DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY AND MUSICAL HABITUS: OUR MUSICAL LIVES IN THE DIGITAL AGE

Abstract

Over the past few decades, digital technology has had profound effects on the music industry and broader musical production and consumption practices. Using the concept of habitus as a framework, I explore our musical dispositions to understand the ways in which digital technology challenges what exactly this distinctly human characteristic constitutes, drawing on scholars like Jonathan Sterne and Ian Cross. After beginning with a background of the biocultural perspective on music and how it emerged out of the entanglement of biological and cultural processes in early humans, I look at what a musical habitus entails and how technology fits into the concept. I then analyze ethnographic research relating to music, investigating how digital technology plays a role in artists’ and listeners’ musical dispositions and shapes the way they use, give meaning to, and understand music.