Chinese Street Music: Complicating Musical Community

Horlor, Samuel

Abstract

Musical community is a notion commonly evoked in situations of intensive collective activity and fervent negotiation of identities. Passion Square shows, the daily singing of Chinese pop classics in parks and on street corners in the city of Wuhan, have an ambivalent relationship with these ideas. They inspire modest outward signs of engagement and are guided by apparently individualistic concerns; singers are primarily motivated by making a living through the relationships they build with patrons, and reflection on group belonging is of lesser concern. How do these orientations help complicate the foundations of typical musical community discourses? I address community as a quality rather than as an entity to which people belong, exploring its ebbs and flows as associations between people, other bodies and the wider street music environment intersect with its various theoretical implications. A de-idealised picture of musical community better acknowledges the complexities of everyday musical experiences.

Citation

Horlor, S. (2021). Chinese Street Music: Complicating Musical Community. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108913232

• Book Type: Authored Book
• Online Publication Date: Apr 9, 2021
• Publication Date: Apr 9, 2021
• Deposit Date: Apr 9, 2021
• Publicly Available Date: Oct 9, 2021
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Series Title: Elements in Twenty-First Century Music Practice
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108913232
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1121053
• Contract Date: Jan 12, 2021