Music Worlds and Event Networks: An Exposition

Abstract

Musical activity in contemporary societies clusters in distinct ‘music worlds’, centred on such factors as style and/or locality. A number of studies have analysed these music worlds as networks of participants, linked in a variety of ways. This is useful but only captures some aspects of music worlds, neglecting others. In this article I introduce the concept of ‘event networks’ as a complement which allows us to capture much that ‘participant networks’ exclude. An event network is a sequence of events, such as gigs, certain pairs of which are linked by a flow of both participants (e.g. artists, audience members and support personnel) and the various resources and (evolving) conventions those participants carry with them. It forms an important part of the social structure of a music world and we can analyse it, empirically, using social network analysis (SNA). In the first part of the article I elaborate theoretically upon the concept of event networks and its significance in relation to music worlds. In the second part I develop this via an illustrative analysis of an empirical event network. The purpose of this analysis is to stimulate further discussion of event networks, of the interpretation of their properties and of possibilities for future analyses.