Music in Everyday Life (Paperback)

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Editorial Reviews

Review

"...Original in conception and based on years of research, this book offers interpretive and cultural sociologist a novel point of entree into the study of embodied lived meaning." Daniel Thomas Cook, American Journal Of Sociology

"With Music in Everyday Life, DeNora has crafted an important cultural analysis of the consumption of music....Music in Everyday Life is a thoughtful, well-written book that contains important theoretical and substantive contributions. It should be well received by sociologists of popular music, sociological social psychologists, and ethnomusicologists alike." Contemporary Sociology

Product Description

The power of music in everyday life is widely recognized and this is reflected in social theory from Plato to Adorno that portrays music as an influence on character, social structure and action. This book uses a series of ethnographic studies and in-depth interviews to show how music is a constitutive feature of human agency. Drawing together concepts from psychology, sociology and sociolinguistics it develops a theory of music's active role in the construction of social life and highlights the aesthetic dimension of social order and organization in modern societies.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 196 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press; 1 edition (June 26, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 052162732X
• ISBN-13: 978-0521627320
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #80,352 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars how people use music in their lives, May 7, 2001

By	William Benzon (Jersey City, NJ USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is an excellent study of how people use music to structure their lives. DeNora is interested in how people use music to create identities for themselves, change their mood, and structure their interactions with other. I was particularly fascinated by her remarks on the use of music in neonatal intensive care units to help the little ones stabilize their body states, and in her study of how aerobics instructor use different kinds of music to structure a workout. She also talks about how stores and malls use music to create an identity for the enterprise and to alter customer mood in a way that favors shopping.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Nice idea, but could go further, April 27, 2002

By A Customer

This is definitely an interesting and welcome attempt to look at some of the everyday musics of the modern West. The author seems to have overlooked the large literature on music in everyday human life outside the West, or in Western folk traditions. While there is no need to write comparatively, or even to cite that research much, the book might still be better informed by lessons learned there, both musical and methodological. As a result, the book, despite its interest, sometimes reinvents the wheel and is occasionally theoretically weak.