Music and Its Social Meanings

First Published in 1984. This is the second volume in a series on musicology and related areas edited by F. Joseph Smith. Deciphering the specific social characteristics of music has long lagged behind the analytical dissection of musical composition and biographical musicology. The essays in this volume have been produced in an attempt to redress the balance. The sociology of music as examined here is an investigation into the ways social formations come together in musical structures. These essays specifically address the problem of our neutralized music consciousness, the separation of music from the social context and the artificial insulation of musical understanding from the realms of social meanings. One theme in these essays concerns the struggle against ideological distortions arising from the insulation of music from its sociological context. The author argues that there is a stronger connection between music and society than is generally assumed.

CHRISTOPHER BALLANTINE holds degrees from the Universities of the Witwatersrand, Cambridge and Cape Town, and has carried out research in various musical fields including twentieth-century music, African music, and Marxist sociology and aesthetics of music. He has been Visiting Scholar at Columbia University and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, and visiting Professor at Middlebury College, Vermont. Dr Ballantine is currently Professor of Music at the University of Natal.