ABSTRACT
Ethnography literally refers to the art of writing about people. Within the social sciences it has come to refer to a broad set of practices through which scholars attempt to observe and interpret the cultural beliefs and practices of social groups by engaging them in some kind of interpersonal encounter. Traditionally, sociological ethnography has referred specifically to the task of the participant observer who “gathers data by participating in the daily life of the group or organization he studies” (Becker 1958: 652). However, in recent years the term has been appropriated by researchers who employ a broader range of qualitative methodologies, such as open-ended interviewing and biographical narrative collection. In this article I examine how these methodological tools have been employed in the sociological study of music, from the early ethnographic work of the Chicago school to more recent explorations of music-making in the contemporary city.
