Categorizing Sound addresses the relationship between categories of music and categories of people: in other words, how do particular ways of organizing sound become integral parts of whom we perceive ourselves to be and of how we feel connected to some people and disconnected from others? Through a series of case studies ranging from the race music and old-time music of the 1920s through country and R&B of the 1980s, David Brackett explores the process of "gentrification" through which these genres are produced. Using in-depth archival research and sophisticated theorizing about how musical categories are defined, Brackett has produced a markedly original work.