Researching Music- and Place-Making Through Engaged Practice: Becoming a Musicking-Geographer

Abstract

How might geographers better understand the active, lived, on-the-ground experiences of musicians in places, and their role in place-making? This paper describes how I have developed a methodological framework that brings together two approaches, musicking ethnography, and music mapping, to examine the co-constitutive processes of musicmaking and place-making in three Irish towns. As a professional musical practitioner, I bring to geography the perspective of a musicking-geographer, drawing on Christopher Small's (2011) concept of "musicking", and Harriet Hawkins' (2011) work on geographyart "doing". Working with musicians of all age groups, musical backgrounds and interests from across the amateur-professional continuum (cf. Finnegan 2007), I aspire to create egalitarian, engaging, respectful and useful research experiences for the musicians with whom I work. I consider how my approach has developed in response to these aspirations, how my dual-positionality impacted the approach, and how it might be further developed and adapted by practitioner-geographers.

Engaging With Objects and Feelings: The Making of Live Music Space in Shanghai’s Livehouses

“…The argument that places shape live music experiences has been well documented (see, e.g., Gibson, 1999; Kavanagh, 2020). What remains to be examined is what exactly in a place that shapes live music experiences and how and why individuals’ perceptions matter in these experiences.…”

Performing Local Music: Engaging with Regional Musical Identities Through Higher Education and Research

“…One, a historical geography that focuses on the past and the creation of heritage (Ronström, 2014;Kirschenblatt-Gimblett, 1998). The second, a musicking geography (Kavanagh 2020) that embraces the lived musical experience in the present. The former is potentially easier for higher education to engage with in the context of curriculum and the logistics of scheduling, but the latter may create more opportunities for engagement with the community of musical practice.…”