This week I will cheat and have other sources provide some food for thought – or stimulus for joy – rather than doing a lot of the research on my own. Last week was so filled with work that I have to resort to this. Sort of feeling like this…..

The plan is to introduce a fun series found in The Guardian that explores aspects of the musical history of different European cities. Before we get there, though, I was struck by how much is written about cities using music as a marketing ploy to attract tourism and/or industries.

There are books written on how you can become a successful music city.

There are many scholarly conferences looking into the economics of music.

There is such a thing as urban music policies: cities and states devote large sums of money to attract festivals and use public funds to build huge concert halls, often at the expense of local musicians who can no longer find affordable spaces or are drowned out by the traveling blockbusters. Cities want to create destinations that attract large crowds from afar and stimulate the local hospitality industry; or they want to project an image of being cultural savvy so that, when businesses try to determine where to re-locate, they are in the running.

Moreover, with gentrification and ever scarcer space, rents become astronomically high even for every day urban life outside of the festival circuit, so that small venues are no longer able to operate. One of the consequences is that people no longer make music together, in informal spaces and ways where stuff could be tried out, or joy consisted simply of jamming, with no eye on perfection, much less marketability.

Often, musicians take quite literally to the streets, the only affordable space, where they work in isolation and, more often than not, under duress, because people complain of the noise, or the loitering, or whatever other excuses you can find to rid the block of anything that might interrupt shopping or the neighborhood status quo. Cities that already depend economically on tourism might have a laxer attitude towards street musicians and buskers because they add color to the urban landscape. Everywhere else, not so much.

Small clubs have gone the way of small independent book stores. We are all the poorer for it.

If you are interested in a different perspective on cities and music, here is the link to a scholarly book that talks about the rhythm of cities, including interactive soundscapes. Adhitya, S. 2017 Musical Cities. London, UCL Press. https://doi.org/ 10.14324/111.9781911576518

I downloaded it here – be warned, it’s long. But fascinating!

Music is a compilation of musicians in subways. And violinists on the street.