Max Weber and the Sociology of Music

Author(s): Alan C. Turley

Source: Sociological Forum, Vol. 16, No. 4 (Dec., 2001), pp. 633-653
Published by: Springer
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Sociological Forum, Vol. 16, No. 4, December 2001 (? 2001)

Max Weber and the Sociology of Music1

Alan C. Turley2

The sociology of music has been an area largely left to European sociologists.
In an effort to generate greater domestic interest in the field, an examination
of Max Weber'smethodology and an update to his study of music is proposed. Fewer occupations or cultural projects are more social than making
music, and the domestic sociological community's absence from the debate
is deplorable given the dominant position our country possesses regarding
musical production. Weber'sSociology of Music, which combines urban theory, class/labor theory, rationalization theory, and even climatic changes, is
an excellent place to begin a thorough discussion of the social components
of music. Our present understanding of cultural theories, urban theories, and
Habermas's Communicative Action Theory can be employed to improve on
Weber'stheory;toward a new approach for the study of the sociology of music.
KEY WORDS: sociology of music; Max Weber; Jurgen Habermas; urban music; rationalization
theory.

INTRODUCTION
In developing his theory of the rationalization process, which led to the
rise of capitalism in the West, Max Weber analyzed the standardization and
growth of Western music in Europe as one of his illustrative examples. This
section in Economy and Society (Weber, 1921) was going to be the basis for
a book on the sociology of music that Weber planned to write. While sociological research on music has declined in significance within the discipline
of sociology, the methodological, theoretical, and historical research tools
1An earlier draft of this paper was presented at the Southwestern Social Science Association
meeting of March 1995.
2Department of Sociology, State University of New York, College at Brockport, 350 New
Campus Drive, Brockport, New York 14420.
633
0884-8971/01/1200-0633/0 ? 2001 Plenum Publishing Corporation

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Weber employed are significant to contemporary historical and comparative researchers. The flaws and contributions of this seminal piece will be
examined in this paper in an effort to rekindle the sociological debate about
music.
Weber saw the rationalization of the Western cultures as the unique element that led to capitalism's rise in the West. Part of this rationalization process was the growth of bureaucracies, as the increasing capitalistic division
of labor compartmentalized and structured traditional organizations, like
education and government, into bureaucracies (Weber, 1921). Nowhere was
this more apparent than in the historic rise of the Roman Catholic Church.
Bureaucratization in the Church had a rationalizing/bureaucratizing effect
on the music the Church produced, and was eventually responsible for the
music "conventions" (accepted musical practices and rules for music writing and musicianship) associated with European classical music. Example
of this would be notational systems, structured harmony, organized choirs,
ensembles, orchestras, and the standardized construction of instruments.
A combination of processes led to the standardization of music notation,
standardized music instrument construction, and standardized performance
that produced the unique European music style we recognize. Weber's theory rested on a unique vision of the West, and the assumption that deeprooted structures, unknown to the human actors, were shaping historical
events (Eisenstadt, 1992). Weber applied a methodology of researching music notation in the Roman Catholic Church (the only institution to hold any
substantive, ancient records of music) to uncover the evidence of rationalization. The data he found proved his theory that it was indeed the church
monks who standardized notation to teach and pass on liturgical music. Similarly, musical instruments began to be constructed in a standardized form
to fit the requirements of the church music and various court orchestras,
which wished to employ this music notation.3 It must be added, however,
that Weber's method was designed to find this evidence at the possible exclusion of other evidence. The exclusive use of religious documentation as his
only data source would fit his theory of standardization and rationalization
in a bureaucratic organization, which then would produce rational music
forms. He then applied a Eurocentric, cross-cultural comparison, and was
unable to find music notation in other cultures. Weber thus concluded that
the rationalization process had produced these rational elements in music.
There is a strong fit between Weber's theory-method-data, but this is
because the researcher designed it this way. Weber's role as researcher is
3A standardized instrument construction process would lead to instruments with the same
pitch, sound, and similar timbre. This would be necessary for standardized notation to be
effective. Folk instruments constructed locally would not have this standardization, making
them difficult to write for, particularly in an ensemble.

Max Weber and the Sociology of Music

635

imprinted indelibly on the theory. This does not negate his findings; but it
does, however, require a careful reading by the researcher who wishes to
evaluate Weber's theory. In this paper, a review of contemporary literature
concerning Weber's theories and his sociology of music will be followed by
a more detailed examination of Weber's theory of music development. This
examination will include his methodological practice, the historical data he
employed, his role as researcher, and his research assumptions. A varied
critique structure will begin with Weber's Eurocentric viewpoint, proceeding to competing explanations for a standardized music form in Europe by
using first Habermas's Communicative Action Theory (Habermas, 1988) to
demonstrate the rising influence of commerce and currency on music and the
musician. The second will be an urban culture approach by J. Blau (1989),
and the third an analysis of the musical community to bring the social study
of music back to the unit of production-the musician. A final, countersystem critique of Weber's thesis will be used to examine music production and
standardization in India. The final section will include an analysis of Weber's
many contributions to the sociology of music. Of special note is the inclusion
of social, economic, environmental, and spatial variables in his theory, as well
as Weber's identification of the structural and hierarchical institutions that
effect the social production of music.
WEBER'S IMPACT ON MODERN MUSICAL ANALYSIS
Max Weber was analyzing music in two ways. On one level, music was
an artifact of the historical rationalization process that brought on the development of capitalism in the West. On another level, music was a deeply
meaningful part of a society's culture that touched Weber personally. The
importance of including the period and life of Max Weber, in any evaluation
of his theory is emphasized in David Chalcraft's article "Weber, Wagner and
Thoughts of Death" (Chalcraft, 1993). While much of this article attempts to
uncover Weber's personal feelings about eroticism, death, the impact of music, and the German composer Richard Wagner (all in a Freudian manner),
the inclusion of Weber's inner motivations are extremely illuminating to the
reader of his works on cultural sociology. It is obvious that Weber's passion
for music led him to write about the sociology of music, and music's importance to his personal life led him to incorporate music into his grand theory
of rationalization. In a later edition of the Protestant Ethic and the Spirit
of Capitalism, Weber (1904) included references to Wagner's operas in an
effort to illustrate certain passages of the text. The combination and allusion
to artistic and musical works was not uncommon for Weber's day, though it
may seem odd for us now; to many it was a sign of a well-rounded, educated
scholar.

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Weber's writings on cultural nationalism (Beetham, 1985; Gerth and

Mills, 1948) tie in nicely to Theodor Adorno's views concerning the impact
of society on culture and the impact of culture on society. While music's
effect on culture may be overstated by Adorno's earlier work on National
Socialism in Germany (Adorno, 1945a,b), both Weber and Adorno have in
their analysis the reciprocal model of society influencing music and music
influencing society. Adorno states his thesis even more clearly in Introduction to the Sociology of Music (Adorno, 1962), "a musical sociology should
take its bearings from the social structures that leave their imprint on music and musical life." Adorno's commentary seems to be directed at those
readers of Weber's work on cultural nationalism that might view a certain
amount of nationalism within cultural forms as benign or positive. This style
of musical analysis, examining society's imprint on music, is clearly different
than those studies done to access music's impact on the individual or group
(Schweder, 1991). An even more dramatic separation between "High" and
"Low" art has occurred in the Western world than Adorno could have predicted. Society's imprint on this separation becomes obvious as "dangerous"
music like rap and heavy metal become targets for the state and upper classes.
What Adorno would not have predicted was the diffusion of popular culture
and world cultures into what is considered "high" art forms. For instance,
African tribal masks displayed in art galleries and jazz compositions (the
music Adorno found to be most base) performed by orchestras. A type of
analysis that can illuminate the intersection of class, culture, and structure is
needed.
Identifying cultural and structural influences on the production of music through an examination of macrosocietal forces led Simon Frith (1989)
to focus on the educational system in England. While not attempting to explain rationalization or Fascism, Frith was trying to discover why England
had produced so many pop musicians in the 1960s and 1970s. His conclusion
is that the educational system of art schools, which existed as an alternative
to university or vocational programs, provided an insulated community of
artistic young adults. These young artists experimented with music, fashion, and identity. This system of art schools gave rise to the Beatles, David
Bowie, The Sex Pistols, and Pink Floyd to name a few (Frith, 1989). Key to
Frith's method was an exploration of the culture and institutions of the music
and musicians he studied, which is very reminiscent of Weber's methodology. Several other English sociologists have looked into the large processes
effecting music production, Wicke (1990) and Straw (1991) examined the
modern music industry as a global set of transnational interests held by a
small number of companies, while Shepherd (1993) has examined the value
and power of music within a culture. Other English researchers who were
influenced by the Centre for Contemporary Culture Study at the University

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637

of Birmingham chose to look more closely at the musician, who actually

makes the music. Finnegan (1989) chose an in-depth ethnography to study all
styles of live music performance in Milton Keynes, England, while Robinson
et al. (1991) chose to do an international survey of musicians. The incorporation of the musician as principle actor and producer is an important
methodological consideration and will be addressed later in this work.
Peter Martin (1995) of the University of Manchester addressed the sociology of music in the most complete manner of current researchers by
discussing Max Weber and Theodor Adorno at length in the construction
of his theory. While exploring meaning, structure, and social action in the
social world of music making, Martin points to the rational harmonic system
as a "unique element to Western art-music" and credits Weber as the discoverer of this Western musical development (Martin, 1995:58). It is clear
from the numerous pages that Martin devotes to Weber and his methodology that Weber's sociology of music is crucial to understanding Western
music. Martin also feels that Adorno's work was in a constant dialogue with
Weber's writings, and that Adorno's work was influenced by Weber's work.
After spending a chapter on Adorno's examination of music's representation of a culture and that cultural objects, like music, need to be examined as
social products, one cannot escape the conclusion that Adorno's work is the
continuation of Weber's work on rationalization in the late capitalist period
(Jameson, 1990:229; Martin, 1995:112). Martin's theoretical perspective on
music begins with the Weberian concept of rationalization in harmonic structure, and continued through an examination of modern economic climate of
music making.
Max Weber's influence on these authors and the cultural/historical
paradigm is obvious in their topic selection, methodology, and theory. The
sociology of music has not been a large part of the broader paradigm of cultural sociology, but as the paradigm grows, so will this branch of sociology.
Much of the scholarly discussion within the sociology of music was started
70 years ago by Max Weber.
MAX WEBER'S SOCIOLOGY OF MUSIC
Marianne Weber reported that her husband intended to write a sociology encompassing all of the arts (Kasler, 1988:168). He only got as far as the
preliminary work to The Rational and Social Foundations of Music, which
was printed as an appendix to Economy and Society (published in 1921, after Weber's death). Rationalization is the universal historical process that is
central to Weber's work. He was intrigued at the possibility of detecting this
process at work in the "irrational" arena of culture. This was the template
he used to investigate the rise of Western music.

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The theory states that the move from ancient to modern music gradually eliminated the mystical and "irrational" qualities of art and replaced
them with rational qualities. Weber approached music in a historical fashion, examining music from the primitive period to his contemporary period,
focusing particularly on the unique development of chordal harmony in the
West. The simple principle of a distance between tones in the music that
a musician might make or a singer might sing was replaced by the organized, standardized, "rational" principle of chordal harmony. To support
his argument of rationalization's effect on music, Weber linked many seemingly disparate social developments: Western Roman Catholic monasticism;
feudal structures in the Middle Ages; choral singing; music notation; the
construction of modern-style music instruments by guilds; and the influence
of spoken language on the construction of melody (Kasler, 1988:169). Two
key moments in music's rationalization, according to Weber, were the development of modern instruments and modern music notation. Weber traces
advancements in music instruments to the formation of professional guilds
of first artisans, and then performers. A symbiotic relationship developed
between artisans, who standardized and improved the construction of the
instruments, and the instrumentalists, who provided a fixed market for instruments. Written notation and standardization of musical instruments are
rational outcomes and developments in an organized society. Musicians and
composers inspired advancements among separate feudal courts as early
as the thirteenth century for better and more complex music, which fueled
demand for instruments. Instruments that were manufactured by the guilds
became increasingly popular in these courts, and this led to an increasing demand for skilled musicians. Orchestras and the rise of stringed instruments
followed during the Middle Ages. This combined Weber's economic and historical methodologies, and the historical progress of instrument construction
became increasingly rationalized, because of its commercial viability.
Weber linked economic, cultural, social, technical, and climatic factors
together in his analysis of a key instrument's "rational" history-the piano
(Kasler, 1988). This analysis is a working model of Weber's diverse methodology. Invented in Southern Europe, the piano did not diffuse as quickly there
as it did in Northern Europe because of the climate. The Northern European population was climatically housebound and housecentered. The piano
quickly became part of the middle-class culture, and no cultivated home was
without one (as entertainment and a status level piece of furniture) (Weber,
1921/1968:118). As rational capitalism fueled the consumption and production of music, music publishers and mass-produced machine-made pianos
rushed to fill the demand made by the hammer piano (Kasler, 1988). All of
the Western countries, and their colonies, sought this cultural figure piece
throughout the nineteenth and into the early twentieth century. Iron frames

Max Weber and the Sociology of Music

639

were pioneered in America's first industrial piano manufacturer Steinway

because of the climatic requirements of tropical clients. Apparently, wood
frames would warp in the humid environment of the tropics, so technical innovations were required to compensate for this and became part of today's
standard manufactured piano design.
Weber identifies the historical and economic advances of the piano as
symptomatic of the rationalization process at work in capitalist societies,
because this was the goal of his design. The influence of climate might have
escaped a researcher who was narrowly focused on only one or two dimensions to measure, and might have been overlooked as significant. This is
Weber's methodological gift to the sociology of music; identify a process
with many dimensions and try to incorporate these dimensions into the explanation. Staying open to competition and far afield explanations is difficult
for any researcher. Weber fell short of this goal himself. In Weber's case his
goal was to examine music as an example of irrational culture production
being organized and made rational by the rationalization process. As a society becomes increasingly organized in a rational manner, rather than a
society organized by strict kin or clan groupings, rationalized production of
goods will become so prevalent that culture itself will be produced according to rational rules. Weber's method could have been expanded to actually
study music, instead of using music as just an example of the rationalization
process.
In tangential relation to the development and standardization of music, instrumentation was the key creation of music notation. Weber identifies and focuses on the Catholic monasteries in Europe as the crucible for
this creation. Monastic choirs were the first organized entities to experiment with primitive chordal harmony in the music referred to as Gregorian
Chant. Pitch, meter, and note length were ascribed a written symbol that
was then composed for the different vocal ranges of the choir. The written
notes were forged into the beginnings of harmonic and music theory. Subdued and monotonistic, this harmony only rarely reached three different
notes between voices, but it required a notational system for teaching and
transmission between monasteries and dioceses. The monks created early
music notation at approximately the same time as musician and manufacturing guilds began to organize. Slowly, by modern standards, music notation
diffused into feudal courts by popular composers who transmitted ideas via
notation. Musical notation in the Church was certainly a rational process of
standardizing music performance and practice. This formalized method of
transmission eventually led to the ease of commodifying music in the form
of music publication.
Culture and art were the last of society's components to be thought
of as affected by the rationalization process in Western capitalism. Weber

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hypothesized that the symptoms of this process would be even more evident
in the "irrational"and mystical arena of music production. It is obvious that
Weber had strong feelings about music and culture, and their importance to
society and its individuals. He brought his central theme of rationalism to
bear on music, to uncover its effects through his historical, socioeconomic
methodology. His methodological assumptions seem to be an important step
in evaluating his work.
The most prominent assumption in Weber's work on the sociology of
music is that the rationalization process exists. Weber centered a great deal
of his research on looking for evidence of rationalization in a number of
historical and cross-cultural sources. While producing a fascinating and innovative theory, there seems to be a single mindedness in his methodological
approach to finding this process. This narrow approach calls into question
whether there may be other explanations of the events he described. Critiques and countersystem proposals to Weber's theory will be discussed later
in the paper; however, a consequence of this unicausal focus was the absence of the role of musicians in notational or musical development in his
theory. Weber's theory does not address the role of musicians or the different classes of musicians (church choir directors, court players, orchestra
composers, traveling minstrels, local-folk musicians) in the diverse musical
environment of Europe. The role of musicians in developing techniques of
innovation in musical composition and instrumentation is unmentioned in
Weber's sociology of music, yet it had to be musicians and their knowledge
of music that spawned these developments. Different classes of musicians
from minstrels to orchestra conductors may have made the appropriation of
innovations from the lower classes of musicians invisible to Weber's theory.
An explanation of notational development that may challenge some of the
rationalization theory is the personal initiative of the musicians to appropriate a useful technology for improving their art. Traveling musicians could
have easily been the agents of transmission for music notation in Europe.
Unfortunately, they possessed no lasting written records to uncover, unlike
Catholic monks. It is also contrary to Weber's theoretical predictions that
musicians and music would have become more bureaucratized because of
the effect of rationalization. In fact, music has become less bureaucratized
from Weber's time period to the present, rather than more. Only classical
music and opera possess the highly formalized, standardized, and bureaucratized structures Weber's theory describes and predicts (Blau, 1989).
The second methodological assumption that runs through much of
Weber's work, and especially Economy and Society (Weber, 1921), is his socioeconomic approach. His study of the mutual and developmental relations
between society, law, religion, culture, economy, class, music, and domination was based ultimately on the analysis of socioeconomic variables within

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an overall economic structure. Examples of this in his work on music are

his focus on the economic relations between the guilds of music instrument
manufacturers and the demand for instruments, which was enhanced by
music notation. Cultural/psychological factors in music such as the rise of
pianistic culture in Northern Europe and the eventual displacement of the
organist as principal orchestra leader by the ascension of the violinist are
also analyzed within the confines of an economic paradigm. The aristocratic
court's demand for the music being composed by this technology of notation
led to a demand for competent stringed instrumentalists, particularly violinists (the instrument that carried the melody). The economic demand of the
courts rewarded musicians for composing music in this style, and punished
musicians and composers that did not conform to this mode of composition
by ignoring their music. These models are all based on economic factors for
the production of cultural goods.
In fact, while Weber's investigation of the rationalization process
(a macrosocial psychological phenomenon) examines a variety of variables,
including music, his "evidence" of this process is still a set of primarily economic variables. The reliance on this type of reasoning places cultural phenomena into economic categories that it often does not belong. Economics
may not be the best paradigm for many cultural and social phenomena.
For instance, musicians perform and compose music primarily for personal
expression and to signify the complex values that they have internalized
(Blau, 1989; Shank, 1991). Musicians are certainly influenced by their social,
spatial, economic, and cultural environment, but these are not the primary
issues for a musician's production of music (even historical data shows that
musicians have been exploited and ostracized for their art, regardless of
period; so, economic gain cannot be seen as a primary drive for musical expression) (Finnegan, 1989;Frith, 1989; Salmen, 1983). Yet, if one were to rely
on Weber's theory alone, economic rationale would have to be at the basis
for musical production and consumption. His theory and the rationalization process should not be discarded with the "bathwater;"however, a more
in-depth, "hands-on" approach to music, musicians, and music production
would have tempered these oversights. By incorporating more of Weber's
broad methodological net, rather than less of it, his theory might have been
able to uncover more connections between music and society by including
the main actor-the musician.
The archival data Weber analyzes for his theory of music are Roman
Catholic Church documents, musical scores, and local archival documents
concerning guilds in the Middle Ages of Europe. It appears as if he accepts
these documents without questioning their validity or how they survived
to his day. The Church documents concerning the use of musical scoring
in the development of Gregorian Chant are an excellent example of an

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instance when a prudent use of scholarly suspicion would be warranted. On

first inspection, these are the notated scores of protomusic theory and the
standardization of choral voicing (i.e. bass, tenor, alto, and soprano voices).
But were these scores original inventions or a monastic adaptation of scoring
practices already in use by contemporary musicians? Why did these monastic
scores survive when other documents in the same region and period did not?
The answers to these questions may lay partly in the power relationships of
this period and the development of bureaucracies.
First, the Church was a major part of the power schema in Europe; so,
their documents would be stored, preserved, and valued by the aristocratic
structures they built. Institutions less powerful or in direct opposition to
the Church would not have the infrastructure for their documents to survive. Often hounded by the church, and certainly held in deep suspicion,
artists, musicians, and actors who were not employed/controlled directly by
the Church were viewed to be in opposition to the Church. Second, the bureaucracies that the Church incubated during this time standardized music
literacy among its membership; this promoted and encouraged writing by
the monks that would of course lead to large archives, including musical
scores. Applying a similar suspicion to musical scores, one would find that
only those scores that were used in pedagogy for students outside the Church
or stored by the Church would survive. So, innovative, challenging, or less
popular musical works written by individuals outside the Church might not
have been retained by archivists. Archival processes are inherently elitist.
The data about musical guilds must also be evaluated critically.Guild records
would only survive and be worthy of recording if they were somehow tied to
the power structure. The guilds were connected to the courts and cardinals
of Europe, because their musicians played for the courts. The problem is
that only those musicians and activities that were in agreement with or noncritical of the courts would be worthy of record and survival. Musicians who
broke convention and innovated beyond these boundaries had no structure
to archive their accomplishments.
Weber, rather than allowing a more objective collection and analysis of
data guide his theory construction, allows his role as the main researcher and
theoretician to influence the text of his theory strongly. Max Weber's passions and points of view are an elemental part of evaluating a work that is as
subjective as the sociology of music. The subjective nature of Weber's sociology of music rests in his use of data elements that only he can validate and
that are clearly shaped by Weber's personal, subjective selection process.
His primary cultural passion was opera, and specifically Wagner's operas
(Chalcroft, 1993). This would at first seem harmless enough; however, there
may be buried influences in Weber's writings from this operatic choice. The
production of classical music by an orchestra, particularlywhen coupled with

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the staging of an opera, is a highly hierarchized, specialized, and bureaucratized task. Weber's belief that orchestral music was the epitome of musical
evolution caused him to fixate on this mode of music production and chronicle its rational processes. Obviously, his own taste and the Western music
he was exposed to shaped Weber's focus on classical music. This does not
stain Weber's analysis of the rise of classical music's bureaucratic form. In
fact, the conductor-led orchestra is the most bureaucratized form of musical
performance; each instrument is hierarchized from first chair (or principle)
to last, and all instruments are organized into sections for musical arrangements. The trouble is that other types of music on the rise during Weber's
time were not bureaucratically driven (popular syncopated orchestras were
downsizing, as well as chamber ensembles, vaudeville acts, and ragtime),
but they were not analyzed by Weber. Current research suggests that aside
from major orchestras, ballets, and operas, music production is becoming
less bureaucratized; and as cultural institutions (art galleries, music clubs,
popular theatres, etc.) grow larger they actually become less bureaucratic
(Blau, 1989:179).
Weber's passion for Wagner's operas, and other German composers'
works, is an indication of where his cultural nationalism may have originated. It may seem strange that Weber advocated nationalism, but it is
definitely an odd nationalism he envisioned. Weber felt that Germany in the
1890s should preserve its cultural identity, increase its share of the world's
economic resources (like England and France had done), and engage in imperialism as part of this plan to leave Germany's mark on history for its
future generations (Beetham, 1985:135). Weber emphasizes the responsibility of a "power state" to maintain world culture and to the preservation
of cultural autonomy for smaller nations that may be under imperial rule
(Beetham, 1985:136-138). Obviously, he felt a certain allegiance to German
culture and felt that German culture was superior to other cultures, a belief
that probably stemmed from his identification and passion for Germany's
classical composers. Yet, it is odd for a nationalist to extend a universal reverence for culture to smaller nations and to recommend that their culture
be preserved. So, it would seem that Weber's interest in German operas and
culture was relatively benign and of little consequence to his writing.
Theodor Adorno would take a more critical view of Weber's nationalistic tendencies and directly identify his affection for Wagnerian opera as its
cause. In "The Climate for Fascism in Germany,"Adorno (1945b) implicates
the authoritarian images and anti-Semitic themes of Wagner's operas as a
direct cause of the decultivation of Germany's middle and lower classes. This
decultivation laid the ground work for the rise of fascism, a groundwork of
noncritical, knee-jerk patriots willing to lay blame on a convenient scapegoat.
Adorno would say that the themes and images in Wagner's operas influenced

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Germans, German culture, German politics, and thus Weber. Nationalism,

and its consequent authoritarianism, was repellent to Adorno in any form,
regardless of well-intentioned "cultural"motives.
CRITIQUE AND COMPETING THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES
The initial critique of Weber's sociology of music is his goal of explaining
the ascendancy of capitalism in the West through his Eurocentric viewpoint;
Eurocentric due to his singular focus on European events and history. Beyond the assumptions in his methods is a goal that places Weber's findings
into serious teleological contention. By focusing on bureaucratic and musical
developments in Europe (harmony and notation) to explain rationalization,
there is a predetermined air about the theory. Weber misses the bureaucratic production of music in Egypt, India, China, and Japan's royal courts
because of his European focus (Salmen, 1983:7). These musics do not have
the sound or similar notational devices of European music so they have been
overlooked by many scholars (Nettl, 1985:67). This is a mistake; these musics
perform important functions in their societies (i.e. connections to the power
structures within the society), much as Western classical music did during
its evolution. Extremely formalized and standardized, these musics were supervised by a special bureaucracy that was responsible for important court
ceremonies; these ceremonies were part of the transfer of power and legitimization process. Even in Japan today, aspiring middle-class families pay
for Japanese music instruction for their daughters because this music is tied
to the Shinto religion, culture, and caste system. The Japanese families feel
that having a daughter versed in this ancient musical tradition brings more
prestige, honor, and respect to their family. It is the Eurocentrism of Weber's
analysis that is responsible for these oversights. His concentration on written
notation blinds him to the bureaucratic and formalized institutions of music
instruction in India, China, and Japan. The goal of explaining rationalization/capitalization excludes these countries from Weber's analysis because
they did not develop according to the Western capitalist model.
Jurgen Habermas's Theory of Communicative Action (Habermas, 1988)
can be used as a competing theoretical explanation of the standardization
of music in Europe. Habermas constructs a theory and critique of late capitalism and functionalist thought where the colonization of the life world
by media-steered subsystems actually fragments and pacifies class conflict.
An example of media-steered subsystems is the rise of symbolic exchange
(e.g. money). This symbol actually attains a quintessence that dehumanizes
the activity of those involved in the exchange to the point that their actions
are just a service of the currency. In music, the usefulness of a symbol such

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as music notation would actually reach supremacy, beyond simple capitalistic rationality. The symbol becomes more important than the human actors
who produce it, a musician is only as good as the music he/she writes. Notational prevalence in Western music in the 1600s was not immediately used
for capitalist gain, but may have been a developing symptom of servicing
the steering media/symbolism (i.e. music notation). Habermas (1988) devotes many pages of his theory to discuss how human actors would become
"servicers" of a steering media (in Habermas' example it was money that
was the steering media). In this discussion of music it would be first the notational structure and then the publishing system that notation led to that
is the steering media that musicians service. It was a relatively short time in
the development of notation before a musician's worth was gauged primarily on how well he or she read or wrote musical notation. For a musician,
the most desirable job would be appointment to an aristocratic court or
Catholic bishop's court orchestra, and the competition was often based on
being able to compose written music for the court orchestra (a type of media
subsystem, in which the orchestral competition for the job was held by the
court) or at the least being able to read the written part for your instrument.
Music theory and pedagogy arose out of this notational system and these
institutional devices actually promoted Western music more than capitalistic endeavors. The symbol notation, not bureaucracies and rationalization,
directed and fueled the growth of Western music, which directed and focused music production in Europe. Eventually, the media-steered subsystem
(music notation) in the contemporary period become more important than
the musician who composed the music; music publishing and its exchange
into the other media-steered subsystem of monetary currency becomes infinitely more important to the capitalist system than the musician who wrote
it. A salient example would be the songs written by the great rock and roll
composer Chuck Berry (like "Maybelline," "Johnny B. Goode," "Roll Over
Beethoven," and "Sweet Little Sixteen," which were all Top Ten Hits) for
which he was paid only a few hundred dollars, despite the millions of dollars they have generated and continue to generate in music publishing. The
artist/musician was disposable once the record company and music publisher owned the notation, which was traded for currency and exchanged
like currency.
The growth of Western music production may not be connected with
the rational factors of notation, monasticism, and guilds at all. The second
critique and competing explanation is an urban culture production critique.
Judith Blau (1989) performed a contemporary study of the impact of urbanization on culture production in the 125 largest Standard Metropolitan Statistical Areas (SMSA) in the United States. She found that once
a critical mass was attained in an area, the urbanization affected culture

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production positively (cultural production grew in relation to the city's

growth). While bearing in mind the problems of ecological comparison, especially between different countries and time periods (the United States and
Medieval Europe), this finding seems to make logical sense. As a community
grows its appetite for culture increases, which would result in the demand for
more competent culture producers. During the period of Weber's analysis,
cities in Europe grew astronomically, especially along trade routes. Community, currency, and culture could have been a phenomenon of urbanization,
rather than rationalization. Weber's analysis of rational symptoms, such as
notation and instrument construction, may only be an aspect of increased
urban culture consumption or at least they may be affecting culture in concert. Weber's multidimensional approach could easily be expanded to include this dimension and it might still support his rationalization thesis, since
urban growth and urban institutions bear the fingerprints of the rationalization process.
Expanding on the idea of urban culture production, the different communities within a city have been where music has been created. A city is socially divided into racial, ethnic, and class communities from which musicians
come; musicians then create their own community of music performance,
composition, and identity. In Weber's period of analysis, class background
was particularly important to access the courts of Europe. Strong divisions
of class and national affiliation often kept musicians apart or together during
this period; trade routes that were responsible for the growth of European
cities, began to introduce new musicians and musical elements to court music. As these new musicians broke into the elite musical communities of the
royal courts, music production was influenced and infused with new ideas.
Vienna is an outstanding example of a musical community growing within
the aristocratic court system and benefiting from new musical ideas. Bach,
followed by the "Viennese Classics" group of composers Beethoven, Haydn,
and Mozart, are some of the most notable examples of this musical community (Apel and Daniel, 1960). The unique urban structure of Vienna with
court musicians and court intrigue nurtured a community of musicians, who
benefited from this creative association of peers.
Today's music is also influenced by musical communities that are centered in modern, urban areas. Going back just 15 years, a unique rock and
roll sound came from the Athens, Georgia, and its music community. Bands
like the B-52's and R.E.M. climbed the charts and influenced popular music
composition, while maintaining their links to Athens music scene by continuing to live and perform in the city. All of this activity from a small college
town can be linked to the community of musicians and venues in Athens,
and without these bands and their subsequent commercial success this music
community would not have grown. This was followed by funk bands from

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647

Minneapolis, Minnesota, roots/blues rock from Austin, Texas, glamour rock

groups from Los Angeles, California, and recently from Seattle, Washington
"grunge" rock. The key is the community of musicians, venues, and music
businesses; a profile of either economic, ecological, or cultural variables have
been traditionally used to study social phenomena in a city, but such single
profiles are inadequate to capture the community nature of music production. A city is the spatial location of these musical communities, but the
specific elements of a musical community are smaller than the traditional
urban/city level of analysis. A combination of variables and methods would
be necessary to adequately study music at this level, variables that explore
the musical communities of musicians within the city. What might be found
is a city with multiple communities of musicians existing in social worlds
of ethnicity, class, space, and musical genre (Becker, 1971; Gilmore, 1990;
Turley, 1999). When musical communities come together across these lines,
a complex musical world or "music scene" can develop, in which new styles
of music are made and new music businesses and innovations are created.
Weber's macrohistorical approach illustrates why music has left the sacred
roles and spaces within a community to migrate "rationally" to venues of
commodification and rational exchange, i.e. clubs, bars, and radio. The mechanism, which can control and meld production across the nation's urban
centers, is a hybrid of currency's media-steered subsystem with the mythical
power of the national label record contract. From the chaotic and multicultural world of urban music scenes, music production moves into the highly
structured and rational world of national label record companies. Today four
companies (Time Warner, BMG, EMI, and Polygram) hold the monopoly
on 70% of the music produced in the world (Wicke, 1990). The medium
that they control is the national label record contract, which means money,
fame, exposure, distribution, tours, etc. With this medium, they direct music
into a form that services the radio, television, advertising, and publishing
businesses for even larger profits. All kinds of music are produced locally,
only those willing to accept the control and direction of the national label
masters are allowed on the radio and on the shelf. While there are some
exceptions to this model (rap that is too offensive for the radio still sells
numerous CDs), the exceptions still have other media outlets (movies and
videos for rap) and distribution is still controlled by a national label record
contract.
As a critique of Weber's theory, the smaller musical communities in
Europe are overlooked, and Weber concentrates too myopically on the elite
structures of medieval music. When I first began to learn the saxophone, my
fellow students and I would teach ourselves new music by representing musical tones with a rough scale diagram of a saxophone's finger positions. One
might assume that early musicians would come up with a similar system that

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may have been standardized into a symbol notation that monastic musicians
altered and appropriated for their purposes. It is equally plausible that local
communities of musicians in the Middle Ages were using a primitive notation
system that the monks adopted and wrote down, not the reverse. We know
that primitive music scale models were based on the hand (the Guidonian
hand) as early as A.D. 900-1000 (Apel and Daniel, 1960:124). The troubling
aspect of metatheories like Weber's, Habermas', or even the macrofocus of
Blau, is that the musician and the musician's environment are not present in
any of the analysis. How society, economics, technology, urbanization, race
relations, spatial organization, or community structure affects the musicians
and their production of art would seem central to a sociology of music. Yet,
rationalization is so removed from the mundane performance or composition of music that it can only describe elements that "may" lead to the
production of music. There needs to be a sociology that addresses the production of music by musicians in a theory of the middle range. The musician
is the real "producer" of music. Our social theory needs to be able to be
linked down to the human actor.
Indian music production provides a perfect counter-system analysis
(Sjoberg and Cain, 1971) to Western music production/notation, because
this music predates European music by almost 2000 years. Highly standardized and formalized, it possesses many parallel elements to Western music
like rhythm, melody, scales, and structured sections. Indian music also has
its own unique elements. Indian music is based on the Rag and Tal; Rag is
the melody line and Tal is the rhythmic form. There is no harmony in the
Western sense, but there is an important interplay of instruments. The three
basic instruments are the Tambura (whose function is the drone), the Tabla
(a pair of drums, which actually perform an expressive function more often than a strict rhythmic one), and the Sitar (a truly unique instrument of
three to four main strings with three to four drone strings, plus a dozen sympathetic strings that vibrate when the other strings are struck; its function
is melody, rhythm, and drone combined). In Western music, a song may be
based upon 1 of the 12 chromatic scale tones (whole to half-tone distance) of
which there are the major, minor, and diminished families. Indian ragas are
based upon more tones than the Western 12-note scale (e.g. a quarter-tone
scale distance and the family of scales numbers up to 20, depending upon
the region of India) (Nettl, 1985:37). The rhythmic meter of Indian music
is also very different. Western music is either 4/4 (simple straight beats),
3/4 (waltz tempo) or odd meter (e.g. 7/8, 9/8, or 5/4 best exemplified by Dave
Brubeck's jazz classic "Take Five"). Indian music is based on cycles of 7, 8,
10, 12, 14, or 16 beats, which are further subdivided to achieve an extremely
complex musical form (Courtney, Chandrakantha, Indian Classical Music.
Unpublished circulated paper).

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649

The Indian music form is as highly structured as any Western idiom.

The instruments and ensemble function both as the means of transmission
of knowledge and the means of performance. The apprentice musician must
learn his or her craft on the neck of the Sitar or the drum of the Tabla directly
from the master. One could say that the music isn't reducible to notation
systems and that the standardized ragas are regional constructs. Thus, they
are unable to be translated effectively without a qualified instructor. In fact,
an extremely formal set of transmission institutions has developed around
master musicians who teach these important "ragas," so they would not
be lost. Indian tone symbols, similar to the Western do-re-me vocal scale
(actually sa-ri-ga-ma-pa-dha-ni-sa for Indian music), and the name of the
raga give the musicians an indication of pitch, intonation, and ornamentation
(Nettl, 1985:66). The masters and the tone symbols of Indian music are the
system of notation. This is not much different than the rise of Western music
because instructors had to lead/train musicians before there was notation
and then train them how to use notation. This training was very important,
otherwise, the novice musician would be unable to effectively translate the
symbols on the page into music. The instructor acted as interpreter and
medium between musician-notation-performance; Indian music eliminates
the importance of the middle step. When one considers the hundreds of
years that Indian music has functioned without the "irrational"necessity of
written notation, one has to doubt whether Western music is truly the most
"advanced" music or simply the most commodified musical art.
Using India's traditional music as a counter-system to Western classical
music, we can see that it is a highly advanced art form. While formalized and
highly structured, it has not produced the rationalized and bureaucratized
outcomes Weber prescribed for Western classical music. The importance of
the master, and thus his trained students, has kept the musician an important
component to Indian music. Weber's method coupled with an urban/regional
component would illuminate much concerning India's music production,
despite Weber's initial oversight concerning India's music.
MAX WEBER'S CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE SOCIOLOGY
OF MUSIC
Max Weber's passion and interest in music motivated him to include
this important aspect of society into his work. That inclusion alone is a major contribution to the sociology of music, because it brings a major theorist
into the debate about the social components of music production. Weber
was also crucial to social music theory because of his inclusion of economic,
social, spatial, cultural, and even climatic variables in his analysis. These

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are essential steps in a more complete understanding of music production.

Music should not be left to anthropologists and ethnomusicologists alone,
simply because their disciplines are not equipped to recognize the complex
effects of late-capitalistic, urban society. With billions in revenue from music
performance and recordings circulating around the world's markets, and billions of people engaged in bands, choirs, and music education at some point
in life, this social phenomena surely deserves the attention Weber brought
to it. As much time as sociology has devoted to diversions far less social
and far less frequent (prostitution, juvenile delinquency, etc.) than music,
one would expect more modern sociological work on music. While the discipline has benefited immensely from the few extremely gifted sociologists
who have devoted time to music, it is music's multidimensionality that must
be frustrating American Sociology from contributing to the social understanding of music. Despite the United States' virtual monopoly of popular
music idioms in the past 30 years, American sociology has been relatively
quiet on the sociological economic structure of it's own music industry, as
well as the local production of music. Weber's theory will be most useful
initially by examining the social and economic structure of the transnational
music business based in the United States and how these and other forces
have shaped today's music. It is through the use of historical trends and
texts to illustrate current social phenomena that Weber's theoretical and
methodological approach will be valuable.
Which brings us to the large structural elements of music that Weber
seemed most interested in (i.e. the Roman Catholic Church). These elements, while not fully explained by Weber's theory, are often the most difficult to detect and understand because of their size and scope. The difficulty
arises from the macrolevel processes and secrecy systems embedded in large,
powerful structures that do not want their actions detected or understood
(Sjoberg and Kuhn, 1989:317-318). Weber attempted to analyze these large
structural fixtures in the development of Western music and made the study
of music richer from his efforts. For those more interested in the sociology
of music, the fact that Weber was planning an entire book on music is probably the most significant contribution for sociologists trying to reintroduce
music analysis into the discipline. Some may ask why go back to Weber at
all. That is a fair question and it deserves a more complex answer than to
say he should be included in the literature review as the first major figure in
sociology to write about music. While there are obvious flaws in the application of his theory (European elitism concerning music development, lack
of initial examination of the church documents available for research and a
top-down approach), Weber's theory provides the researcher a way to acknowledge the rational, capitalistic, historical, and structural elements of the
modern music age. Without this check on the researcher's perspective it will

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651

be easier for modern sociologists to make the same errors that Weber made
(i.e. concentrate too much on the uniqueness of European music). Clearly,
a social phenomena of commodifying musical expression and influence has
grown to encompass most of the world's markets; any examination of modern music must account for this phenomena (ila Weber, though one need
not label it rationalization).
American sociologists, in particular, should be engaging in this debate
over music because of the United States' changing role in the world economy.
America will be less involved with direct industrial production and manufacturing and more involved with communication, information, administration,
and culture exports/services. Since popular music in the United States is one
of its most influential exports, and this is predicted to increase, it would be
advantageous for American sociologists to understand this cultural production. As general interest and commerce increases in music, inside and out
of academia, social researchers will be asked about this social phenomenon.
Presently, small groups of researchers are doing outstanding work on the
social components of music production, in particular Simon Frith's work on
popular music in England (Frith, 1989) and Ruth Finnegan's work on how
music is produced at the local/urban level (Finnegan, 1989). In relation to
the scope of music's impact on society, many more scholars' will be conducting research on music as a social study. Weber's writings on European music
history and production should serve as an outstanding beginning and guide
to a sociology of music.
CONCLUSION
Weber's two main interests, the rationalization process in Western capitalist development and his love of music, came together in his study of the
sociology of music. A fine piece of analysis, though clouded at times by his
desire to prove the rationalization effect and his Eurocentric viewpoint, it
should be used to further the social study of music. Weber's inclusion of a
wide variety of variables and his cross-cultural, historical comparisons are
a model for new work on music production. A similar model for a city-bycity case study approach could be constructed by combining Weber (1921),
Blau (1989), and a music community approach to discover large cultural
patterns in a culturally defined region; while endeavoring to include the musician as human agent. The musician comprises the actual "nuts and bolts"
of music production, and efforts should be made to understand this artist as
laborer, artisan, and creator. Attention should also be paid to a critical approach to culture/music production by checking theoretical models against a
"communicative action" metatheory approach or a Bourdieu class approach

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(Bourdieu, 1984). Weber remains an outstanding starting point for music researchers and my intention is to demonstrate that by broadening Weber's
methodology it is possible to learn from his work and his mistakes to continue
the important work of the sociology of music.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The author thanks Gideon Sjoberg and Parker Frisbie of the University
of Texas at Austin for their supportive remarks on this article as well as the
reviewers, for their helpful comments on earlier drafts.
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