Florida & Jackson,
2010; Florida, Mellander, & Stolarick, 2010; Hauge & Hracs, 2010;
Lange & Bürkner, 2013; Leyshon, 2009; Leyshon, Webb, French,
Thrift, & Crewe, 2005; Power & Hallencreutz, 2007; Power & Jansson,
2004).
Such varied academic interest reflects the fact that actual changes in
the field have been influenced by heterogeneous trends towards
digitised production and distribution, such as the Internet-based
distribution of music, diminishing returns from analogous sound carrier
sales, the increasing demand for the digital download and streaming of
music, the parallel upswing of the event business, the rising significance
of the prosumer (i.e., the ’producing consumer’, see Winter, 2013a), the
increased global visibility of independent labels and producers, and
artists' and producers' renewed dedication to particular music scenes.
As if market change occurred overnight, many independent artists
and producers found themselves uprooted and cut off from reliable
sources of income, which had formerly consisted mainly of CD and
vinyl record sales. They felt challenged in balancing anew their original
artistic ambitions, their proficiency in handling technological change
(e.g. by computerised music production), increasing socio-economic
precariousness and the need for professionalising (Dörre,
Kraemer, & Speidel, 2006; Lange, 2011; Lange, Kalandides,
Stöber, & Mieg, 2008; McRobbie, 2002; Ross, 2008), while commercial
success did not play much of a role for most of them because they felt
indebted to urban grassroots and DIY (‘do it yourself’) cultures
(Jabareen, 2014).
This does not mean that earning a living through music was
irrelevant. Within short amounts of time, local small-scale popular

∗
Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: hans-joachim.buerkner@leibniz-irs.de (H.-J. Bürkner), lange@multiplicities.de (B. Lange).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ccs.2017.04.002
Received 26 July 2016; Received in revised form 22 March 2017; Accepted 10 April 2017
Available online 20 April 2017
1877-9166/ © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
H.-J. Bürkner, B. Lange
music production responded to these shifts in specific ways. Local music
scenes (e.g. various house and techno scenes in various European
capitals) and networks of performers and producers negotiated shifts in
musical taste, trends, artists' reputation and cultural value ascribed to
music tracks, artists, labels and events. Producers, DJs and label
managers were part of these negotiations; they delivered their specific
contributions on the grounds of new ’trial and error' practices (Bürkner,
2013, 2016). Not only individuals have felt the challenge of digitisation
but so have scene-based networks of artists, producers and scene
members (Hracs, 2012, 2015; Hracs, Jakob, & Hauge, 2013; Leyshon,
2001, 2009; Leyshon et al., 2005; Power & Hallencreutz, 2007;
Power & Jansson, 2004).
Against this backdrop, the guiding questions of this paper are:
• How can responses to digital change, given by artists, music
producers and other agents involved in scene-based urban DIY
production, be conceptualised?
• How can their resources, capacities and routines be theorised in
relation to altered value creation?
Addressing these questions, we propose to apply the heuristic
concept of sonic capital which we will develop in the course of this
paper. In doing so, we draw on the flanking concepts of flexible value
creation (Lange & Bürkner, 2010) and trial and error (Bürkner, 2013)
which contribute to a more focused understanding of the building,
differentiation and transformation of this type of ‘capital’. Our first
round of conceptualising will be followed by a discussion of empirical
data in the light of our fresh conceptualisation. These data were
generated by an in-depth exploration of a local scene of DJs, producers,
clubs and labels of the techno and house genre as established in the city
of Berlin (Germany).1
2. Digitised independent music production and value creation: a
conceptual challenge
Presently the production and consumption of independent popular
music requires a substantial update of conceptual understandings of
value creation (Florida & Jackson, 2010; Florida et al., 2010;
Hauge & Hracs, 2010; Lange & Bürkner, 2013; Leyshon, 2009; Leyshon
et al., 2005; Power & Hallencreutz, 2007; Power & Jansson, 2004).
Technological change and the Internet have brought an unprecedented
proliferation of practical approaches to music production as well as
variegated forms of consumption. Digitisation and virtualisation relo-
cated the core of value creation in the music business. While recorded
music revenues (mainly physical formats) declined from the millen-
nium on, the MP3 revolution of this decade implied a radical
decoupling of musical content from physical sound carriers (Sterne,
2012). Until 2010, however, rising digital sales via download could not
compensate for the general downturn (reduction of total revenues from
2005 to 2010: 25%). After 2010, total revenues stabilised on a low
level, while the relative shares of digital and physical formats reverted.
The technological shift towards online streaming and the resulting new
streaming culture effected a massive worldwide rise of digital sales
(from 29% in 2010 to 45% in 2015), at the expense of physical sales
(vinyl and CD: decrease from 60% in 2010 to 39% in 2015) (IFPI, 2016,
1
The notion of scene as used in this paper relates to topically focused cultural forms of
communitisation that can be deliberately selected on an individual basis
(Hitzler & Niederbacher, 2010, p. 20). They generally consist of several loosely-linked
networks, each of which might (yet not always must) show dense internal interaction
(Hitzler & Niederbacher, 2010, p. 25). Music scenes more specifically focus on the
collective experience of consuming and producing music. They provide “the contexts in
which clusters of producers, musicians, and fans collectively share their common musical
tastes and collectively distinguish themselves from others“ (Peterson & Bennett, 2004, p.
1). They comprise an audience focused on a musical style, as well as artists, producers,
labels and intermediary agents, such as distributors, event organisers, etc. who address
this particular audience.
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City, Culture and Society 10 (2017) 33–40
p. 9). The decrease of turnover came to an end and the total volume of
revenues has remained stable ever since. From 2012 on a counter-
cyclical vinyl boom unexpectedly brought double-digit annual growth
rates of this format, but due to its low overall market shares this did not
significantly affect the general downward trend of physical formats.
At the same time two major trends brought a counterbalance. On
the one hand producers redirected their activities towards the growing
live events business, thereby realising some temporary compensation
for sinking sales numbers. On the other hand, vinyl records experienced
a comeback after decades of disregard. The continuing rise in vinyl LP
and EP sales after 2010 cannot only be interpreted as an expression of
fancy nostalgia among pop music listeners. In scenes of electronic dance
music, it also serves as a symbol of reassurance of the validity of
aesthetic distinction and coolness that has been based on vinyl from the
beginning on (Bartmanski & Woodward, 2015).
These intersecting conditions given, it is unlikely that value creation
might still follow a small number of well approved conceptual models.
Instead, it can be assumed that it proliferates into a multitude of trial-
and-error undertakings. Although open experiments and unrestrained
creativity have always been the basic ingredients of music production,
there is good reason to assume that periods of accelerated technological
change push its protagonists into intensified search for alternatives or
into more drastic exploitation of creative and social resources
(Hracs & Leslie, 2014).
Experimenting has also increasingly informed digital composing,
track production and home recording. One obvious challenge for
professional music producers has been the fact that digitisation has
encouraged non-professionals to get involved in music production.
Particularly with the production of electronic dance music, audio-
technical quality standards are now being achieved by (former)
amateurs. This has been facilitated by user-friendly DJ and music
production software that can be applied on home PC equipment. Also,
the Internet distribution of amateur music via download portals (e.g.
SoundCloud) has reached a level of professionalism that formerly had
been reserved to well-established artists and producers.
This development also becomes a challenge for analytical concepts.
Media theorists have postulated the ideal type of the technologically
informed prosumer to indicate that consumers can i) mutate into
(amateur) producers and ii) influence producers through online feed-
back (Hardaker & Graham, 2008; Winter, 2013a). Pop music production
involves a peculiar dynamism of producer-customer relationships,
which sets it apart from other economic fields, e.g. industrial commod-
ity production or knowledge-based services. It is based on very special
socialities and types of knowledge that are developed in local and
global scenes, topical networks, obscure subcultural communities, etc.
Hence it needs an interdisciplinary theoretical approach, grounded in
social studies, to clarify how economic, social and cultural elements
combine into trial-and-error ventures.
Another subject of proliferating practical experiments is the shifting
focus of value creation itself. Through digitisation, value-creating
activities and social relations, rather than value-generating organisa-
tions, have become ever more important (Neff, 2004). This makes it
increasingly difficult to identify the precise occasions and places of
value creation (Bourreau, Gensollen, & Moreau, 2008). Echoing inter-
national debates among media scholars on new value networks
supported by Internet-based social media (Brown, 2013), continental
approaches towards theorising value networks and ‘360° models’ have
recently tried to capture such flexibility (Tschmuck, 2013; Winter,
2013b). Such all-encompassing models suggest that there is a general
‘anything goes’ attitude among the protagonists when searching for new
concepts. However, this idea is still too broad to reveal in detail the
strategies and activities taken by individual stakeholders (Bürkner,
2016). What is needed, instead, is differentiated explorations into the
varieties of value creation under the multiple conditions of fragmented
markets, technological changes, reduced options for income-generating
activities and the proliferation of small-scale production models. Recent
H.-J. Bürkner, B. Lange
empirical work in the field of electronic club music production in the
city of Berlin (Germany) has already contributed to such analytical
differentiation (Kühn, 2013; Lange & Bürkner, 2013; Lange et al.,
2013). It identified flexible, contextualised configurations of value
creation rather than pre-fixed models.
Considering these observations, we argue that a sociologically
informed view is required to cope with the ‘social processing’ of the
technological shifts in music production. A promising perspective might
be generated by using terminologies such as habitus, lifestyle (see e.g.
Kellner & Berger, 1992; Zukin, 1999), and related concepts of scenes or
milieus (Blum, 2001; Florida et al., 2010; Hesmondhalgh, 2005; Lange,
2005; O'Connor, 2002; Straw, 1991, 2001). But also, more specific
reference to the social micro-dynamics of individual or collaborative
work in home studios, professional recording studios, DJ working
environments, label-guided music processing, etc. may contribute to
realistic conceptualisations of the multiplying occasions for the creation
of cultural and economic values. Hence, for the field of small-scale
music production it can be assumed that digitisation has affected mind-
sets and social conventions and that it has added several new capacities
and resources to well-established routines of ‘giving the scene what it
needs’. Distinct social resources are needed to cope with technological
change, develop innovative ideas, rearrange value creation, and survive
on the market. Our analytical task will be to trace mixed (cultural-
material) configurations of value formation, mainly by identifying the
social drivers prevalent on the side of protagonists.
3. Introducing and conceptualising sonic capital
The heuristic concept of sonic capital promises to provide relational
perspectives and deeper insights into the micro-causation and the
workings of value creation under conditions of technological change.
Starting from the proposition that value creation always has a cultural
and an economic component (Bourdieu, 1986; Greffe, 2016;
Lange & Bürkner, 2010), we postulate that agents within musical fields
develop a specific capacity to combine cultural and economic value
creation and to meet unforeseen challenges while doing so. In the field
of music production, cultural value creation generally precedes or
accompanies processes of economic value creation (Lange & Bürkner,
2010). However, in contrast to industrial value creation, music
production, similar to arts, involves a broader scope of cultural values
that contribute to shared meanings of new market categories (cf.
Khaire & Wadhwani, 2010), e.g. aesthetic judgments; musical tastes;
lifestyle-based predilections; socially mediated preferences of cultural
attributes (what is ‘in’, what is ‘out’?); reputation building concerning
protagonists, products and organisations; and social contexts, such as
creative and musical scenes.
This brings in chance and contingency: economic value generation
may contribute to everything that sells on a music market, but it does so
in a non-reliable, often casual way. The cultural and economic
significance of marketable items may change rapidly, be it musical
works, compositions, recordings, live events, sound carriers, derivative
products (the inevitable merchandising articles), etc. This requires
musicians and music producers to develop enhanced capacities and
knowledge about how to deal with such change. We assume that
cultural and economic value creation does not only generally interrelate
within the frameworks of genre-specific performative expression
(Lange & Bürkner, 2010) but that their relationship specifically changes
under the impact of digitisation and virtualisation: Cultural and
economic value creation move closer together as result of intensified
taste building, rating and valorising. These activities promoting cultural
value creation are performed within configurations of producers and
artists, also they are embedded in corresponding local/global scenes
and Internet communities (cf. Bennett, 2004). The configurations of
value creation on the ground rely more than ever on conducive social
relations and types of agents that try to find answers to increasing
global responses. This co-evolution of local and Internet-globalised
35
City, Culture and Society 10 (2017) 33–40
conditions of cultural commenting and reputation building presently
sets independent music production apart from traditional ‘analogous’ or
industrial types.
The concept follows a well-established strand of social theory,
namely Bourdieu's capital theory (Bourdieu, 1986), in explaining how
social assets and cultural capital contribute to economic capital
building. It adds to it the idea that cultural capital (generally made
available by education and knowledge building; ibid.) has been
specifically contextualised by music production, so that it can only
partially be acquired through universal schemes of formal education or
knowledge creation. Rather it is a field-specific social capacity of
inventing, re-/producing and distributing music that follows its peculiar
evolutionary trajectory. This trajectory might be tied to a genre, style,
social community or place. Being situated in scenes, milieus and social
networks whose members are fixated on producing and consuming
stylistic varieties of music, sonic capital represents a sharply focused
part of cultural capital. The category thus boils down Bourdieu's
universal mechanisms of primary or secondary education, which he
assumes as focal generators of cultural capital (Bourdieu, 1986), to a
much smaller field of social practice.
This field relies on topic-induced interaction, the acquisition and
application of musical and professional skills, and the trading of
relevant knowledge within small communities of producers/consumers.
It assembles focused social relations, specialised knowledge and the
procurement of individual and collective resources for economically
meaningful action. Within such a context, sonic capital primarily refers
to the immediate process of ‘learning by doing’ and to the social forms it
is embedded in. For example, for the practice of producing electronic
dance music DJs usually draw upon their intuitive understanding of
musical patterns (drum beats, bass lines, intensity, volume, repetition)
developed by trial and error, or they might copy or sample something
from recordings or live performances by other artists (Kühn, 2013;
Pfadenhauer, 2005). In a similar way they might also experiment with
technical tools, electronic musical instruments or music production
software, occasionally asking for advice from colleagues or friends.
Sonic capital is thus a capacity tied to contextualised types of
knowledge, which enable agents to valuate and communicate on the
quality, the contexts and the procedures of musical production and
consumption (Bürkner, Lange, & Schüßler, 2013, p. 27). Relevant forms
of knowledge are professional knowledge (of how to generate musical
artefacts, how to run a musical business), local knowledge (of a socio-
spatial, mostly urban, context of music consumption) and milieu
knowledge (of the social conventions, customs, relationships, tastes
and reputations generated by a specific milieu or scene). These involve
high amounts of tacit knowledge (understood as a cross-cutting
category in the sense of Polanyi's original concept of tacit knowledge;
cf. Polanyi, 2009).
i) scene-based, subcultural practice and knowledge generation con-
nected to music making;
ii) context-related manifestations of tacit knowledge, e.g. those emer-
ging from ‘learning by doing’ or ‘feeling the spirit’ of a musical piece
or event;
iii) the way in which technological change is incorporated in music-
related everyday culture and social relationships;
iv) the emergence of altered socialities and new types of agents, e.g.
cultural brokers, curators, DJs, hybrid (economic/scene-based/
consumer-oriented) networks, aesthetically informed Internet com-
munities, overlapping local and global scenes, etc.
The following paragraphs will exemplify the perspective and the
scope of analysis provided by the concept of sonic capital. It plays out
its strength best when used as a heuristic tool that allows for identifying
the specific points of intersection and interrelation between cultural
and economic value creation (i.e. when aesthetic judgement and artistic
reputation meet musical artefacts, sound carriers and services that are
H.-J. Bürkner, B. Lange
meant for consumption). It also sheds light on the contingent activation
of different scales of action (i.e. between local scenes and global
internet communities and audiences). It directs our attention to the
question of how and why stakeholders in musical-economic fields
engage in trial-and-error activities, how they make use of the resources
and types of capital they acquire, and in which ways they convert
specialised knowledge and skills into social and economic capital.
4. Trial and error as a relevant concept
The period of digitisation-induced reconfiguring of value creation
and models of making, producing and distributing music implies that
the agents involved intensify their search for sufficient ways of
arranging and prioritising their activities. The notion of trial and error
we use in this conceptual context refers to organisational theory and
economic innovation theory, where the category of earning by doing
and trying out has recently been discussed more thoroughly. While
psychological concepts of trial and error assume that trial and error
generally enhance a person's creative capacities (Nielsen,
Pickett, & Simonton, 2008; however cf. Martindale (2007) for adverse
estimations), organisational theory and innovation theory are more
specific about the configuring effects of trial and error. Organisational
theory not only assumes that organisational learning is based on trial
and error, i.e. experimentation with routines and structures that leads
to self-regulation (Sosna, Trevinyo-Rodríguez, & Velamuri, 2010). It
also poses the notion of trial-and-error learning as a process by which
organisational routines and schemata are combined, thereby creating
tools for dealing with change (Rerup & Feldman, 2011). This involves
the idea that routines and their variations are part of social practice
(Rerup & Feldman, 2011, p. 580, with reference to Bourdieu, 1990).
Innovation theory conceptualises trial and error in a twofold way.
First, it treats it as a method to advance a technology (e.g. computer
software programming) by intensified search for solutions to problems
which hinder innovation (Nelson, 2005). It may involve sampling and
“fumble and find” procedures which often are not creative in the sense
that they require advanced imagination or intellectual capacities
(Callander, 2011). Rather, they may often be mechanical although
allowing for random choices of alternatives and even serendipity. While
these concepts describe individual or collective procedures applied
within a firm or working group, increased interaction between manu-
facturers (or services providers) and their audience lends a dynamic
‘ping-pong’ quality to trial and error and to value creation on the whole
(Thomke and von Hippel, 2002, p. 6).
Applied to the task of dealing with digital change in DIY music
production, trial and error affects music making, performing and
recording in that new devices (digital software, electronic sound
generators, players etc. are tried out for varying purposes and effects).
At the same time, the ‘organisations’ (project teams, DJ and musician
working groups, performer and producer networks, etc.) are reconfi-
gured because all actors may attribute to themselves new roles and
tasks. To take an example from our former empirical studies on
electronic dance music (Bürkner, 2013, pp. 80–83), a DJ exploring
the making of digital tracks for his live performances discovered that
the software did not satisfy his need for a lively sound concept. He
found out that electronic instruments or percussion instruments played
live against a background of previously produced tracks served his
needs better. This had stylistic consequences, as he did not represent a
sub-genre any longer, as his audience was expecting. He found out that
he had moved out ‘between the scenes’ but could communicate with
each scene, based on their curiosity of live sounds. He then positioned
himself as an independent performer, benefitting from an ‘extra’ status
in the club, and being free to create his own label that allowed him to
present his original tracks without having to please a scene. He then
gave up the idea of being released on renowned house labels or of even
moderate commercial success, in favour of distributing self-designed
CDs and netlabel downloads via a network of internationally active
36
City, Culture and Society 10 (2017) 33–40
artists. Being conceptually and economically independent, he then
strived for propagating maximum freedom to invent electronic music
and perform it.
This protagonist performed small steps of trial which incrementally
opened up new options to refine his taste, realise greater freedom of
expression and enter a different sphere of communication with an
audience. At the same time, he encountered errors in the form of
limitations or disadvantages, e.g. by losing his opportunity to serve a
scene's predilections for a clear-cut style. By learning how to turn this
limitation into a new promising option, he by and by changed the whole
model of producing, including the configuration of value creation. By
‘fumbling and sampling’ musical raw materials and technical proce-
dures (i.e. producing ‘lively’ tracks with the help of music software) he
found new ways of music making and ‘structural’ arrangements alike.
Experience and knowledge gathered by ping-ponging (Thomke and von
Hippel, 2002), serendipity and ‘fumbling’ (which in this case was not
necessarily ‘uncreative’; cf. Callander, 2011) enhances the sonic capital
this actor commands and which allows him to master the digital
challenge as a small success story.
5. Empirical setting and methods applied
In the recent evolution of pop music, sonic capital has been much
influenced by technological change, but it (still – or again!) needs a
local context to evolve. There is a clear focus on urban sites, since most
musical styles and production scenes are tightly connected to the
density of interaction and communication provided by big cities
(Bennett, 2004; Krims, 2007). Traditional understandings of scenes
assume a local anchoring of scenes, often closely related to youth
subcultures and the locations they choose (e.g. meeting places, clubs,
etc.) (Hitzler & Niederbacher, 2010, p. 20; Bennett, 2000). Such every-
day place-making has often been narrated as an indispensable trait of
the evolution of musical styles contributing to the myth of a place (for
the techno scene of Berlin, see Denk and von Thülen, 2012). There is a
strong element of authenticity suggested by urban places and sites of
music making, e.g. jazz or blues clubs located in downtown areas which
host a certain social community or class (Becker, 2004; Grazian, 2004,
pp. 31–47). Such symbolic places also operate as merchandising tools
for artists and labels (Forman, 2002).
The recent proliferation of Internet communities and networks,
however, afforded a wider understanding of music scenes that com-
prises a spatially undefined or even global scene of music consumers
and experts which nevertheless has its local bases. Local rock, hip hop,
jazz, techno, and other scenes, related to the everyday life of specific
communities (Peterson & Bennett, 2004, p. 7; Bennett, 2004, p. 224)
continue to be manifest and visible at focal locations, mostly within an
urban context, while at the same time being negotiated and referred to
at expanded translocal and global scales. Virtual scenes, as based on
Net-mediated person-to-person communication (Peterson & Bennett,
2004, p. 11) and visible in Internet music forums, fan communities,
online fanzines, social networks (Facebook, MySpace) and free down-
load portals (SoundCloud, Bandcamp), etc. contribute to the commu-
nicative and symbolic reproduction and alteration of these locations, as
they identify musical styles with particular places (e.g. Detroit techno,
Berlin house, Liverpool rock, etc.), foster their expanding global
merchandising and instigate international club and events tourism
(Kruse, 2016). Therefore, we explicitly refer to an urban case study
on electronic dance music production in Berlin, which renders obvious
the richness of local and translocal options, constraints, perspectives,
capacities and capital relations involved.
The city of Berlin was chosen because from the 1980s on it has been
providing manifold embeddings to various subcultural scenes in
electronic dance music (Kühn, 2015, 2016). The techno and house
scenes are still relevant for the evolution of genres and styles, although
they have lost part of their rigid local fixation. Globalisation, Internet
communication, international club tourism and the medial omnipre-
H.-J. Bürkner, B. Lange
sence of formerly niche-bound music has contributed to an opening of
the local level, often combined with shifts in the socio-cultural
boundaries drawn by local fan communities. For example, in-scene
defenders of local authenticity increasingly dissociate themselves from
club tourists and external scenes. Presently local EDM scenes still
provide an important local backing to individual DJs, clubs, labels,
producers etc. (Lange & Bürkner, 2013). Berlin provides a plethora of
occasions for producing and performing electronic music, framed by
institutionalised self-representations of stakeholder groups (e.g. the
Berlin Club Commission, Berlin Label Commission) and supportive
political institutions (e.g. the Berlin Music Board, offering municipal
funding for musical projects), international music fairs (Popkomm,
All2gethernow), festivals, etc. The social and spatial structures involved
comprise large numbers of in-scene clubs and event locations as well as
a rare concentration of top-level resident DJs and prestigious record
labels. The most prominent feature is local micro-clusters made up of
clubs, record labels, recording studios and record shops. Many of them
are closely related to, or located within, shifting in-scene neighbour-
hoods, such as Friedrichshain, Prenzlauer Berg, Kreuzberg, Mitte,
Neukölln, etc. (Heinen, 2013).
The field study was done in the summer of 2012 by qualitative
interviews with a selection of 11 stakeholders involved in focal aspects
of local techno and house music production. Relevant activities
encompassed DJing, the management of independent record labels,
project-based track production, the mastering of recordings, sound
carrier production, the promotion and distribution of products, book-
ing, and event management. The interviewees were selected according
to their relative positions in local networks of producers. They represent
nodal functions in variable configurations of value creation, at times
approaching music making and production from the viewpoints of
different stakeholder roles (e.g. as a DJ, a producer, a label owner, etc.)
and different purposes of production (i.e. the generation of digital
tracks, CD or vinyl releases, or the organisation of live events). The
selection was confined to four of the city's most renowned labels that
host a variety of internationally featured artists each. Almost all
interviewees had a particular reputation as DJs, besides the roles they
assumed in various other contexts of production. Hence the sample
comprises exponents of the stratum of renowned, trendsetting Techno
DJs, but also a contrasting number of creative, unorthodox artists that
are much involved in small trial-and-error activities next to DJing and
live mixing. The interviews were done as semi-structured conversations
with much opportunity for spontaneous narration. All of them were
conducted in the studios, worklabs or label offices of the interviewees.
The interview analysis is based on full transcriptions that underwent
open coding in the tradition of grounded theory (Glaser & Strauss,
1967).
6. Empirical traces of sonic capital and trial & error
The sample offers a grip on the variety of production models and
shifts in value creation that have emerged during an amazingly short
period of time. From approximately 2010 on, flexible configurations of
stakeholders emerged that can be identified by their focus of character-
istic activities. Their origins are usually located within scene-based
frameworks that can be addressed as
i) DJ-operated track production and performance,
ii) label-guided production, and
iii) club-centred production (Lange & Bürkner, 2013).
Nevertheless, in spite of rough patterns of activity that usually
emerge from heterogeneous occasions of music making and producing,
hardly any standard model can be seen. Often this is an effect of shared
activities which occur within a configuration of value creation. For
example, many DJs do not restrict themselves to spinning records but
are also producers, label owners and bookers. They start out from one,
37
City, Culture and Society 10 (2017) 33–40
more important, activity and arrange their other contributions to music
production from that perspective. Relevant occasions range from an
initial compositional or performative idea, via live mixing, live record-
ing, the computer-based re-making of mixes, the provision of mixable
tracks by the same technical tools, to the physical and digital distribu-
tion of tracks and sound carriers. Many agents operating in this field
individually place an open-minded attitude of ‘trying something new’
above well-established routines or money-making patent solutions.
In general, this conforms to their self-definition as creative under-
ground artists. Across the sample generated for our investigation the
trend towards testing new activities and their combinations was
obvious, although most interviewees reported that they mainly stayed
with those additional activities that roughly matched their former
production concept, professional skills or ideological orientation.
Hence, shifting value creation was framed by a process that can be
addressed as a conceptual evolution rather than a radical changeover.
The 11 stakeholders of the sample were active as DJs, performers of
live acts (mostly in clubs), producers, label managers, operators of
recording studios, bookers or organisers of live events – most of them
doing their jobs in various combinations of these professional roles. Six
interviewees (in the following referred to as “DJs”) focused on DJing
and conducive PC-based digital track production, plus several second-
ary activities. Prominent among these activities was the management of
self-organised or personalised small labels. Another four agents acted
primarily as managers of well-known in-scene record labels. They all
had some DJing experience, gained either at former stages of their
careers or currently on a casual basis. One booker and organiser of live
events also looked back on earlier activities as a DJ. The only one who
did not expressly declare involvement as a DJ was a performer of live
acts in clubs and on other occasions; he was nevertheless concerned
with track production and label publishing. In sum, almost all inter-
viewees had considerable experience as DJs operating within local and
supralocal techno scenes. They emphasised that this experience is
indispensable for acquiring street credibility and support by the
audience. It helped them to stay rooted in a scene and to be close to
short-term stylistic shifts and differentiations that are typical of the
genre.
The description these agents gave of their primary activity served as
a focal point from which they arranged their other activities and
trial & error routines. The different perspectives on experiments and try-
outs they created from within the three frameworks mentioned above
can be characterised as follows:
i) Within the framework of DJing and DJ-operated track production
the interviewees clearly described their roles as official producers
and managers of small labels from the vantage point of mixing live
tracks in the club. Most of them claimed to be ‘vinyl DJs’ who kept
on using vinyl records for live mixing. They were fond of the haptic
and acoustic properties of vinyl, even when occasionally mixing
from digital CD, notebook PC or USB stick sources. Some of them
also implemented this preference in the concept of their self-owned
labels, in spite of their excursions into digitised track production. As
one DJ expressed this movement from vinyl to digital and back to
vinyl:
“If I have a vinyl label, then I have to be a vinyl DJ. I'm moving here.
I kind of got back immediately to that kind of thing of life.”
(Interview DJ Hot Coins).
An important driver of becoming more independent from the
production of physical records is the fact that noteworthy income can
only be generated by working as a DJ, and not any longer by record
sales. This DJ tried to reduce his dependency on sound carrier sales by
simply writing them off as a substantial source of income. Instead he
shifted the focus of his work to cultivating live mixing and partying, to
shaping stylistic specialities approved by the local scene, to intensifying
H.-J. Bürkner, B. Lange
his search for international bookings, and to selectively making use of
virtual distribution channels. In spite of such experimental expansion of
activities he took much effort to stay in touch with the local scene
(concentrated at the Berghain Panorama Bar, the world-famous Berlin
Techno club) and to stay visible in ’analogous' distribution channels
(e.g. famous vinyl record stores located in London and Berlin).
Departing from such mainstays, the DJs obviously organised
experiments with new or altered activities into three directions:
- Firstly, expanding the publishing of digital tracks as a natural
supplement to the core activity of live DJing;
- Secondly, developing individual ways of distributing recorded
tracks via the Internet,
- Thirdly, trying shifting combinations of money-raising activities that
serve as add-ons to DJing and track production.
ii) The framework of label-guided production was filled out by those
label managers who operated renowned techno and house labels.
These labels divided into in-scene DIY labels that operated close to a
(sub-)scene, and cross-over labels that addressed a larger public
across genres but also appealed to in-scene hardliners because of
their innovative approach to producing compilations, remixes and
other publications. These two types of labels differed in business
concepts, scene attachment and eventual propensity to trial.
The DIY labels (e.g. Paso Music, Exercise One) were mostly run by
DJs who laid more emphasis on serious track production and reliable
publication than other DJs usually did. These actors were running
projects that afforded intense in-scene communication, extensive pre-
sence as DJs in clubs and in the local public, and cooperation with
professional partners that shared the same interest in doing musical
experiments. Their attitude towards the challenge of digitisation and
online publishing was similar to that of most other DJs, albeit with one
difference: they sought to acquire more stability and visibility by
establishing high-ranking label profiles. They realised this aspiration
mostly through being very exclusive when choosing artists for their
releases, by operating close to famous clubs and by cultivating an image
of underground authenticity and avant-gardism. Therefore, the range of
experiments was restricted to operational procedures or variations that
did not deviate too much from the aims of taking their labels to a higher
artistic level and improving its local and international reputation.
In contrast, economic value creation according to a fixed business
model was preferred by one well-established crossover label
(Jazzanova) and a techno label of outstanding reputation (Get
Physical). Having started from cooperative or informal self-organisa-
tion, they not only acquired the legal form of business companies but
also developed internal divisions of labour that included specialised
staff. Individual employees were enabled to perform a double function
as occasional local DJs and expert ‘soft’ A & R (artists and repertoire)
managers who commanded intimate milieu knowledge and in-scene
relationships. These companies also employed bookers and event
managers that exclusively kept to these activities. In addition, official
cooperation with other, larger, labels was established, however on a
personalised basis that was supposed to create a subcultural feel and
image. Since all founders had originated from the local techno
subculture, they tried to preserve a low hierarchy, cooperative
approach to business that required open-mindedness and propensity
to experiment.
iii) An approach that put the club as an institution centre stage was
represented by a duo of DJs who periodically took the role of
residents of an internationally renowned house and techno club in
Berlin's in-scene neighbourhood of Kreuzberg. They ran a presti-
gious label (Suol) that was affiliated to the club, mainly by
contracting artists who represented a sub-genre that was promoted
there. By establishing a recording studio around the corner the label
contributed to the visibility of club and label alike. Since the two
38
City, Culture and Society 10 (2017) 33–40
DJs sought to establish themselves as avant-garde artists, contribut-
ing their own tracks to high-level releases, they had to balance their
artistic experiments with the tasks of keeping up a symbolic and
factual stronghold of the scene and serving the club's need for
launching profitable projects. Therefore, cultural value creation did
not always sit easy with economic value creation because a peculiar
constraint was produced by the contradiction between a ‘subcultur-
al’ philosophy of a DJ-operated label on the one hand and the
robust economic interest of a club owner which for symbolic
reasons was paradoxically labelled ‘subcultural’. The choice of
new activities was thus limited, as they were supposed not to
interfere too much with pre-fixed occasions and lines of economic
value creation.
7. Discussion: trial & error or new ‘business as usual’?
The digital revolution left almost nobody in the independent music
business unaffected. Our exploration into DIY techno music production
in the city of Berlin revealed some differentiated strategies by the
various stakeholders who were active within the three major frame-
works of music production and related value creation. There is a strong
reference back to DJing involved in almost every productive activity, to
a certain degree of ‘down-to-earth attitudes’ preserved even under the
condition of revolving markets. Social capital provided by supportive
local scenes of club and party goers, plus cultural capital in the shape of
DIY philosophy and attitudes, provide the backdrop against which these
stakeholders venture out into experiments with musical contents, forms
and distributable (though not always marketable) products. This basic
contribution to the compilation and alteration of sonic capital is added
by ‘inherited’ knowledge and professional approaches towards making
live music, conserving such music in the form of digital tracks,
publishing these tracks and organising a variety of adjacent value-
generating activities.
Trial & error routines established on this basis usually end up in
different balances of cultural and economic value creation. The cultural
side of things can be described as following a rationale of commu-
nicative circulation, involving the trying out of new products, formats
and production routines; evaluating them against former experience;
filtering out and keeping those that render sufficient levels of artistic
accomplishment; addressing live and internet audiences, getting feed-
back on released tracks from audiences and colleagues; employing
approved tracks as raw materials for mixing in the club; devising and
feeding a self-owned physical or net label with own tracks of one's own;
uploading tracks from these labels to cost-free download platforms and
making them circulate; getting booked on that basis for satisfying and
reputation-generating performances; resonating with a local in-scene
crowd by socialising (partying) and live performances; deriving from
that ideas for new tracks, etc. This circle of cultural value creation
affords the repeated conversion of sonic capital into social capital, i.e.
into reputation, positive response to performances, networking among
producers and scene protagonists, online feedback by listeners, techno-
affine Internet communities and amateur producers (prosumers). It also
triggers the conversion of social capital into other forms of cultural
capital that are not regularly utilised, such as knowledge of the larger
(e.g. global) context of production and potentially addressable audi-
ences beyond the local scene.
Economic value creation comes in only occasionally, in dependence
from stakeholders' overall orientation and the kind of experience they
have when passing through the circle of cultural value creation. One
phenotype of actors that can clearly be identified is the uncompromis-
ing DIY stakeholder who wants to make music or party free of economic
constraints. Although such pure non-commercialism is almost impos-
sible to achieve, many DJs try to get as close to it as possible. The
radical demand for creating ‘pure’ musical utilisation chains and direct
communication with a like-minded audience certainly marks one pole
of a possible continuum of orientations that structure the points of
H.-J. Bürkner, B. Lange
intervention for economic value creation. Only after getting reassured
about the politically correct approach to music production the agent
allows himself to think about money-generating activities. Trial & error
routines deliver such points in a contingent way, as if found by
subsequent surprising side-effects of unintentional explorations. Of
course, there is some degree of narcissism involved in such reports,
but if we put the narrative aside, a structuring principle based on
limited rationality and mild chaos appears. Even ‘radical’ protagonists
such as the vinyl DJ cited above, who tried to turn their backs on
commercial digital production and distribution, finally returned to
relatively well-established types of DJing and altered sound carrier
production to earn a living. This indicates that radicalism cannot
completely turn over older models but often modifies them.
In their option for DIY radicalism DJs are certainly unique. Other
related actors within the same configuration of value creation, such as
label owners or managers, producers and performing artists may opt for
more and more widespread money-raising activities to provide self-
sustaining or even profitable ways of publishing musical materials.
However, the point of having to find answers to the challenge of
digitisation and having to balance in-scene aspirations with strategies of
self-positioning within a wider market creates a shared interest in
getting involved in trial and error and creating new knowledge to cope
with shifting social and economic situations. Also, the fact that many
DJs are producers and label owners in one person, who may never-
theless be integrated into wider production networks, is liable to effect
a dissemination of trial and error attitudes into production concepts and
working contexts drawn up by actors who follow a more profit-oriented
economic rationality. Such larger concerting of sonic capital needs
future empirical exploration which, however, leaves the scope of this
article.
In sum, the concept of sonic capital helped to identify digitisation
and virtualisation as capital-building factors. Technological change and
its material components trigger new or altered ways of gaining
technological and social knowledge which effect shifting manifestations
of sonic capital. They make artists and producers conform to the
necessities of dealing with new digital formats, altered qualities of
sound carriers, the altered functionality of digitally exchanged music,
adopt new production software, etc. At the same time, they induce
supportive forms of social capital. For example, Internet-based net-
works of professionals and producers may serve as specific drivers of
capital conversion (e.g. by indicating potential or factual support for
altered ways of distributing products) and concomitant value creation.
Some of them had not been available before the digital revolution, and
others have given a different meaning to traditional ’analogous‘ ways of
creating cultural and economic value.
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