Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book discusses music and geography. It will be useful to people both inside and outside geography. The book interprets the meaning of music as it pertains to spaces and places. However, the connection between music, space, and place is interdisciplinary in nature, and the methodologies utilized by music geographers overlap to a substantial degree with approaches in sociology, cultural studies, communication, ethnomusicology, and other related disciplines. An important avenue of research is how cultural identities are formed within increasingly global cultural flows. Andy Bennett's Popular Music and Youth Culture: Music Identity and Place contain research on the construction of young people's identity in relation to music and locality mainly from an ethnographic and sociological point of view. The national identity of Canada is reflected in the music and lyrics of the Ontario-based band the Rheostatics.