Music for listening or music for doing?

Music-making between professionalism and consumption in late modern society

A sub-project within the research program, Musikskapandets villkor (“Conditions of Music–Making”).

We often talk about music that is produced by a few specialists, conveyed through the media, concerts, festivals, and so on, and then consumed or used by a public. But, private, active, music making also has a place in our late modern society. Singing, playing, and dancing take place during people’s leisure time – in everyday life, in the company of others or individually, organized or spontaneous. Music can be a fundamental human activity that need not take on the character of a product, but can be regarded as a process and as multi-directional communication.

In small-scale contexts, music performers meet outside of the artist-public roles. We listen to one another, learn from, and teach one another – and switch between these different roles. This study focuses on singing in various milieus.

Ingrid Åkesson, from Svenskt visarkiv, conducted from September 2010, a two-year research project exploring these and other questions in the form of a postdoctoral fellowship in ethnomusicology within Institutionen för kultur och medier (the Department of Culture and Media Studies) at Umeå University, with the title, Musik att höra eller musik att göra?: Professionellt musikskapande, musikande och musicerande i ett senmodernt samhälle. The project is a sub-project within the research programme, Musikskapandets villkor led by Professor Alf Arvidsson. The project’s final report is due in 2014. A presentation of the issues can be found here.