Javascript must be enabled to continue!
The Infrastructure and Environmental Consequences of Live Music
View through CrossRef
This chapter offers a backstage perspective on the physical and organizational structures of touring and concertgoing. In doing so, it addresses the global challenges of climate change and environmental sustainability through the lens of the live music sector, focusing on the UK as a case study. More specifically, the chapter investigates how actors in the live music industry—made up of artists, audiences, and organizers—perceive and address climate change and sustainability, one of the most urgent problems facing the wider global community. The chapter develops the concept of a “live music ecology,” arguing that an ecological approach to live music draws attention to three other factors: (1) the materiality of the infrastructures and buildings in which live music happens; (2) the interdependence between the actors who identify themselves as operating within a music scene versus other nonmusic work spheres who have a significant impact on live music; and finally (3) the sustainability of live music culture, where all the factors above contribute to meet the needs of the present ecology “without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” The underlying argument of this chapter is that the infrastructures at play in the production of live music are often directly at odds with the escapist ideology often found in live music performances as cultural events. Indeed, the chapter highlights some of the ideological contradictions embodied by concert spaces that style themselves as utopian and “green.” Ultimately, it argues that we need more efficient and sustainable musical infrastructures, and that a crucial part of achieving that goal involves developing critical infrastructural imaginaries.
Title: The Infrastructure and Environmental Consequences of Live Music
Description:
This chapter offers a backstage perspective on the physical and organizational structures of touring and concertgoing.
In doing so, it addresses the global challenges of climate change and environmental sustainability through the lens of the live music sector, focusing on the UK as a case study.
More specifically, the chapter investigates how actors in the live music industry—made up of artists, audiences, and organizers—perceive and address climate change and sustainability, one of the most urgent problems facing the wider global community.
The chapter develops the concept of a “live music ecology,” arguing that an ecological approach to live music draws attention to three other factors: (1) the materiality of the infrastructures and buildings in which live music happens; (2) the interdependence between the actors who identify themselves as operating within a music scene versus other nonmusic work spheres who have a significant impact on live music; and finally (3) the sustainability of live music culture, where all the factors above contribute to meet the needs of the present ecology “without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
” The underlying argument of this chapter is that the infrastructures at play in the production of live music are often directly at odds with the escapist ideology often found in live music performances as cultural events.
Indeed, the chapter highlights some of the ideological contradictions embodied by concert spaces that style themselves as utopian and “green.
” Ultimately, it argues that we need more efficient and sustainable musical infrastructures, and that a crucial part of achieving that goal involves developing critical infrastructural imaginaries.
Related Results
Music and Mysticism
Music and Mysticism
The word “mystic” has a common meaning in philosophical traditions like neo-Platonism and religions (Hindu, Jewish, Christian, and Muslim)—namely the elevation of a human being to ...
Owner Bound Music: A study of popular sheet music selling and music making in the New Zealand home 1840-1940
Owner Bound Music: A study of popular sheet music selling and music making in the New Zealand home 1840-1940
<p>From 1840, when New Zealand became part of the British Empire, until 1940 when the nation celebrated its Centennial, the piano was the most dominant instrument in domestic...
Advancing knowledge in music therapy
Advancing knowledge in music therapy
It is now over 20 years since Ernest Boyer – an educator from the US and, amongst other posts, President of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching – published his ...
Music Video
Music Video
Music video emerged as the object of academic writing shortly after the introduction in the United States of MTV (Music Television) in 1981. From the beginning, music video was cla...
Does music counteract mental fatigue? A systematic review
Does music counteract mental fatigue? A systematic review
Introduction
Mental fatigue, a psychobiological state induced by prolonged and sustained cognitive tasks, impairs both cognitive and physical performance. Several studies have inve...
Folk Music
Folk Music
Folk music, a widely used but controversial term, means oral-tradition music by and for peasants/the working class in regional cultures where there is also a sophisticated art musi...
Welcome to the Robbiedome
Welcome to the Robbiedome
One of the greatest joys in watching Foxtel is to see all the crazy people who run talk shows. Judgement, ridicule and generalisations slip from their tongues like overcooked lamb ...
Dragutin Gostuški’s Television Narrative
Dragutin Gostuški’s Television Narrative
The selection of music combined with the text about music is very important for the effect on the viewer of the television music programs. The interaction between music and text tu...

