scholarly journals Music venues in transition: States of autonomy, dependence and subcultural institutionalization

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 25-41
Author(s):  
Robin Kuchar
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Work ◽  
Specific Kind ◽  
Music Production ◽  
Music Scenes ◽  
Urban Music ◽  
Live Music ◽  
Cultural Strategies ◽  
The Status ◽  
Do It Yourself ◽  
Music Venues

: Taking into account changing spatial structures of local music scenes and processes of music production, urban regeneration, and the commercialization of live music during the last decades, this article examines how ongoing transformations of socio-spatial environments exert influence on originally do-it-yourself music venues as a specific kind of urban music space. Venues are understood as individual actors that develop in relation to their initial spatial and cultural strategies. Therefore, the status of these venues reaches from traditionalist but highly dependent to paradoxical forms of “subcultural institutionalization”. Based on empirical data from three case studies in Hamburg, Germany, fieldwork shows that DIY-driven clubs increasingly become hijacked or taken-over spaces that apply different strategies in order to preserve their idea(l)s of self-governed and collective cultural work.

Challenges facing regional live music venues: A case study of venues in Armidale, NSW

Popular Music ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 39 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 600-618
Author(s):  
Cary Bennett
Keyword(s):  
New South ◽  
Regulatory Environment ◽  
Regulatory Issues ◽  
Music Scenes ◽  
South Wales ◽  
Metropolitan Cities ◽  
Live Music ◽  
Music Venues ◽  
Regulatory Challenges

AbstractThis article draws from a wider research project undertaken in 2018 in Armidale, a small regional city in New South Wales (NSW) Australia, to explore the challenges commercial venues face in presenting and maintaining a regular live music programme. An analysis of the main themes suggests that the issues regional venues encounter are often qualitatively and/or quantitatively different from those facing their urban counterparts. This research found that regulatory issues, such as licensing, planning and noise, were not considered major impediments to regularly hosting live music. Rather, finding and accessing affordable quality bands in the numbers and styles needed to keep audiences coming to gigs, and getting audiences to regularly attend and spend money in the numbers needed to sustain the gigs, were identified as ongoing difficulties. Although venues in larger metropolitan cities are often confronted with similar problems, these are not the sort of issues that stand out in the research in this area. Rather the regulatory environment is emphasised. By drawing attention to the non-regulatory challenges regional venues face, important new avenues of research are opened up that will benefit live music scenes across Australia.

The Value of Curating Music

TURBA ◽  
2022 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 71-84
Keyword(s):  
Risk Taking ◽  
Contemporary Music ◽  
Ethical Perspective ◽  
Music Festival ◽  
Music Production ◽  
Live Music ◽  
Central Argument ◽  
Value Measurement ◽  
Venice Biennale ◽  
Do So

This article examines the practice of concert organization from an ethical perspective. By examining the field in relation to the notion of value, it explores the processes by which curators produce live acts, and the issues they face when they do so. The central argument traces a trajectory from the material to the immaterial aspects. The first part (Context and Value) shows how financial and cultural matters are embedded into live music production, and frames curatorship as the articulation of their co-dependent relations. The second part (Praxis) explores how music curators breathe value creation in their work context, by comparing interviews with the directors of Venice Biennale Musica, London Contemporary Music Festival, and No-Nation. The third part (Risk and Ethics) introduces risk-taking as a unit of value measurement, and points out the force of the curatorial in its power to confer value.

Live Music and Festivals

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dr Daragh O’Reilly ◽  
Dr Gretchen Larsen ◽  
Dr Krzysztof Kubacki
Keyword(s):  
Social Situations ◽  
Music Festivals ◽  
Music Festival ◽  
Form And Function ◽  
Live Music ◽  
Production And Consumption ◽  
Music Venues ◽  
Historical Developments ◽  
And Function ◽  
Important Variant

The purpose of this chapter is to explore the importance of live music, music venues, music festivals and live music promotion in the production and consumption of music. As shown in Chapter 3, music is a complex product which can be enjoyed in a wide range of social situations, from listening to music in one’s own home or car, through enjoying a concert in a large music venue like an opera house or stadium, to spending several days at a music festival attended by over a million people. This chapter therefore begins with an attempt to provide an understanding of some of the historical developments of live music, its main characteristics, and the reasons behind its growing popularity. Music festivals are an important variant of live music, and the chapter also includes a discussion of the nature, form and function of music festivals, their multiple impacts and the marketing issues which they present.

“A Song Calling for You”

Soul in Seoul ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 43-88
Author(s):  
Crystal S. Anderson
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
American Music ◽  
Music Videos ◽  
Cultural Work ◽  
Black American ◽  
Korean Music ◽  
Dynamic Image ◽  
Music Production ◽  
Asian Stereotypes

Korean pop groups cite the R&B tradition by emulating R&B musical and vocal elements in catchy pop songs and enhance the tradition through Korean music strategies that infuse multiple genres with R&B elements. Korean pop groups emulate the R&B tradition by citing elements of funk, club, and urban R&B. Moreover, Korean and African American producers infuse K-pop with different varieties of R&B. These artists also enhance the R&B tradition by mixing pop genres with R&B within individual songs and over the course of their careers. In music videos, they cite the choreography and styles of African American performance in ways that provide alternatives to Asian stereotypes. This intertextuality is driven by promotions that focus on image and music quality; strategies that mirror those employed by Black American music producers. The combination of dynamic image and quality music production fuels K-pop’s cultural work and global crossover, thereby making it part of a global R&B tradition.

Shakespeare and the Contemporary

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bridget Escolme
Keyword(s):  
Social Class ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Cultural Work ◽  
Cultural Strategies ◽  
Ideological Work

Whilst the cultural materialist scholarship of the 1980s asserted that Shakespeare can never be our contemporary, actors, directors, and voice practitioners have insisted with equal assurance and political passion that Shakespeare always has something to say to the contemporary moment. This chapter uses three recent productions of Othello as case studies to consider the artistic and ideological work that rendering Shakespeare ‘our contemporary’ allows his plays to do in order to current and historical constructions of social class and race. Even as the chapter continues the cultural materialist project of naming the theatrical and cultural strategies of appropriation used by Shakespeare production, it also seeks to explore the theatrical and cultural work Shakespeare does to the contemporary. It suggests that performing Shakespeare is always a dialogue between the discourses, theatrical conventions, and political concerns of past and present.

The Survival Struggle and Resistant Politics of a DIY Music Career in East Asia: Case Studies of China and Taiwan

2018 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 224-240 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miaoju Jian
Keyword(s):  
East Asia ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Alternative Possibilities ◽  
Creative Industry ◽  
Music Scenes ◽  
Government Involvement ◽  
Music Market ◽  
Do It Yourself ◽  
Underground Music ◽  
Indie Music

Indie music in East Asia has experienced tremendous growth in popularity since the mid-2000s, especially in China and Taiwan. This trend has encouraged a number of indie bands to pursue more radical and alternative ‘do-it-yourself’ (DIY) careers within their local underground music scenes. Taking two bands from Beijing and Taipei as case studies, this article argues that their DIY music careers help them both to survive through their aesthetic freedom and to confront the paradoxical government involvement in the local music market. P.K. 14, a band from China, practice a pragmatic DIY music career with an oblique resistance to political authorities. Touming Magazine, a band from Taiwan, pursue a DIY career through punk ethics to fight against an overwhelming neoliberal discourse and a promotional state policy of developing a cultural and creative industry. While DIY career practitioners have opened up alternative possibilities to preserve the autonomy of making music, such a career path is still challenged by an unsustainable market, a shortage of financing, and the continued dominance of major music companies’ own platforms. The situations these musicians face illustrate a more ambivalent type of politics, beyond mere emancipation, in their pursuit of a DIY career.

scholarly journals Guided by Delight: Music Apps and the Politics of User Interface Design in the iOS Platform

2018 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 60-74 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victoria Simon
Keyword(s):  
User Interface ◽  
Interface Design ◽  
User Interface Design ◽  
Alternative Conceptions ◽  
Cultural Work ◽  
Video Gaming ◽  
Music Production ◽  
Software Applications ◽  
Semistructured Interviews ◽  
User Friendly

Seemingly trivial software does important cultural work, both reflecting hegemonic norms and providing opportunities for transforming them. Software applications for music production (music apps) within the iOS app store promise to broaden the potential for musical participation through simple, “fun,” user-friendly interface design. Yet, within the dominant user interface convention, “fun” is synonymous with the experience of instant success and effortless musical mastery. Drawing on semistructured interviews conducted with developers, and an analysis of shared user interface design conventions across three case studies of apps, ThumbJam, iMaschine 2, and Skram, I argue that normative conceptions of human perfectibility are assumed to be what generates an optimal user experience. Exploring theories of “queer fun,” and the importance of “failure” in studies of video gaming, I propose alternative conceptions of “fun,” and consider how, and with what effects, these might be implemented in the world of music apps.

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