Music & Work: Exploring the Role of Music in our Working Lives

Visiting alumnus Matthew Dineen (MA ’14) will explore the role music plays in our working lives. Looking at wage labor through the lens of music may heighten our understanding of capitalist society and illuminate possibilities beyond the current economic system. This exploration is from the bottom up; from the eyes and ears of actual workers.

Free and open to the public. Part of the Goddard Graduate Institute‘s (GGI) Visiting Alumni Series.

Matthew Dineen launched the ‘Music & Work Project‘ this summer to explore the role that music plays in our working lives. His project asks:

How do the soundtracks to our jobs shape our daily experiences on the clock? Are these songs functioning only to increase productivity and profits for the boss? Or is the workplace playlist freely controlled by their workers to reduce alienation and open a portal toward liberation? Can music be a tool of resistance? What if there is no music at all?

This presentation will begin with Goddard Graduate Institute alumnus Matthew Dineen’s own experiences in the service industry and the music that helped define those jobs. His zine “Not for You: Stories of Music & Work in the Precarious Service Industry” explores the antagonistic dynamics between management, workers, and customers in relationship to the beats, rhythms, lyrics, and melodies played at each job. This will be followed by reflections from the Music & Work Project’s summer zine tour. The tour documented the experiences of other people around these questions and more. Watch his trailer below:

For more information or to R.S.V.P email caryn.mirriamgoldberg@goddard.edu