Introduction to Scene Theory
Exploring Sounds and the Spaces where they happen
In On Building and Dwelling, Martin Heidegger introduces the idea of the "fourfold"—a harmony of earth, sky, mortals, and divinities that makes a place feel alive. He uses the bridge as a metaphor: it connects the banks of a river, considers the weather above, serves the needs of people, and evokes something larger than ourselves.
Much like Heidegger’s bridge, music spaces gather and transform—connecting people, sound, and community into something greater than the sum of its parts. They are physical spaces where people can gather, but is ultimately built for the transcendent experience of hearing music live alongside other people. There is a peculiar and amazing feeling to me that occurs when you leave a concert - this feel of connection that you feel when you’ve had a common experience with many other people, that you feel deeply. It feels magical. In this project I’d like to more closely examine that magic and understand how it works.
A little about me. I have been a musician most of my life, having played classical instruments since I was eight years old. In high school I joined a pop-punk band where I wrote songs and performed them for the first time, and this was a completely transformative experience for me. Every few weeks on a Friday or Saturday night, my friends and I would load a few hundred pounds of equipment into a parents’ van, and we would find our way to a small venue, often in the middle of nowhere, PA, where we would watch other bands from the area perform. We would meet people from other high schools, and other cities and towns, and sometimes even other parts of the world. It felt like a miracle to be able to do this semi-regularly and I haven’t stopped chasing that high for the last decade +.
Over the years I’ve done so a couple of different ways. In college I began arranging music for ensembles, where I learned about orchestration, and the ways in which you direct a group for a particular space, or audience. After college I recorded solo music for a few years, ranging from acoustic folk to electronic and dance to ambient. I wrote for a small publication in Portland, ME until I went to graduate school in beautiful and snowy Burlington, VT, where I discovered a small and vibrant music scene. Learning how to conduct research for the first time, I thought that this was an interesting group to learn more about - what made these people want to make music here? What forces shaped what they made? Who were they making it for? What was the result of their work on the community?
The idea for this newsletter had been formed around that time, which was also when I started reading David Byrne’s How Music Works. The book begins -
I had an extremely slow-dawning insight about creation. That insight is that context largely determines what is written, painted, sculpted, sung , or performed....the creative urge will brook no accommodation...it simply must find an outlet to be heard, read or seen.
The first chapter is basically about the spaces where music happens, and that these spaces are actually integral to the creation of music itself. Music that is heard by people cannot be made in a vacuum - the space in which it happens is equally important and will shape the way the music is formed. Byrne continues,
We work backward, either consciously or unconsciously, creating work that fits the venue that is available to us....in a sense, the space , the platform, and the software "makes" the art, the music, or whatever. After a while the form of the work that predominates in these spaces is taken granted - of course we mainly hear symphonies in symphony halls.
This idea lends itself to what I found to be true when I was performing music a decade ago - half of the equation to a transcendent musical experience is the environment in which it happens. The space, the people, the atmosphere. The context. This newsletter will go about investigating that context, for musical movements that have occurred around the world and throughout history. Further, I’d like to investigate the internet era and see how the tele-technological revolution has changed the way the we relate to space, to our musical communities, and to ourselves as listeners.
So, what to expect. Every month in 2025 I’ll be producing a primer on a particular music scene from a part of the world. Each primer will constitute of 5 albums that I feel do a good job of introducing the unique sound of that scene. If things folks become interested, I’d like to start uploading podcasts and mixes that are audible explorations of these scenes. Eventually, I’d also like to interview musicians and record labels to talk about how these ideas and forces are shaping their lives as artists and businesspeople.
My aim, if nothing else, is to point people towards the magic that can happen when we work to come and experience art together as communities. I hope that you enjoy and follow along.