ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses how the presence of street music and the hospitable atmospheres it can produce can encourage different forms of relating between strangers in the everyday and so engender a more sociable sense of UK. It considers how street music acts to positively affect the emotional wellbeing a variety of urban inhabitants by affecting them on a more individual level based on the specific music played. The chapter illustrates how the regular presence of specific street musicians can act to produce a sense of that place, bringing with it a familiarity and sense of belonging. Street music can present an 'urban ritual that challenges the way we think about public space by promoting spontaneous, democratic, intimate encounters', which it can encourage to take place in some of the city's most 'routinized and alienating environments'. Music can play a significant part in the connections and feelings of belonging formed between people and places.
