States of Play/ing: Sonic Dwellings on a Music Tour

This article considers two issues: what happens in the nexus of sound and place during a live performance and while setting up, and what is the effect of sound on the experience of time and place of touring musicians. I explore the significance of musical performance through an investigation of the sonic environment (Edensor 2011) in a music venue as a process of attunement (Stewart 2011; Wallrup 2015). Based on ethnographic fieldwork on tour with several rock bands, I analyse the role which practices of stage set-up, soundchecking and instrument tuning in addition to the musical concert performance itself play as constituent elements of place-making on the move. Drawing on notions of both play (Csikszentmihalyi & Bennett 1971) and dwelling (Ingold 2011), I frame my ethnographic data with a specific focus on the emplacing capacities of sonic practices with the aim of understanding the effects which playing music has on the experience of touring