The social and cultural values of live music: Sustaining urban live music ecologies

TLDR

Urban live music ecologies have been understudied, with public focus on economic impact rather than social and cultural values. The study reviews and expands the understanding of social and cultural values of urban live music ecologies and proposes policy and planning measures to support them. The authors conduct a qualitative content analysis of live music reports and strategies from eight countries to review these values. The analysis identified three social value dimensions—social capital, public engagement, identity—and three cultural value dimensions—musical creativity, cultural vibrancy, talent development.

Abstract

This paper presents an overview of the social and cultural values attributed to live music ecologies in urban environments. It is grounded in a qualitative content analysis of live music reports and strategies from Australia, the United States, South Africa, Canada, Ireland, the United Kingdom, Scotland and the Netherlands. Contributing to the emerging scholarly literature on urban live music ecologies, this study enhances the understanding of the social and cultural merits of popular music concerts to cities. To date, the ways in which the social and cultural values of urban live music ecologies can be supported has received too little attention, because the emphasis in the public discourse has been on the economic impact of music-making. In our analysis, we found three different dimensions for social value (social capital, public engagement and identity) and three for cultural value (musical creativity, cultural vibrancy and talent development). Furthermore, we discuss how these values can be supported through specific cultural policies and urban planning interventions.