ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines the major difficulties which stand in the way of a sociology of musical styles, and indicates the way in which those difficulties might be overcome. The first block to sociology of musical styles derives from the way in which the majority of musicologists subscribe, either implicitly or explicitly, to an elitist view of art. The view that the meaning or significance of music is inherently social overcomes the inadequacy of psychologistic theories by acknowledging that music does, indeed, have a significance of substance to impart. The significance of a piece of music lies in the way its internal structure both reflects and creatively articulates the structure of the group or society in which it was conceived. It is possible to indicate a vital connection between the institutional restraint referred to in the first half of this paper and the aesthetic difficulty with the significance of music.
