Leisure Studies, Vol. 24, No.

4, 399414, October 2005

Feeling the Noise: Teenagers, Bedrooms and Music

SIAN LINCOLN
School of Social Sciences, University College Northampton, UK
RLST119937.sgm Taylor and Francis Ltd

(Received May 2004; revised November 2004; accepted May 2005)

Department SianLincoln 0000002005of 24 Taylor Francis 2005 OriginalStudiesSociologyUniversity College NorthamptonPark Campus Boughton Green RoadNorthamptonNN2 7ALUKsian.lincoln@northampton.ac.uk 0261-4367 (print)/1466-4496 Leisure&Article Group Ltd 10.1080/02614360500199544(online)

ABSTRACT How does music transform the contemporary teenage bedroom from the mundane (doing homework, sleeping) into a dynamic cultural and social space? Previous research has suggested that, in an exclusively female sphere, the role of music in teenage girls bedroom culture was purely one-dimensional, part of the ideology of romance that rarely went beyond the adoration of the pop idol. More recent research not only demonstrates that both teenage boys and girls engage in bedroom culture, but also that, as a cultural form, music is integral to the creation and evolution of their youth cultural biographies, and works as a soundtrack (DeNora 2000) to their social lives. In this paper I explore the dynamic relationship of young people, bedroom space and music. Through in-depth ethnography, the complexities of the musicalisation of everyday teenage life are examined using the theoretical concept of zoning. Music is used by teenagers as a way of creating a specific type of atmosphere in their bedrooms. The dynamics of this are primarily controlled by the individual, depending on their age, their mood, the time of day, what other activities they are involved in and who else is occupying that space (friends or siblings for example). The creation of atmosphere through music is often spontaneous, of the moment and inter-changeable. Significantly, music is a medium through which the boundaries of public and private space are necessarily blurred. For example, music played at a high volume spills out of the bedroom zone into other rooms in the house. Music is also used as a prequel and a sequel, facilitating getting ready for nights out on the town, setting the right tone and atmosphere. The further multi-layering of bedroom and music zones is also explored in relation to new technologies such as the Internet, which have the capacity to zone music from the physical into the virtual and back again. Finally, what is the significance of music in shaping a teenagers cultural biography? Here teenagers influences on their musical interests are examined as evolutionary, alongside how musical biographies are translated into bedroom content. KEYWORDS: teenagers, music, bedroom culture, zoning, technology, biography

Introduction Space is never empty: it always embodies a meaning (Lefebvre, 1991: p. 154). Music has the power to transform a space, to fill it, to give it a complexity of meanings, to give it a feeling and an atmosphere. Music plays a major role in the
Correspondence Address: Sian Lincoln, School of Social Sciences, University College Northampton, Park Campus, Boughton Green Road, Northampton NN2 7AL, UK. ISSN 0261-4367 (print)/ISSN 1466-4496 (online)/05/04039916 2005 Taylor & Francis DOI: 10.1080/02614360500199544

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everyday lives of people generally, but it is arguably one of the most significant cultural forms for young people and youth culture. Music for young people has a dual purpose. Consuming and producing music is both an individualised and a unifying practice. As a medium it allows them to develop individual tastes but also the plethora of musical styles and genres means that they can be accepted as part of a social group of like-minded people. Teenagers play music in their bedrooms. For them the bedroom, which throughout their teenage years is a site of multiple cultural and social articulations and expressions, is often the first space in which they are able to exert some control, be creative and make that space their own. It is a space in which their cultural biography can be nurtured. Music is used in the teenagers bedroom in a diverse number of ways: volume, choice of music or associated resources all play a role in the creative control of the bedroom space. It is this dynamic use of music that I am concerned with in this paper. Music and youth cultures Traditionally in youth cultural studies the meaning of music for young people has been explored in relation to its significance in shaping, influencing and styling subcultural activity predominantly in public, visible, place-based sites. In the seminal texts of the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS) (Hall & Jefferson, 1976; Hebdige, 1979, for example) music played an intrinsic role in subcultural style as a symbol of rebellion, defiance and dissatisfaction. More recently the post-subcultural analyses of Muggleton (2000), Bennett (1999, 2000) and others have argued that the pick and mix nature of post-modern youth culture fragments and individualises musical biographies, giving rise to fluid boundaries and floating memberships (Bennett, 1999) in contemporary youth culture. In the early 1990s too, music was very much celebrated at the core of youth culture, particularly in relation to club culture (Thornton, 1995; Redhead, 1997) engaged in by ordinary, everyday young people at the end of the working week. The importance of music to young people in everyday life can also be found in studies of going out practices (see, for example, Hollands, 1995; Chatterton & Hollands, 2001). Above all though, these studies are essentially focussed on highly visible, public spaces often with a specific connection to subcultural activity and resistance to dominant or mainstream society. Here music is played in public forums, is stylised and highly visual as young people gather collectively, their biographies lived out as cultural capital (Thornton, 1995). Although the role of music in private spaces has been addressed in the subcultures literature, for example in McRobbie and Garbers (1991) account of teenager girls bedroom culture in the 1970s, the relationship between music and everyday, ordinary young people in private space has remained under-explored. Whilst music is addressed in McRobbie and Garbers study, it largely focuses on the relationship between the teenage girl and her romantic attachment to the pop idol, rather than the essence and significance of music in its own right and as a cultural construction that the teenager engages with and nurtures. For example they comment from the outset that women buy fewer records, go to fewer gigs and know less about music than their male peers (McRobbie & Garber, 1991: p. 166).

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Taking their cues from traditional subcultural theory, McRobbie and Garber acknowledged that music acted as a code for the subcultural life of a teenage girl within the private sphere of the bedroom. There were, however, a number of shortcomings in their analysis. As an add on to traditional CCCS theory whereby primarily youth subcultural activity was interpreted as a response to the constraints of class, age, family life, school and work, the teenage bedroom for McRobbie and Garber was celebrated as an exclusive sphere for girls. Primarily the role of music in teenage girls bedroom culture was very much in the background and peripheral to the construction of a mapped on fantasy world of romance based around the adoration of the pop idol. For McRobbie and Garber there was no consideration that the teenage girl might actually have a cognitive involvement (only later in McRobbies work do we hear about girls dancing (1993)) and an active interest in the lyrical composition or construction of the music in creating atmosphere and identity in bedroom space. The exclusivity of bedroom culture to teenage girls also limited it to the private realm rather than considering the ways in which teenage cultural life (including musical life) flows in and out of both the public and private realm largely directed by teenagers themselves as social, reflexive, active, agents. Although McRobbie and Garber do acknowledge the cultural responses of teenage girls as lived experience, they describe the role and temporality of music in a teenage girls life as fleeting, momentary, an interim state between being a girl and being a young woman, an experience, primarily linked to fandom, incompatible to their entry into the real world of love and romance (McRobbie & Garber, 1991: p. 172). For McRobbie and Garber, music in a teenage girls life provides a temporary lucid framework within which the romantic encounter with the pop idol may be lived out, revised and practised without the potential threat of sexual degradation that may be experienced in public spaces. But as they get older this framework becomes redundant when they are required to participate in the real life world of love, romance and finding a husband. More recent research has revealed that, for everyday young people, music is highly significant and is a medium through which they are able to create soundtracks to their lives, the complexities of which reach way beyond the code of romance attributed to pop music in McRobbie and Garbers bedroom culture. DeNoras work Music in Everyday Life (2000) reveals, through in-depth ethnography, a number of these complexities. For DeNora and most relevant to this discussion of music in contemporary bedroom culture music is highly relevant in the construction of the self in the everyday lives of young people. Unlike McRobbie and Garber, she argues that young peoples engagement with music is by no means temporary, but is part of their evolving cultural histories and biographies, a medium through which identities can be expressed and transformed. I argue below that music can work like wallpaper in a teenagers bedroom. Essentially the shifting of music into the background is not inherent in bedroom culture as McRobbie and Garber (1991) suggest, but is rather a temporal and cultural choice that is engaged in by both teenage girls and boys. As DeNora suggests, the temporal aspect of young peoples engagement is to do with the reflexive self, musical choices based on mood or state of mind, a desire to evoke memories or set a tone or atmosphere. Importantly for DeNora, and most pertinent

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to the discussion below, is the inclusion and transformation of mundane spaces in young peoples cultural and social lives and the mobilisation of culture for being, doing and feeling (DeNora, 2000). Mundane space and musicalised life In McRobbie and Garbers (1991) analysis of bedroom culture, the consumption of pop music by teenage girls was seen as nothing more than a medium through which to create a form of escapism into the romantic fantasy world of the pop idol. For McRobbie and Garber the code of pop music was part of a standardised Gramscian map of meaning transposed onto the life of the teenage girl lacking any musical depth beyond this primary connection. In their analysis, the teenage girl is understood as completely passive, void of individuality and uninterested in any cultural activity beyond the realms of romance. Yet research into contemporary bedroom culture (Lincoln, 2004) shows that although some connections may be made between romance and music through association, this is by no means the limitation of musical prescriptions. The teenager is active in making choices (for example music choices) from a plurality of cultural forms. Music, for example, is not just simply mapped on to the lives of teenagers through media forms. As DeNora says the soundtrack ofaction [is] not merely accompaniment. It does not merely follow experience[and is] not merely overlaid upon it (DeNora, 2000: p. 67). Bedroom culture is not standardised in a one-dimensional form. On the contrary, bedroom cultures exist in their plurality, are multi-layered and are unique to the individual occupying bedroom space. As a mundane space, the bedroom is continually transformed through a teenagers cultural activity, and music becomes part of the material and aesthetic environment (DeNora, 2000: p. 67). Alongside this is the reflexive project of the self (DeNora, 2000: p. 46); the young person as essentially active in the construction of their identity, with music being one of the most prominent cultural forms through which this is achieved. A study of the intimacies of music practice demonstrates the ways in which individuals regulate, elaborate and substantiate themselves as social agents (DeNora, 2000: p. 46) in action, over time and in the construction of their own individual biographies and cultural histories. In the discussion of the data below, age is one of the most significant factors directing not only the construction of identities but also the spaces in which this construction is undertaken. Age is used as a referent of experience (DeNora, 2000: p. 67), emphasising the evolutionary nature of bedroom culture. DeNora too makes reference to the ways in which music steers activity in both the public and private realm. She talks of how music is motivation for individuals (when they are getting ready to go out, for example), how music is used in the reconfiguring of feelings (2000: p. 54) and how it is used to create a haven in which sounds outside of the bedroom are zoned out. Something that neither McRobbie and Garber (1991) nor DeNora (2000) consider is the significance of new technologies in the musicalisation of bedroom space. McRobbie and Garber (1991) do make reference to the requirement for a record player in facilitating teenage girls bedroom culture, but the significance of this technology to the socio-spatial configuration of the bedroom

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is not examined, neither is its actual use by individuals within that space. DeNora (2000) talks about the ways in which music may be zoned though technologies such as the Walkman so as to drown out noise in public spaces and intensify the individuals musical experience. Also, as discussed above, she does focus on the ways in which individuals control music and the intensity of this alongside other activities, feelings, atmosphere and mood. But below I develop this further, through the theory of zoning, to incorporate the physical space and organisation of the teenagers bedroom into the musical experience. I argue in line with DeNora that as a mundane space, the bedroom can be transformed through musical experience and that this experience is enhanced through the use of new technologies such as the internet. Zoning teenage bedroom spaces For McRobbie (1991) bedroom culture was theorised in relation to a set of codes predominantly directed by the ideology and pursuit of romance mapped out in teen publications such as Jackie magazine. In understanding contemporary teenage bedroom culture, however, such codes are less useful in that they remain largely abstract and fixed and thus do not take into consideration the importance of the dynamics, complexities and inter-relations of physical and virtual spaces in which cultural activities are taking place. The concept of zoning (Lincoln, 2004) takes on a Lefebvrian interpretation of social space as experienced rather than given (Lefebvre, 1991), and as multi-interpretable and evolving rather than fixed. Importantly in understanding the social significance of space to young people, zoning as a theoretical concept is necessarily fluid, thus allowing for the plurality of spheres of influence beyond the physicality of bedroom space, the latter being expanded through the use of new media technologies. In this respect zones are of the moment and mimic the very nature of contemporary youth culture as often spontaneous and multiple. Bedrooms are physically zoned according to cultural pursuits and constantly intercept the boundaries of public and private spaces. In contemporary British society, in which the mass media is embedded in all realms of everyday life, the boundaries of public and private spheres are becoming ever more blurred, fluid and inter-changeable. As Reimer notes:
The mass media canlink spheres with each other in novel ways and they can shift the main focus of daily life from one sphere to another[They are] continually being organised and reorganised with the help of the media. (Reimer, 1995: p. 58)

As a medium, music provides a prime example of the cultural and social shifts between the private space of the bedroom and public spaces such as the pub or club. For example, I talk below about the ways in which, after a night out, teenagers may use their bedrooms as a space in which to carry on socialising or to chill out. Earlier in the evening they may use it as a meeting place, for getting ready and for getting in the mood for a night out. Here we see zoning in action. A zone is a highly flexible and multi-interpretable spatial setting that can be physical, social, mediated, atmospheric or time-specific (Lincoln, 2004). The teenage bedroom is significantly shaped by an ever-increasing number of pathways that mediate and intercept zones through various media forms such as television,

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radio, the internet, through magazines and essentially through music that create networks of cultural information and the accumulation of youth cultural capital (Thornton, 1995). In this context pathways are created through the exchange of cultural activities and interests, as well as access to equipment and technology through which, for example, music is accessed. As Lefebvre argues of social space, it contains a great diversity of objects, both natural and social, including the pathways that facilitate the exchange of material things and information (1991: p. 77). Zones are multiple in that essentially these pathways are created through individual choice. Therefore no two bedrooms can be the same. Like zones they are of the moment and may be predetermined by other spheres of influence such as work or school. Pathways may be carved out via things that need to be done (e.g. homework). They then channel into and open up zones. The fluidity of zoning allows for an understanding of young people expressing their experiences of youth through, for example, music and how these experiences are transmitted and represented in bedroom space. The concept of zoning compliments DeNoras argument that music is a gridfor the temporal structures of emotional and embodied patterns as they were originally experienced (2000: p. 68). As a cultural product filling bedroom space, music compliments the spontaneity of teenage life and can transform and modify bedroom spaces according to mood or feeling. Music also adds an historical dimension to the space in that it can evoke memories or transport the individual into the fantasy worlds of love and romance that McRobbie and Garber (1991) describe. The ultimate control of the teenager over bedroom zones means that they are able to fold and unfold zones accordingly. Again, music is a mechanism through which this may be done; it is a device for unfolding, for replaying the temporal structure of that moment, its dynamism and emerging experience (DeNora, 2000: p. 67). Zones can also exist within zones; they are multi-layered. As DeNora describes, music is a container for the temporal structure of past circumstances (2000: p. 67). So within a bedroom zone a music zone exists, not just in the immediate and in relation to future activities, but also playing its part in the teenage bedroom as a memory capsule (Dant, 1999), a web of cultural experiences, interests and influences. Music is a reference point that teenagers can refer back to in conjunction with other cultural items in their bedrooms, for example, photographs of holidays or nights out with friends or nightclub flyers of nights they have been to. Researching contemporary teenage bedroom culture In this paper I refer to the commentaries of a selection of young people, male and female, from a total of 40 participants who took part in this research between 1999 and 2001. The sample was accumulated through snowball sampling accessed through social networks, as my primary concern was that the participants were interviewed in the research environment; that is, the home and, more specifically, the teenage bedroom. This way, not only was I able to listen to the teenagers speak, but I was also able to see the space to which they were referring. The visual representation of bedroom space was also captured through photographs taken by a selection of participants. Most importantly, interviewing respondents in their home

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meant that ultimately they were in control of the situation as I was in their space, thus they felt relaxed and consequently spoke confidently and fluently. I interviewed the teenagers in friendship groups of around three or four people, for about an hour per interview. Although I had not stipulated that it should be so, the groups were either all male or all female. Again I felt that this was an appropriate way to conduct the research, as I was sat with a group of friends who would talk to each other, tell stories and anecdotes and generally banter between them, which produced some excellent data. The interviews took place in north and south Manchester and Cheshire. The age range of the teenagers interviewed was between 12 and 19 years. All interviews were tape-recorded with the consent of the respondents. In terms of their access to technology, all of the respondents I talk about here had a television and a stereo in their bedroom and they also all had a mobile phone. The majority had access to the Internet at home, with three (two males and one female) respondents actually having a PC and the Internet in their bedrooms. I use examples from both those respondents who had their own bedrooms (the majority of them) and those who shared a bedroom with siblings, to show how the spatial politics of bedroom culture are managed according to who is occupying that space. Telling stories: music and the contemporary teenage bedroom The links between youth culture and music are well established, particularly in relation to subculture in which we see musics political role as a form of resistance and rebellion, for example punk and the Sex Pistols, and as a democratising, unifying tool (see Hall & Jefferson, 1976; Hebdige, 1979; Muggleton, 2000). But it is important to recognise that music does not just have a subcultural association in the study of youth, but that it is a cultural interest in the lives of ordinary, everyday young people (Murdock & McCron, 1976). In relation to different sections of youth then, music maintains a role in the unification of like-minded young people and has the power to transcend traditional social categorisations such as ethnicity, gender or social class. This is increasingly the case through the use of new technologies. Yet music is still very much a cultural form that facilitates rebellion. Simply turning music up loud achieves this effect, as does purchasing a CD displaying a parental advisory sticker. But the listener has the power of choice to transform space through a variety of different types of music, depending on the mood, atmosphere or emotional ethos they wish to create. Particularly pertinent to the study of young people, music and their bedrooms is DeNoras discussion of the relationship between music and the reflexive self discussed earlier, as an organising property (DeNora, 2000), as a medium that works alongside other activities and experiences. This reflects the highly intimate practice of human-music interaction (DeNora, 2000) and above all that the use of music in everyday life can be celebrated as a solitary and individualistic practice (DeNora, 2000: p. 47):
Music can be seen to function as a prosthetic device, to provide organising properties for a range of other embodied experiences and in ways that involve varying degrees of deliberation and conscious awareness on the part of the musics conscripts. (DeNora, 2000: p. 103)

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DeNora talks of this in relation to the world of work, for example with reference to the working practices of Ghanaian grass cutters (2000) and the ways in which the rhythmic element of the music inspired the work ethic, speed and precision. But this too fits neatly into the context of a leisure sphere. For young people in bedroom culture, music is often the central device around which other activities are structured. But rather than the linear relationship of music and work suggested by DeNora, leisure time is inherently unstructured and of the moment. Structure and organisation is built around that moment rather than being embedded in routine, and often the types of music selected in bedroom space are reliant on how that teenager is feeling at that moment in time. Structure around music is also reliant on what has come before (have they been sent to their room for misbehaving?) or after (maybe they going out with friends?). The dynamics of the space may be organised through music but may not be sustained for any length of time if another option presents itself (a friend phones and invites them over, a good television programme is about to start). As Natasha says: I turn the telly down and my music up and I just watch it if theres something good on [LS60201]. So music does indeed have a function in the organisation of often purposefully unstructured mundane time and space, but it is more fleeting and momentary in comparison with the world of work DeNora refers to. We also see in action here the ways in which bedroom culture is not one-dimensional as McRobbie and Garber (1991) suggest, but is multi-layered through the fading in and out of zones according to the moment and the control of that moment by the teenager. Importantly, one zone can still be buzzing in the background (in this case the television) although it is presided over by another zone (the music); the sound of one form of media is replaced by another, although the visuals still mark its presence in the space. Wallpaper Music is often regarded as highly atmospheric but at the same time just a background noise that is a constant feature of bedroom space. When music is working as wallpaper, a part of the feel of the room but merged in with other content, an actual engagement with the sound might not be explicit but rather facilitating other activities. As DeNora argues, these activities might be evolving, temporal, motivations for an engagement with, or mobilisation of, culture (DeNora 2000). Music may constantly be on a very low volume whilst a teenager is doing school or college work, for example. As well as being motivational, music in this case can be classed as a distraction, an intrusion into doing homework, an infiltration seeping into this work-orientated zone, the teenagers attention shifting from one zone to another, transforming the space in which this mundane activity takes place. Volume is also adjusted according to activity outside of the bedroom, with teenagers taking care that their music does not filter into other peoples spaces. Natasha, 13 says sometimes I dont really listenand like I dont have it blaring out or anything because the neighbours would complain! [LS60201]. In their study of bedroom culture, McRobbie and Garber (1991) primarily situate music in the background of the private cultural lives of teenage girls coded within their fantasy world of romance. The idea that music is not exclusively

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contained within the bedroom, and that it does significantly connect to the public sphere in a number of ways, for example when it is too loud or as an indicator of cultural interests beyond the private sphere, was not considered. As Zo, 13, demonstrates, the engagement of the teenage girl with music is by no means passive or primarily linked to the pop idol. This is to say that teenage girls, like teenage boys, may choose albums or particular tracks to listen to on the basis of an appreciation of musical content, composition, sound and production. They engage with it and are moved by it. This is rather than making a choice solely on the physical appearance of the artist based on how they would look on a poster on their bedroom wall. As Zo says, its just like the music and the beat really [LS60201]. For the older girls, as part of their evolving cultural biographies, music plays its role as a prequel to a night out on the town. In anticipation of the night out ahead, the music selected is likely to be upbeat, getting them in the mood and played loud. For example, Kate, 16, said well listen to a different sort of music when were getting ready sometimes [WH100299]. Leila, 16, said that when they are getting ready to go out the may listen to rap and stuff like that [WH100299]. The choice of music played in the bedroom when getting ready to go out is likely to mirror the type of music that will be playing when they hit the pub or club. The atmosphere created in bedroom space rolls out into the public sphere, with music in the bedroom working as one part of their wider social and cultural interests, hence getting the girls in the mood for future events. Leila goes on to explain that if she and a group of friends are just sitting about talking they would rather listen to R&B or soul, its nice to have it on in the background [WH10299]. So the motivations behind musical choice can vary. For example we see here distinct intentions behind musical choice, be it clubbing in the public sphere or chilling out in the private. Music evokes the appropriate feeling. Unfolding zones Importantly, a zone is not created solely from physical, social, mediated, atmospheric or temporal aspects, but rather it can be a complex and multi-layered interpretation of the activities taking place. Below, a sleeping zone or a getting in from a night out zone is discussed with reference to Kate and her friends, to exemplify the complex nature of zoning and the multi-layering of cultural activity in the creation of highly atmospheric bedroom space. For Eve, Leila and Kate, all 16, the bedroom plays a role not only in getting ready for a night out, but also in getting in from a night out. The activities they have taken part in on their night out (for example a pub or a nightclub) are transferred back into the bedroom, such as drinking alcohol, smoking and listening to music with a small group of friends. In this way the activities experienced within the public sphere of the pub or the club are zoned back into the private sphere of the bedroom. The re-created atmosphere of a pub or a club is further enhanced by the configuration of the bedroom in which the spontaneous integration of, for example the new technologies zone means access to technical items such as a stereo system. The girls may even continue the extension of this zone by using their mobile phones to invite other friends over, thus maintaining their interaction in both public and private space before zoning completely into the private. Lighting appeared to have a significant

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effect on the ambience of the bedroom (also highlighted by the boys), with the girls using lamps, fairy lights, lava lamps and candles to provide a dimmer light that mimics the lighting of a pub or club:
Eve: Leila: Kate: Ive got fairy lightsI had them around my bed at the other house, so I like them. I have a lava lamp as well. Ive got dimmer lights in my room upstairs. Well Ive got a lamp in my bedroom, cos I prefer the light and occasionally I have candles(WH10299)

The desire for soft lighting may be accounted for by the fact that a more subdued environment allows the girls to gossip more freely and without embarrassment about the events of the night; who fancied whom, who got off with whom and so on. It removes inhibitions and this is further aided by the consumption of alcohol, listening to mellow music, and generally winding down after a night of drinking and clubbing. Unfolding zones: media technologies The stereo system Music in bedroom spaces can come from a variety of different sources including the radio, a CD player, from the television (particularly if the occupant has satellite or cable access to music channels such as MTV), the Internet through downloads, an MP3, via a mobile phone or a Discman. The plethora of technology (Howard 1998; Livingstone & Bovill 2002, Osgerby, 2004) through which to listen to music itself plays a role in the construction of the overall ambience to be achieved in the space. This process can be complex and tied in with a number of choices and subchoices, such as who else is in the bedroom, how the teenager is feeling, what type of mood they are in, what else is going on in the bedroom, even what else is going on in other parts of the house. If a relaxed, laid back, atmosphere is desired in which the teenager is non-committal in terms of, say, specific song choices, this may be created through the radio. The radio as part of the stereo system is often associated with doing other things, something that is on in the background, for example in a car whilst driving or in the kitchen whilst cooking, or in a factory or an office whilst working. This too works for teenagers in that they listen to it when getting ready for school or college in the morning, or when they are doing their homework in the evenings and weekends. By simply pushing a button and choosing a channel, the teenager is able to listen to a variety of music that has not been pre-selected by them, a track listing that aurally they can dip in and out of depending on what music they like. What is interesting, too, about the use of the radio is the extent to which it facilitates and creates fantasy spaces for teenagers. In this respect there are similarities with McRobbie and Garbers (1991) findings regarding girls bedroom culture in the 1970s, although the findings of my own research suggest a rather different understanding of desire. For example, Julie and Sara, 12 and 13, talk about how hearing music on the radio makes them want to go to the places from which the music originates:

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Im dying to go to there [Ibiza]. On Galaxy 102 theres two tickets to give away. Why dont you ring up? [to SL] Ive told my mum to but she hasnt got the guts. Yeah, you have to wait for the right song to be heard and then when you hear that song you ring in. (G307000)

Throughout discussions with Julie and Sara, they often referred to public spaces outside of their bedrooms that they were starting to get curious about and wanted to explore. Music was a pathway out of the private sphere of the bedroom and into the public sphere of the city. For example, although they loved to get together and listen to music in their bedrooms, they also talked about teen club nights that they regularly went to, how they wanted to experience the music in a nightclub as well as at home on their stereo or on the radio. Their excitement was firstly for the music, then the experience of clubbing. But their musical interest also spilled into other zones within their bedrooms, for example into the fashion and beauty zone (Lincoln, 2004). Not only do the girls have to think about their experience of hearing their favourite music in public, but also they have to think about what they will wear, investing in themselves as reflexive projects (DeNora, 2000) using music as a medium and working towards their cultural mobilisation (DeNora, 2000) into the public sphere. Sara says:
This is what you wear [to a teen club night], stuff like this [Sara shows me a blue bandanna top with glitter and a black mini-skirt]. The last time I wore this with my knee-high boots. What did I wear the first time? The purple top I thinkno, a purple skirt and knee-high boots, everyone gets dressed up. Some people think theyre like royalty or something like thatits one of those places where you cant wear something twice, dyou know what I mean? (G30700)

So their interest in music from a CD playing in the bedroom, to the desire to experience the music in public spaces, filters into other cultural realms such as fashion and thus identity, and the continued creation of their individual cultural and social biographies. As Lefebvre suggests, social spaces interpenetrate one another and/ or superimpose themselves upon one another. They are not things, which have mutually limiting boundaries and which collide because of their contours or as a result of inertia (1991: p. 86). The blurring of public and private spaces is central to an understanding of contemporary teenage bedroom culture as through technology young people are able to dip in and out of each sphere at the touch of a button. Reimer says that the onslaught of mass media is largely responsible for the ever-increasing blurring of public and private boundaries and the ways in which daily life shifts from one sphere to another (1995: p. 58). He also argues that young peoples use of mass media means that they are constantly organising and reorganising both public and private spheres. This is unique to young people in that:
youth have more free time than adults and even if the whole of this is not spent at home, they are there in any case a fair amount of each day. Thus home becomes a sphere that must be constantly filled with meaning. (Reimer, 1995: p. 63)

Thus the interconnectedness of public and private spheres is achieved, as Reimer goes onto say:
A computer can open up a bedroom to the public and the media can make the public sphere more private. A personal stereo on the bus effectively cuts off the outside world while the

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choice of ghetto blaster in the same situation is a rather more expressive way either to privatise the bus trip or make ones private taste public. (Reimer, 1995: p. 64)

In my research, the use of the Internet was particularly integral to teenage boys bedroom culture and, as Ryan, 16, demonstrates below, the technology was often used in relation to musical interests. Unlike the communal musical practices of the girls discussed above, the use of the Internet for Ryan, for example in the creation of musical back catalogues and surfing the net for information on his favourite bands, is highly individualised. The Internet Ryan had a bedroom in the basement of his house. His bedroom was directly below the lounge used by members of the family for various activities such as watching television and eating. His bedroom was predominantly used for playing music. He said:
Often my parents will shout down at me to turn my music down cos they say they can hear it thumping in the lounge. Ive got a drum kit down there too and I like to make my own CDs, so Im playing music a lot. (WR90301)

Despite Ryans engagement with music being primarily an individual one-on-one activity, the sounds of the music do filter into and vibrate within other parts of the house, his music zone inevitably overflows, particularly if his stereo is played at a high volume. His musical interests, though, do not just flow within the physicalities of the home; there is also a virtual dimension to the creation of his individualised musical biography. The Internet is used to facilitate his musical interests, primarily in the form of musical downloads, the compiling of CDs, looking at and using websites of his favourite bands and talking with other music fans:
Wellit takes ages to download, like a whole album. But its good because I can download something from the Internet, Napster, onto disk and then I can put in onto CD. I know the addresses of the sites I go to a lot, Ive got my favourites which I keep to go back to. I look at bands websites; a lot of them have got a websiteif a bands got a review then I might look at their websiteIll have a look at that or chat to other fans about it. (WR90301)

The dynamics of zoning clearly shows up here as Ryan downloads music, burns it onto a CD, then plays the CD in his room or gives copies to his friends. So the music floats between the virtual and the physical. This relationship also crosses from private to public spaces as Ryan uses the Internet to keep up to date with bands that he likes to see perform live. As Ryan says:
I really like going to live gigs. On Sunday night I went to a concert and saw a few bands, two support bands and then there was the main band Less Than Jake- they were really good. I really like Korn and Im going to see Papa Roach in May. My mates in a band too and they do gigs at like the Star and Garter, so we sometimes go and see them. (WR90301)

So far we have examined the various ways in which music is used to shape a teenagers bedroom and to create a specific atmosphere through zones specifically related to music and associated technology. I have demonstrated that music is so embedded in the complexities of teenage culture; it is therefore essential to examine the ways in which musical choices are used to contribute to a young persons cultural biography. For example, by considering who actually influences young

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peoples music tastes and how these tastes evolve over time, we are able to see how this biography is translated within bedroom space itself, updating and adding to the work of McRobbie and Garber (1991) and DeNora (2000). Music and teenage cultural biography A teenagers bedroom tells the story of their cultural interests and social lives. From CDs to posters, club flyers to gig tickets, each adds to the cultural history of that space. Alongside this biography, music provides a soundtrack to this content held within the bedroom itself. But who is it that influences a teenagers music choices in the first place? Below I discuss the influence of parents and siblings on musical biographies. I have chosen this example specifically because the home (in which the bedroom is located) is primarily inhabited by family members and, according to Lefebvre, spatial interpretation is made primarily in relation to the activities of partial groups (familyetc) (1991: p. 117). Here we see the ways in which musical histories are part of cultural biography and, particularly in relation to age, how they are worked upon, how they are unique and how they are embedded in bedroom culture. Oliver, 16, talked about a number of different indie bands and stated that his major influence on his music tastes was his Dad:
SL: So what sort of indie music do you like Oliver?

Oliver: Oasis, Stereophonics, Manics [Manic Street Preachers]people like thatThe Charlatans, Richard Ashcroftstuff like thatIan Brown SL: Is that the sort of music youve been into for a while?

Oliver: Yeah, probably because of my Dad. My Dad used to buy indie CDs when I was about 8 or 9 and thats what I used to listen to all the time(S40700)

For Oliver, age is a referent of experience (DeNora 2000: p. 67). He is clearly marking out where his musical tastes stem from and the age at which his interest in indie music began. Musical biographies, like bedroom spaces, are evolutionary and this is likely to be reflected in bedroom content, for example in the form of posters, CDs, vinyl etc. Ellie, 18 years old, said that she and her 16 year old sister Rachel had similar music tastes to their Mum and that they would borrow each others CDs, blending a mixture of contemporary artists with more traditional, yet still popular, ones. There is an interesting and somewhat unusual hierarchy of musical taste in play here that recurred throughout the research process. Ellie talks about the profound influence that her Mums musical biography has had on her and her sisters. This is interesting in that traditionally young people are thought to reject outright the music tastes of their parents because to like the same things is supposed to be uncool. But as we see below, Ellie and Rachels cultural biographies are a multilayered and eclectic mix of musical decades, styles and genres. The evolving nature of cultural biography is highlighted here when Ellie says Kelis is our latest demonstrating how this multi-layering of musical biographies is continual:
SL: Ellie: So what sort of music do you listen to? Indie, dance, 60s, 70sthats it reallyand R&B.

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Rachel: Stone Roses Ellie: Yeah, all indie things innit and whats it calledKelis is our latest. We share our music with our mum, like Bob Marley and Macy Gray. (M20401)

However, this did not necessarily mean that they would listen to the music together. It was much more likely that they would borrow the music from each other and listen to it in the privacy of their own bedrooms, making it their own unique listening experience as part of their identity space. Their music tastes were very similar but their listening experiences different and individualised. Sharing a bedroom makes such differences problematic. For example Bethan, 13 shared with her sister, 7. Bethan talks about the ways in which the presence of her sister in the bedroom interferes with her own cultural pursuits, one of which was listening to music. She said:
One day I was sat on my bed and it collapsedshes always jumping on it and it bugs me because Im stood there trying to put a CD on and all I can see in the mirror is her jumping up and down. (LS60201)

So whilst Bethan is looking for somewhere to relax and listen to music, the space is invaded by her younger sister, who is more interested in playing. The bedroom becomes a contested space. Bethan goes on to explain the ways in which the boundaries of their bedroom space are marked out. Even if this cant be achieved through the actual sound of music, it can be done through other media forms related to it, for example posters of her favourite bands or artists. As Bethan comments:
On my sisters side of the room theres Tweenies and Pokemon [both childrens cartoons] posters and posters of Steps [a pop band], whereas I just have a little picture of Sisquo [the R&B artist]. (LS60201)

Music, in this case, is a politicising tool through which to firm up boundaries, make a mark, reclaim space and to demonstrate domination not only over pieces of equipment through which music can be played but also over the space as a whole. There are specific socio-spatial arrangements of space alongside musical choice. In terms of the construction of a cultural biography, music plays a central role and, as I have shown in the examples above, the roots of this musical identity can be familial as well as influenced by friends and peers. Moreover, these musical biographies are historical in that they are made up of an eclectic mix of both traditional and more contemporary musical styles. These biographies are constantly worked on, are evolving alongside the cultural interests of each teenager fusing both public (as we have seen above in the case of Julie and friends going to teen club nights) and private space (presented in the case study of Ryan) intermittently. Conclusions For teenagers in contemporary society, music plays an integral role in the construction and evolution of their cultural lives; it is a soundtrack (DeNora, 2000). For teenagers in bedroom culture, music is not one-dimensional, nor an ideological map of romance for teenage girls as McRobbie and Garber (1991) suggested, but rather the dynamics of the musical experience are multiple for both teenage boys

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and girls. Music is one of the primary cultural forms through which young people are able to transform the mundane space of the bedroom, understood here through the concept of zoning (Lincoln, 2004), into an atmospheric zone, an ambient space with a cultural meaning. Essentially, the creation of this atmosphere is controlled by the teenager, who occupies that bedroom space as part of the reflexive project of the self (DeNora, 2000: p. 67). The ways in which music is used depends on the way the teenager is feeling at any particular time, what other activities they are engaged in and what might be going on in their public social lives. Therefore, the transformation of bedroom space through music is spontaneous, of the moment and is multi-layered, thus blurring public and private boundaries. We see this for example in Kates recreation of club space in her bedroom using music primarily as a chill out tool but also achieving this atmosphere through the consumption of alcohol and the use of lighting; music sets the tone and space is arranged accordingly. In updating McRobbie and Garbers (1991) bedroom culture and expanding upon DeNoras (2000) notion of music as soundtrack, the role of new technologies, specifically the stereo system and the Internet, was explored to highlight the ways in which technology enhances the musical experiences of young people in bedroom culture, as both an individualised and shared experience. The use of this technology in the construction of ambient, musical, space demonstrates again the multi-layered nature of bedroom space; the private flowing into the public and back again via virtual zones and the evolution of musical biographies as teenagers get older and become more curious about the public domain of the musical experience. Finally, the influence of music on teenage cultural biographies often has both a contemporary and an historical dimension. I have demonstrated above, for example, the influence that parents have on their childrens musical choices, showing that their musical histories are unique, embedded and worked upon, transitional. The meaning of this music spills into the space of the bedroom through content (posters, CDs etc). If bedroom space is shared, the dominance of one siblings music tastes over another is usually dictated by age (primarily through volume and control of the equipment). This is an effective way of marking out spatial territory. Music then, is not just significant as resonant sound in contemporary bedroom culture, but also as a complex tool of identity construction, reflection and evolution. References
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