La constitution d'une culture et d'une écoute musicale nouvelles : Le disque et ses sociabilités comme agents de changement culturel dans les années 1920 et 1930 en Grande-Bretagne

When the gramophone was invented at the end of the 19th century, it was mainly a scientific and technical curiosity for which many uses were envisaged. Its definition as a medium for music was a progressive and collective process : it involved as many agents as music lovers, professional musicians, music critics and engineers. Their converging practices and discourses contributed to the invention of new objects, sounds, forms of music and situations of listening. In this very process, not only a new medium, but also a new musical culture (or disposition towards music) were formed. The A. analyses some specific aspects of this evolution : She focuses on the 1920s and 1930s, a period of rapid change in which the record industry dramatically grew and amateur practices were particularly dynamic, in the form of periodicals and gramophone societies. Concentrating on the situation in Great Britain, a country which was particularly active and precocious in this process, the A. discusses the role of these various forms of sociability in shaping the use of the new medium together with a new relationship to music. This evolution can be depicted as the development of an aural way of listening to music resulting in the birth of a new listener.