Frictions and Restrictions: Domestic Music Making and the Case of Girls Rock School

Harkins, Paul

Abstract

The use of digital technologies, such as MIDI, Digital Audio Workstations (DAWs), Virtual Studio Technologies (VSTs), sampling software, web-based platforms, and music-making apps, have been implicated in deep changes about how and where popular music is made. Some commentators have argued that the availability of these technologies are the basis for creative levelling, with celebratory accounts of “cheap” and “accessible” digital home studios like GarageBand leading to claims about large-scale processes of democratisation. Some discourses suggest that a major shift in the production of music has taken place: ‘any teenager with a few pounds and a good idea can become a star from their own bedroom…’ . In this paper I want to focus on the messy realities of making music at home and suggest that arguments about forms of musical democratisation ignore the complexities of lived practices and sites of production. To explore these complexities, I want to ask: What digital technologies are shaping the processes of making music in private and domestic spaces? Why have domestic spaces become such an important site of musical production and how did the Covid-19 pandemic intensify and accelerate the move towards the home studio as a key site for music making? How are domestic spaces organised for music making and how do they co-exist with forms of musical collabration in public spaces? Using interview data with domestic music makers who are also involved in a project called Girls Rock School, I focus on the ambivalent nature of digital production technologies and infrastructures and investigate more fully the frictions, restrictions, and contingences of home studio production. I will show how music technologies shape the places where popular music is made and are always embedded in the social practices of making music with others.

Citation

Harkins, P. (2024, September). Frictions and Restrictions: Domestic Music Making and the Case of Girls Rock School. Paper presented at IASPM UK & Ireland Conference, University of Newcastle, UK

• Presentation Conference Type: Conference Paper (unpublished)
• Conference Name: IASPM UK & Ireland Conference
• Start Date: Sep 4, 2024
• End Date: Sep 6, 2024
• Deposit Date: Sep 20, 2024
• Peer Reviewed: Not Peer Reviewed