The value of the study of art and place has become well-advanced in Art History, Geography and other fields in recent years. For instance, Tuan (2004a, 2004b) likens art works to ‘cousins, twice or three times removed’ of places, since they can appeal to the senses and to the values and preferences of those experiencing them. He further argues that art works can capture and convey some slice of time and experience, in a manner in which words are not necessarily as well equipped to do. But little work has considered musical practices in relation to place-making, despite Tuan’s description of music as ‘the supreme art’ in evoking and communicating our sensual imaginations of and experiences in place (Tuan, 2004a, 52). My PhD project seeks to explore the interrelated processes of music- and place-making in three town settlements in the south-east of Ireland: Carlow, Kilkenny (city), and Wexford. I understand places as woven meshworks of lived experiences, memories, and rhythms (Ingold, 2011; Adams et al., 2001; Buttimer, 1976; Tuan, 1977), in which music-making or ‘musicking’ (Small, 1998) happens. Rather than focus on music as an object or output, my work investigates the particular and varied ways in which these everyday processes of making music and place are co-constitutive, shaping and affecting each other. In this essay, I discuss my theoretical framework, what I term the ‘musical ecology of place’, which draws on perspectives from a wide variety of disciplines and approaches, as well as illustrate my approach through research in progress.