The Geography of Music in Huddersfield

Abstract

This is a study of the Geography of Music in the working class textile town of Huddersfield. The study will
entail understandings and theories put forward in the reading of Music and Geography and will use these to
base the study on sounding out the town and the traditional Music associated with the Town.
Questionnaires are posed to people in community music projects and to those with establishments running a
century or so back in the towns’ history like the Mrs Sunderland Competition. These questionnaires found
the basis of the research core along with research taken in the archive departments at local libraries, The
study of these questionnaires has helped me relate back to production of place the theory of which my
dissertation is based. It also shows the insight to a new façade for the town, for those who visit.
In the study, the production of place from space and music, crops up in interviews, showing the feelings
and learning and understanding of cultures that can be gained by musical experience. The study shows that
the town is also prospering economically and that the façade of ‘The Creative Town’ is being supported
heavily by Kirklees Council and the Participatory Arts Practice combined with Yorkshire arts who want to
put funding into New Cultural Initiatives. This shows that with backing of the council, has lead itself to the
great success of such events as the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, It shows that the economic
factors, and the musical heritage of the town, can be linked back to musical communities formed by owners
and workers of the mills, who created societies for leisure time activities, and the initiative for new cultural
experiences. The town is thriving on a commodity that in ancient times, was a force that then was and still
is a distinctive component in the cultivation of community and society.