Music and Urban Geography is the first book to theorize musical aspects of the tremendous changes that have overtaken major cities in the developed world over the past few decades. Drawing on musicology, music theory, urban geography, and historical materialism, Krims maps changes not only in how music represents cities, but also in how music sounds and is deployed socially in new urban contexts. Taking on venerable musicological debates from entirely new perspectives, Krims argues that the cultural-studies approach now predominant in cultural musicology fails to address contemporary realities of production and consumption; instead, the social effects of space and new patterns of urban production play a shaping role, in which music takes on new forms and functions, with representation playing a significant but not always decisive role. While music scholars increasingly concern themselves with place, Krims theorizes it together with the shaping role of space. Pushing urban geography into new cultural contexts Music and Urban Geography will offer those concerned with the social effects of space newtheoretical models. Ranging from Anonymous 4 to Alanis Morissette, from Curaçao to Seattle, Music and Urban Geography presents a truly wide-ranging, interdisciplinary, and theoretically ambitious view of both musical and urban change.

This is the first book to discuss in detail how rap music is put together musically and how it contributes to the formation of cultural identities for both artists and audiences. It also argues that current skeptical attitudes toward music analysis in popular music studies are misplaced and need to be reconsidered if cultural studies are to treat seriously the social force of rap music, popular musics, and music in general. Drawing extensively on recent scholarship in popular music studies, cultural theory, communications, critical theory, and musicology, Krims redefines 'music theory' as meaning simply 'theory about music', in which musical poetics (the study of how musical sound is deployed) may play a crucial role when its claims are contextualized and demystified. Theorizing local and global geographies of rap, Krims discusses at length the music of Ice Cube, the Goodie MoB, KRS-One, Dutch group the Spookrijders, and Canadian Cree rapper Bannock.

Popular music is a cultural form much rooted in space and place. This book interprets the meaning of music from a spatial perspective and, in doing so it furthers our understanding of broader social relations and trends, including identity, attachment to place, cultural economies, social activism and politics. The book's editors have brought together a team of scholars to discuss the latest innovative thinking on music and its geographies, illustrated with a fascinating range of case studies from the USA, Canada, the Caribbean, Australia and Great Britain.

Sara Adhitya is an urban designer and Research Associate with the Accessibility Research Group at UCL. Awarded a European Doctorate in the 'Quality of Design' of Architecture and Urban Planning by the University IUAV of Venice and the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris, she draws on her multidisciplinary background in environmental design, architecture, urbanism, music and sound design, in her interactive and multisensorial approach to urban design. She collaborates with a range of non-profit and governmental organizations around the world towards improving urban liveability and sustainability through participatory design and planning.

A contribution to the field of urban music studies, this book presents new interdisciplinary approaches to the study of music in urban social life. It takes musical performance as its key focus, exploring how and why different kinds of performance are evolving in contemporary cities in the interaction among social groups, commercial entrepreneurs, and institutions. From conventional concerts in rock clubs to new genres such as the flash mob, the forms and meanings of musical performance are deeply affected by urban social change and at the same time respond to the changing conditions. Music has taken on complex roles in the post-industrial city where culture and cultural consumption have an unprecedented power in defining publics, policies, and marketing strategies. Further, changes in real estate markets and the penetration of new media have challenged even fairly modern music cultures. At the same time, new music cultures have emerged, and music has become a driver for cultural events and festivals, channeling the dynamics of a society characterized by the social change, media intensity, and the neoliberal forces of post-industrial urban contexts. The volume brings together scholars from a broad range of disciplines to build a shared understanding of post-industrial contexts in Europe and the United States. Most directly grounded in contemporary developments in music studies and urban studies, its broad interdisciplinary range serves to strengthen the relevance of urban music studies to fields such as anthropology, sociology, urban geography, and beyond. Offering in-depth studies of changing music culture in concert venues, cultural events, and neighborhoods, contributors visit diverse locations such as Barcelona, Berlin, London, New York, and Austin.

A contemporary introduction to urban geography by a renowned scholar in the field. As the growing world population increasingly comes to live in cities, the field of urban geography will continue to expand in numbers and significance. This book encompasses both systems of cities and the internal geography of metro areas. * Offers a good balance of theory, concepts and empirical examples. * Primary focus in the United States, with a chapter on global cities and three chapters on cities around the world. * Oriented directly to pressing urban issues such as restructuring, blight, sprawl, and segregation.

While we are used to looking around us, we are less used to listening to what happens around us. And yet, the noises we produce reveal our way of life, and learning to master them is a necessity. This book aims at drawing the reader’s attention to the sound of the urban environment. The topic is by its very nature complex, as it involves sounds and noises, urban space and social activities. Using an interdisciplinary approach, it examines a heterogeneous selection of experimentations from the domains of music, art and architecture. Significant case studies of pieces of music, public art works and scientific research in the field of urban planning are analyzed, investigating the methods that have been adopted and the aural processes that have been generated. It then uses the findings to reconstruct the underlying theories and practices and to show what might be drawn from these procedures applied to urban planning. The overall objective is to learn to build and enrich space with sound, arguing that there is a need to reconsider architecture and urban planning beyond building, and to look to the world of the arts and other disciplines. In doing so, the book guides the reader toward a sensorial architecture, and more generally toward consciously creating environmental architecture which is sustainable and connects with art and which diffuses a culture of sound.