Sonic Fixtures and Drifting Buskers

In the public spaces of New Orleans, street musicians construct soundmarks, or sonic landmarks, in the locations where they commonly perform. The maintenance and preservation of New Orleans music is often achieved through performance processes by musicians in these spaces who exist as sonic fixtures (residents) and drifting buskers (migrants) in heavily trafficked areas of the city, most notably the French Quarter. This street music circulates and amalgamates the music of New Orleans with that of other cultures, often creating unique hybrid genres and neo-traditional styles. In addition to drawing from this hybridity, my thesis will address performers' relationships to each other, and music in urban geography, tourism, and migrant communities. Ultimately, by mapping soundmarks I converse with this enigmatic musical community and those vested in it, which results in the recognition of distinctive hotspots of outdoor musical activity in the French Quarter. Landmarks in this and other cities are often demarcated as distinguishing features in the landscape that function to guide tourists, and act as tourist attractions themselves. This thesis will map and investigate eight of these sonic landmarks and document the presence and experiences of the street musicians who construct them. I argue that in New Orleans landmarks and soundmarks are synonymous. I hope to expand the current scholarly awareness of New Orleans music outside the exploitation of jazz, and to urge for the inclusion of music making on urban streets in ethnomusicological discourse. This thesis is divided into six sections. The introductory chapter provides a contextualization of the French Quarter as it relates to this topic as well as associated literature. The second chapter reveals my theoretical framework, defines my appropriation of "soundmark," and discusses the relationship of music to place as illustrated with an example of battling brass bands. The third chapter sets the stage for busking with a discussion of locale, architecture, and city ordinances. Chapter Four builds upon the knowledge of what it is like to be a busker in New Orleans. Chapter Five harbors the data gleaned from a summer and several autumn/winter weekends worth of fieldwork, designating the location and broad description of eight soundmarks as mapped 10 throughout the French Quarter. This chapter also contextualizes the impact of each soundmark as relative to the individual performers that construct it, and its relationship to the surrounding environment. The concluding chapter offers a summary and my reflexive responses to this project while delving into the relationship of buskers to the community around them. I finish by elaborating on the potential implications of mapping soundmarks, including ideas for the future use of this research. In sum, this project represents an ethnomusicological case study of musicians existing on the streets of New Orleans between May of 2011 to February of 2012 while addressing larger issues on the relationship between these musicians, their shared public space, and the community they represent.