The purpose of this research is to examine the social effect of music. The plan of the research will be to set forth in general terms the context for looking at music from a sociological perspective and then to discuss the social effect of music, its relevance to an individual's life, its effects on people, such as an estimate of the number of people who may be directly affected by music, and the social consequences of that effect as well as possible bases for evaluating that effect, and possible approaches to evaluating the effect of music on the culture.
The social effect of music is that it supplies a mechanism of common experience of the social structure and indeed may help shape that structure. Music can be interpreted as exerting social effect to the degree it is the core shared element that makes weak ties possible. The response to music is undoubtedly idiosyncratic in that music is the object of an individual's universe of values in the judgment or experience of what is right, beautiful, or good. This can be explained with reference to network structure, however, by way of the concept of structural holes, or "unlinked pairs" within a network. For example, while all members of a network may be linked by the same music, individual network members may be listeners to, or critics, performers, composers, marketers, and publishers of it. Because the relationship of members of the group to music may not be identical, the difference in the character of members' relationship to music may have the effect of distributing social power or status unequally either within the network or where the network linked by music connects to other, discrete networks.
The principal relevance of music to individual lives is that it feeds their aesthetic experience on an individual as well as social level. The appreciation of music need not be systematic and theoretical, even if the individual acknowledges that music has a definitely systematic, rule...