From the earliest days of the discipline, music has been a focus of sociological inquiry. Max Weber, for example, used the development of the system of musical notation as a prime illustration of what he saw as the increasing rationalization of European society since the Middle Ages (Max Weber 1958). Like Weber, many since have used music and music making as a strategic research site for answering sociologically important questions. Nevertheless, music has not become the focus of a distinctive fundamental approach in sociology comparable to topics like "socialization," "organization," "deviance," and "culture." That is why the subject of this entry is the "sociology of music" and not "musical sociology" and why it takes such a long bibliography to suggest the range of work in the field.

While no musical sociology has developed, over the decades numerous aspects of music making or appreciation have been the substantive research site...