Poetics 32 (2004) 223–234

Consolidating the music scenes perspective

Andy Bennett
Department of Sociology, School of Human Sciences, University of Surrey,
Guildford, Surrey GU2 7XH, UK

The concept of scene has long been used by musicians and music journalists to describe
the clusters of musicians, promoters and fans, etc., who grow up around particular genres of
music. Typically, this everyday usage of scene has referred to a particular local setting,
usually a city or district, where a particular style of music has either originated, or has been
appropriated and locally adapted. Examples here would include Chicago blues, New
Orleans jazz and Nashville Country music, as well as numerous lesser known instances of
local musical innovation and production.
Since the early 1990s, the concept of scene has also begun to acquire currency as an
academic model of analysis. Scene’s significance in this respect has resulted partly from
the criticism and rejection of prior theoretical frameworks used in research on music, and
the local, notably subcultural theory (see, for example, Clarke, 1981; Bennett, 1999), and
also due to the influential work on ‘‘art worlds’’ and cultural industries (Becker, 1982).
Peterson and Bennett (2004) observe as an academic research model that the concept of
scene can usefully be subdivided into three categories: local (Cohen, 1991; Shank, 1994),
trans-local (Kruse, 1993; Hodkinson, 2002) and virtual (Kibby, 2000; Bennett, 2002). The
purpose of this paper is to assess the different ways that scene has been conceptualised in
academic research as a means of understanding music as a ‘resource’ in contemporary
everyday life.

1. Music and the everyday

The application of the scenes perspective in academic work on music is inherently

linked with attempts over the past 25 years to map the socio-cultural significance of
music in the context of everyday life. Prior to the adoption of the scenes perspective by
academic music researchers, several other theoretical models were generally used by
researchers.

E-mail address: [email protected] (A. Bennett).

0304-422X/$ – see front matter # 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.poetic.2004.05.004
224 A. Bennett / Poetics 32 (2004) 223–234

1.1. Community

A forerunner of scene as a means of explaining the significance of music in everyday

contexts was ‘community’. Community has been applied to music in two main ways. First,
as a means of accounting for the way in which locally produced musics become a means
through which individuals are able to situate themselves within a particular city, town or
region. As Lewis (1992) notes: ‘People look to specific musics as symbolic anchors in
regions, as signs of community, belonging, and a shared past’ (1992: 144). This point is
reinforced by Dawe and Bennett (2001), who suggest that: ‘Music is a particularly potent
representational resource . . . a means by which communities are able to identify them-
selves and present this identity to others’ (2001: 4). From this point of view, a shared
connection with a locally created musical style becomes a metaphor for community, a
means through which people articulate their sense of togetherness through a particular
juxtaposition of music, identity and place.
The second application of community to musical life focuses on the significance of
community as a romantic construct, that is, as a means through which individuals who lack
the commonality of shared local experience can cast music itself as a ‘way of life’ and a
basis for community. For example, the hippie movement of the late 1960s attempted to
forge a sense of community through its commitment to political rock music as a source of
social change. As Frith (1981) observes: ‘Community became something that was created
by the music, that described the musical experience. This was the ideology that became
central to rock’ (1981: 167). A similar sensibility of community is apparent in the use of
music as a bonding device for followers of indie (independent) music. According to
Fonarow (1997), central to indie music is ‘an emotional feeling of community and
connectedness’ between musicians and their audiences (1997: 364).

1.2. Subculture

Another term widely used by music researchers prior to the introduction of the scenes
perspective was ‘subculture’. Originally introduced by the Chicago School as a means
of providing sociological explanations of crime and deviance (see, for example, Matza
and Sykes, 1961; Merton, 1957) in the early 1970s, subculture was adopted and adapted
by cultural theorists based at the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural
Studies (CCCS). The CCCS used subculture as a means of explaining the significance
of post-war British youth cultural groups, such as teddy boys, mods and punks (Hall and
Jefferson, 1976; Hebdige, 1979). While the CCCS applied subculture more directly to
youth style rather than music (see Laing, 1985), post-CCCS work has used subculture
as a means of understanding the collective appropriation and use of music itself. In a
study of heavy metal, Weinstein (2000), for example, argues that the collective
consumption of heavy metal music in the context of live concerts functions to affirm
the metal subculture, its collective values and sense of community. Thus, according to
Weinstein:

The songs performed by the band embody the values of the subculture. The ones that
the band selects are not randomly chosen from its repertoire, particularly if it has
 A. Bennett / Poetics 32 (2004) 223–234 225

released several albums. Concert favorites are those giving voice to subcultural
themes by idealizing them (2000: 218).
The concept of subculture has been widely criticised, not least of all because it implies a
relatively fixed relationship between specific aspects of post-war style and music with the
class background of those who appropriate it (see Bennett, 1999). For example, in the case
of heavy metal, there is a broad assumption on the part of theorists that its fanbase is almost
exclusively working class (see, for example, Arnett, 1995). Such an argument is closely
linked with the original work of the Birmingham CCCS who argued that subcultures
represented pockets of resistance on the part of British working class youth to the structural
circumstances of their existence (Hall and Jefferson, 1976).
This position has been variously contested. For example, Clarke (1981) argues that there
is little basis for the belief that all subcultural memberships are of the same class origin,
particularly in the case of later subcultures, such as punk, where there is clear evidence that
many punks were from middle-class backgrounds (see Frith, 1980). Similarly, it has been
pointed out that subculture, both in terms of its academic application and the groups it is
used to describe, is an ethnically ‘white’ construct (Bennett and Kahn Harris, 2004).
The relative inflexibility of subculture as an analytical tool has resulted in a series of
attempts to offer alternative models for understanding music’s everyday significance
during recent years. It is within the context of such attempts to rethink, both theoretically
and empirically, the relationship between music and everyday life that ‘scene’, as an
academic concept, must be located.

2. Origins of the scenes perspective

The cornerstone for the scenes perspective is an essay published by Straw (1991) in the
journal Cultural Studies. Although the term scene had previously been used in a loose
sense by academic researchers of music (see, for example, Laing, 1985), Straw’s essay
constituted the first attempt to present the concept of scene as a theoretically grounded
model of analysis. Straw describes ‘scenes’ as ‘actualiz[ing] a particular state of relations
between various populations and social groups, as these coalesce around specific
coalitions of musical style’ (1991: 379). Straw further argues that scenes may be both
local and trans-local phenomena, a cultural space which may orientate as much around
stylistic and/or musicalized association as face-to-face contact in a venue, club or other
urban setting.
As Straw’s description suggests, scene constitutes a far broader and more dynamic series
of social relationships than those considered in the context of subculture. According to
Straw, scene memberships are not necessarily restricted according to class, gender or
ethnicity, but may cut across all of these. Similarly, as Stahl (2004) observes, scene
encompasses a much more diverse range of sensibilities and practices than subculture, or
indeed, other popular alternative terminologies to subculture, notably post-subculture
(Muggleton, 2000), or neo-tribe (Bennett, 1999; Malbon, 1999),1 which refer largely to

1
Bennett and Malbon are drawing here on Maffesoli’s (Maffesoli, 1996) concept of tribus (tribes).
 226 A. Bennett / Poetics 32 (2004) 223–234

sensibilities of music consumption and the possibilities for the construction of identity that
emerge from this.
Scene, on the other hand, offers the possibility of examining musical life in its myriad
forms, both production- and consumption-orientated, and the various, often locally specific
ways in which these cross-cut each other. Indeed, as Peterson and Bennett (2004) note, the
current diversification of the academic research on scenes makes it useful to present the
scenes perspective as a trichotomy, comprising local, trans-local and virtual readings of
‘scene’. That academic work on scenes is developing in such a multifaceted way
constitutes both an acknowledgement of, and a systematic attempt to address, the highly
specific merging of music production and consumption practices with everyday sensi-
bilities within and across a range of local, trans-local and virtually mediated contexts.

3 categorías 3. Local scenes

del
concepto de
A pivotal study in terms of both its introduction to and exploration of the concept of a
"escena" de
Peterson local music scene is Sara Cohen’s groundbreaking Rock Culture in Liverpool. As Cohen
and Bennett points out, prior to her own work, little attention had been devoted to small-scale, local
(2004) music-making practices,2 the popular music literature at that time focusing primarily on the
music industry and the latter’s packaging of rock and pop performers for global con-
sumption. Cohen goes on to present a rich, ethnographically informed account of the
micro-social worlds of two local Liverpool groups. In doing so, she illustrates how the
merging of locally specific social sensibilities with the artistic ambitions of these groups
functioned to create a particular outlook on the part of the individual group members. A
range of collective values held by the group members, for example, the fear and distrust of
women as a potential threat to a band’s unity and the emphasis placed on music-making as a
‘real job’ are shown to be firmly rooted in the ‘local’ socio-economic environment of
Liverpool. This aspect of Cohen’s work is typified in the following observation drawn from
her ethnographic data:
. . . in a city where the attitude of many young people was that you might as well pick
up a guitar as take exams, since your chances of finding full-time occupation from
either were just the same, being in a band was an accepted way of life and could
provide a means of justifying one’s existence. ‘It’s an alternative to walking around
the town all day’, said one band member, while another asked, ‘What else is there to
do?’ (1991: 3).
Cohen’s findings are reinforced by Shank’s study of the local music scene in Austin,
Texas. In a similar fashion to Cohen, Shank effectively illustrates the continuities between
local networks of social relationships, and the building and maintenance of the local music
scene. However, Shank advances the perspective by demonstrating how, even in the context
of a specific local space, a music scene may take on a plurality of simultaneously
overlapping and contradictory dimensions. Shank illustrates this by comparing the local
significance of punk and cowboy song. According to Shank, each of these genres, despite

2
Exceptions here include Becker (1957) and Bennett (1980).
 A. Bennett / Poetics 32 (2004) 223–234 227

their very different socio-historical connections to Austin, have achieved equal standing as
authentic local musics because of the common forms of vernacular knowledge under-
pinning their performance and reception. Cowboy Song, suggests Shank, has become a
‘musicalized performance of Texan identity’, the ‘image of the authentic cowboy [as]
autonomous, strong, independent’ depicted in such music continuing to inform the
‘cultural practice’ of the Texan male (1994: 20, 31). Such issues of Texan masculinity
also feature in music by local punk rock groups. Here, however, the emphasis is placed
upon self-mockery and satirical reflection as demonstrated, for example, in the Re * Cords
song ‘Big Penis Envy’, where the local stress upon masculinity and male superiority
becomes a subject of laughter and ridicule for local punk groups and their audiences (ibid.:
112–13).
Mitchell’s (1996) Popular Music and Local Identity provides a further series of insights
into the significance of popular music production and performance in specific local spaces.
Focusing on four countries – Italy, the Czech Republic, Australia and Aotearoa/New
Zealand – Mitchell examines how locally produced rock, pop and rap music deals with a
variety of local issues such as racism, unemployment and political extremism as these are
experienced in particular localities. A significant contribution of Mitchell’s work to the
scenes perspective is its illustration of how globally established popular musical styles can
be readily plucked from their global context and reworked in ways that make them more
culturally significant to musicians and fans in particular local contexts. This transformation
includes the reinscription of musical styles with local meanings, a process achieved, for
example, through the introduction of local musical influences or lyrics sung in a local
language or accent. The localisation of musical styles in this way is further examined by
Bennett (2000) in his book Popular Music and Youth Culture. Presenting four ethnographic
case studies focusing on dance music, bhangra, rap and rock, Bennett examines how these
contemporary youth musics have been variously appropriated and locally transformed in
UK and German cities. This is exemplified in the case study focusing on hip hop culture in
Frankfurt, Germany, where, as Bennett explains, young people from Moroccan and Turkish
families living in the city have adapted African–American rap’s concern with racism and
inequality to suit a German context, adding German language lyrics to reflect the everyday
experience of such social problems at a local level. As Bennett observes:
Two thematic issues which appear regularly in German language rap songs con-
centrate respectively upon the fear and anger instilled in ethnic minority groups by
racism and the insecurity experienced by many young members of such groups over
issues of nationality. The first theme has in recent years become one of national
concern in Germany. Since the German reunification in October 1990 there has been a
steady rise in neo-Fascist attacks against Gastarbeiter and refugees in Germany (2000:
142).3
Stahl’s (Stahl, 2004) work on the local music scene in Montreal demonstrates something
of the depth and diversity of activities that comprise a scene in any given place. As Stahl
explains, in addition to the musicians and the punters, a rich and complex network of
entrepreneurs and enthusiasts – promoters, designers, producers, DJs, sound engineers,

3
For a German translation of some of this work, see Bennett (2003).
228 A. Bennett / Poetics 32 (2004) 223–234

critics and the like – play a crucial role in keeping the scene alive, even as the predominant
styles change from decade to decade.
A similar scenario is described by Spring (2004) in his study of the local dance club
scene in Toledo. As Spring illustrates, although this relatively small scene turned largely on
the entrepreneurial skills of one promoter, the ability of this individual to draw on the
resources and influence of other persons in the local community, and to gain their
confidence in the economic value of his pursuits for the community, was crucial to the
survival of the scene.
As a number of researchers have demonstrated, local music scenes can also benefit cities
and communities in other ways, notably through the creation of tourism. Cohen (1997), for
example, has examined the impact of Beatles tours and other Beatles-themed tourist
attractions on the local economy in Liverpool. Similarly, objects and memorabilia
associated with Elvis Presley provide the basis for a thriving tourist industry in Memphis
in the US, and in a parallel way, country music and jazz draw thousands of tourists to
Nashville and New Orleans, respectively, each year. Grazian’s (Grazian, 2004) work on the
Chicago blues scene illustrates a further aspect of this relationship between music and
place from the point of view of the tourist gaze (Urry, 1990). Thus, according to Grazian,
the many blues clubs and bars in Chicago help to assert and maintain the image of Chicago
as the blues capital of the world. This air of authenticity persists, even though, according to
blues purists, many such venues have been created purely to satisfy the tourists’ desire for
what they define as an ‘authentic’ blues experience.

4. Trans-local scenes

In many ways, the concept of trans-local scenes is a response to criticisms made of

studies focusing on local music scenes. Thus, a number of theorists claim that the
conceptualisation of the local as a social and culturally bounded space can no longer
be said to have currency in an age of global media. This position is argued by Thornton in
relation to the work of Cohen (1991) et al.:
Ethnographies of music scenes . . . tend to see the media as outside authentic culture.
They depict internally generated culture, disclose local creativity and give positive
valuation to the ‘culture of the people’ but only at the cost of removing the media from
their pictures of the cultural process (1995: 120).
In truth, it is highly doubtful that those who have studied local music scenes have been
ignorant of the interplay between local and global music-making processes in the way
Thornton implies. Nevertheless, such criticisms of the local have resulted in a series of
attempts on the part of music researchers ‘to re-address the relationship between the global
and the local using a range of terms designed to recast the parameters of the collective
appropriations and localised innovations which take place within a stream of globally
available media products and information’ (Bennett, 2000: 195–6).
Slobin (1993), for example, has coined the term trans-regionalism as a means of
recognizing that local appropriations and innovations of musical styles may occur
simultaneously across a range of globally diffuse sites. According to Slobin:
 A. Bennett / Poetics 32 (2004) 223–234 229

Trans-regional musics have a very high energy that spills across regional boundaries,
perhaps even becoming global. This category of music is increasing rapidly due to the
mediascape, which at any moment can push a music forward so that a large number of
audiences can make the choice of domesticating it (1993: 19).
Focusing more specifically on youth-orientated musics and attendant styles, Kruse
(1993) uses the term trans-local to describe the way in which young people appropriate
music and stylistic resources in particular local contexts while retaining a sense of their
connectedness with parallel expressions of musical taste and stylistic preference occurring
in other regions, countries and continents.
Hodkinson (2002) develops Kruse’s perspective in an empirical study of Goth, a youth
cultural movement that originated from the midland region of the UK, characterised by the
wearing of black clothing, silver jewellery in gothic design, black lipstick and nail varnish,
and dyed-black hair. As Hodkinson observes, although Goths of a city orientate strongly
around a local infrastructure of shops, clubs and other facilities, given their relatively small
and underground scene, they also have contacts with other groups of goths in the UK and
overseas. In this sense, Hodkinson illustrates how goths mutually reinforce each other
through their highly distinctive symbols of goth identity, willingness to travel to distant
goth events, compilation and collective discussion of goth records, fanzines, and through
their use of mail order speciality stores. Moreover, according to Hodkinson, this trans-local
character of the goth scene has been enhanced in recent years through the use of new
technologies, notably the Internet, which has given rise to a large number of dedicated goth
websites. Such websites allow those involved in the scene to communicate trans-locally
with other goths and to trade information on, for example, goth groups, records, gigs,
venues, and record and clothes shops.
A similar account is provided by Schilt (2004) in her study of the development of the
Riot Grrrl scene during the early 1990s. As Schilt explains, in addition to intensive tours by
Riot Grrrl groups such as Bikini Kill, crucial to the development of the scene was the
production and distribution of dedicated fanzines. These generated vibrant trans-local
discussion regarding both the significance and definition of the Riot Grrrl movement. Fans
from various local Riot Grrrl scenes across the US became involved in a variety of issues
relating to Riot Grrrl, including issues of musical authenticity and integrity, and the
political dimensions of the scene.
Another example of a trans-local scene is offered in Harris’s (2000) study of Extreme
Metal, a faster and more musically aggressive sounding version of the heavy metal music
made popular during the 1970s by groups such as Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin (see
Weinstein, 2000). As Harris notes, although Extreme Metal is characterised by a series of
distinctive local scenes, whose reliance on small venues and close contact between band
and audience during performances is similar to the punk aesthetic discussed by Laing
(1985), such local scenes are bonded globally through a vibrant exchange of musical styles
and influences. Thus, as Harris observes:
Local scenes have been particularly important in pioneering new styles that have gone
on to be popular throughout the global scene. In the 1980s, the San Francisco ‘Bay
Area’ scene was crucial in the development of Thrash (involving bands such as
Exodus and Metallica). In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Death Metal was
 230 A. Bennett / Poetics 32 (2004) 223–234

popularised via strong local scenes in Stockholm (involving bands such as Dismember
and Entombed) and Tampa, Florida (involving bands such as Obituary and Deicide).
In the mid-1990s, Black Metal was popularised through the Norwegian scene
(involving bands such as Burzum and Emperor) (2000: 16).

However, the trans-local quality of a music scene may not rest exclusively on the global
mobility of particular local styles, nor the ability of scene members to communicate with
each other across time and distance using new technologies. Indeed, as recent work on
contemporary dance music illustrates, trans-local scenes are also increasingly charac-
terised by global flows of people – DJs, promoters and fans. For example, Laing (1997)
points to the large trans-national networks which now exist for the production and
marketing of dance music, a global flow which also facilitates extensive touring for
DJs and their particular brand of club event. Similarly, Carrington and Wilson (2002)
discuss how the relative ease of long-distance travel, combined with a desire to go clubbing
in new and exotic locations, has engendered a growing culture of ‘dance tourism’ among
contemporary youth.

5. Virtual scenes

Since the mid-1990s, the Internet has played an increasingly important role in the
context of everyday life. In particular, the Internet has had a significant impact on the time-
space compression process (Harvey, 1989) associated with developments in global
communication systems, further displacing the boundedness of social interaction within
the restrictions of time and space, and opening up new, relatively instantaneous channels of
trans-local and trans-temporal communication (Foster, 1997). Such developments have had
a notable effect on the formation of music scenes. While previously music scenes had been
a local or a trans-local phenomena, the Internet created the possibility for the formation of
‘virtual’ scenes, which, like the virtual communities examined by Rheingold (1994), are
formed not in the physical spaces of cities and towns, but in the virtual spaces of the
Internet so that scene members need never meet face-to-face.
Currently, work on virtual music scenes is in its infancy, yet already there are clear signs
of the difference between scenes centred around the Internet and those based around the
physical territory of clubs, bars, record shops and associated spaces. Thus, while an
attachment to locally based scenes will often depend upon more visual displays of
involvement, for example, attendance at gigs (Fonarow, 1997), personal image (Thornton,
1995), competence in posturing and dance (Malbon, 1999), virtual scenes, by virtue of their
non-face to face quality, depend upon other displays of competence, notably articulation
and musical knowledge and information. Kibby’s (2000) study of the Internet-based music
scene devoted to a particular folk artist, John Prine, is a case in point. As Kibby illustrates,
this scene functioned as a space in which globally diffuse fans of John Prine could
communicate with each other and trade knowledge and information. Participants in
Internet chat rooms were delighted by finding others scattered across the world with
whom they could exchange information and opinions. According to Kibby, this ‘ritual
sharing of information’ online was a source of ‘commonality between chatters’ (2000: 95).

las escenas locales y translocammes están siempre atadas al espacio entonces parece (bares,
clubes... ciudades...) y no solo a un género musical. la escena que engloba a toda la gente te que
le escucha unamism música y curte más o menos un mismo mambo de la escena global.
 A. Bennett / Poetics 32 (2004) 223–234 231

Another example of a virtual music scene is offered in Bennett’s (Bennett, 2004; Bennett
and Kahn Harris, 2004) work on the ‘Canterbury Sound’. The term ‘Canterbury Sound’
was originally coined by journalists during the late 1960s to describe London-based groups
such as Soft Machine and Caravan, whose memberships each contained one or more
individuals from defunct Canterbury-based jazz rock band, the Wilde Flowers. A number
of musicians involved in these groups, for example, Robert Wyatt and Hugh Hopper, have
denounced the notion of a Canterbury Sound as little more than a journalistic tag. Similarly,
for the most part, the citizens of Canterbury remain blissfully unaware that their city was
apparently the centre of a major music scene of the late 1960s. Nevertheless, the myth of a
Canterbury Sound has been revived when in 1996, Calyx, anointing itself the ‘‘official’’
Canterbury Sound website, was established by a French fan. As with Kibby’s example of
online fandom, Calyx became a forum for debate between fans concerning various aspects
of the Canterbury Sound and those groups who were deemed to centrally define it. The
website also facilitated a series of discussions and debates about the role of Canterbury
itself in the creation of the musical style, thus giving rise to a series of collective myths
concerning how the experience of growing up in Canterbury had imbued Canterbury
musicians with artistic influences and ’a certain Englishness’ which, it was argued, they
brought to their music.
As Bennett observes, although initially limited to such on-line discussions between fans,
this Canterbury Sound revival soon started to generate entrepreneurial interest, particularly
in the Canterbury region, where a small-scale ‘cultural industry’ based around the
Canterbury Sound began to take shape. This was signalled by the appearance in local
record shops of the Canterburied Sounds, a four-volume CD set featuring tracks by the
Wilde Flowers and Caravan, as well as musical liaisons between members of these groups
and other, often unidentified, local musicians. While for the most part, little more than a
series of rough and ready demo tapes and rehearsal sessions recorded on domestic reel-to-
reel tape recorders, the Canterburied Sounds CDs have played a significant part in bringing
the myth of a Canterbury scene alive for fans around the world. This perceived link between
the Canterbury Sound and the city of Canterbury has been further forged through
subsequent local entrepreneurial activities, notably the ‘Canterbury Sound Festival’, an
event that took place in the summer of 2000. In addition to ‘Canterbury groups’ Caravan
and Gong, the line up for the 3-day event also included a wealth of other late sixties British
rock favourites, including Coliseum, Man and The Crazy World of Arthur Brown.
Virtual scenes can also facilitate on-going communication and collectivity between fans
of artists who have either stopped touring or tour infrequently. For such fans, the Internet
offers an alternative possibility for articulating their fandom in a public sphere. This point
is made effectively by Vroomen (2004) in her study of fans of Kate Bush, an artist who
retired from live performance in 1979 and whose last studio album was released in 1993.
As Vroomen notes, Kate Bush fansites such as the Hounds of Love provide one of the few
available means for the Kate Bush fanbase to maintain itself at a collective level, chat
rooms and other web-based facilities allowing fans to communicate and share views and
opinions on Kate Bush and her music. Significantly, however, Vroomen suggests that such
communication is also, and perhaps crucially, facilitated through other means, notably
Kate Bush conventions and ‘Katemas’, gatherings of fans held each year on the singer’s
birthday.
232 A. Bennett / Poetics 32 (2004) 223–234

Finally, Lee and Peterson (2004) consider some of the differences and similarities
between virtual and physical local scenes using the example of ‘Postcard Two’ (P2), a list-
serve devoted to alternative country music. As Lee and Peterson observe, while interaction
in physical local scenes is at the face-to-face level, thus allowing for the exchange of both
verbal and non-verbal communication, interaction in virtual scenes is based entirely around
the exchange of written words, and occasionally images to support particular points made.
As such, Lee and Peterson argue that gaining access to a virtual scene is often easier than to
a local scene. Local scenes are clearly bounded in terms of physical location, but they are
often small and quite select too. Virtual scenes on the other hand are open to all those who
know how to use a networked computer and can write in the language used by the scene. At
the same time, however, Lee and Peterson note that in order to become fully integrated into
a virtual scene, many of the same rules apply as with a local scene. Ultimately, a person
must show commitment, both through regular contributions to on-line discussions, and also
through the display of musical and associated knowledges relevant to such discussion.
Lee and Peterson suggest that one notable difference between virtual and physical scenes
is their demographic composition. While most local scenes are characterised by a narrow
age range, body type, sexual orientation, recreational drug use and world view, the
demographic composition of virtual scenes is generally much broader. They found that
P2 members ranged in age from their teens to their 70s and about evenly split between those
who are single and those who are married or partnered. As Lee and Peterson observe, such a
varied demographic spread may well be due to the possibilities that virtual scenes offer the
individual for remaining anonymous or using a pseudonym. Clearly, this kind of masking
does not apply in the case of local, physical scenes where membership also turns on the
physical appearance and personal attributes of individuals. Even so, Lee and Peterson
noted that most of the active members of the P2 list-serve use their real names, and their
address line often includes their place of employment. In a sense then, those who become
members of virtual music scenes often observe the same rules of membership and sociality
as those involved in physical, local scenes.

6. Conclusion

This paper has examined the developing scenes perspective and its value as a means of
understanding and theorising the various forms of significance that musical activity, both
production- and consumption-orientated, assumes in specific everyday contexts. Using the
trichotomy of ‘local’, ‘trans-local’ and ‘virtual’ scenes introduced by Peterson and Bennett
(2004), the paper has examined a range of existing studies on music scenes and the insights
they reveal into the highly specific ways that music, creativity, identity, leisure, economic
activity and productivity intersect in a variety of physical and mediated contexts.

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Andy Bennett is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Surrey. Prior to studying for his PhD at
Durham University he spent two years in Germany working as a music teacher with the Frankfurt Rockmobil
project. He has published articles on aspects of youth culture, popular music and local identity in a number of
journals including British Journal of Sociology, Sociology, Sociological Review, Media Culture and Society and
Popular Music. He is author of Popular Music and Youth Culture: Music, Identity and Place (2000, Macmillan)
and Cultures of Popular Music (2001, Open University Press) and co-editor of Guitar Cultures (2001, Berg),
After Subculture (Palgrave, 2004) and Music Scenes (Vanderbilt University Press, 2004). He is Chair of the UK
and Ireland branch of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music (IASPM), co-convenor of the
British Sociological Association Youth Study Group and a member of the Editorial Boards for the journals
Leisure Studies and Sociology. He is also a Faculty Associate of the Center for Cultural Sociology at Yale
University.