dropping

About a month ago I blogged about taking a music theory class that examined the repertoires of selected modernist composers. While I was concerned about my ability to take a music theory course, I had high hopes for this class. I particular, I hoped to integrate music theory in my ethnographic studies of new music. Perhaps I would learn of certain analytic metaphors that would correspond to some aspect of my fieldwork.

Last week, I dropped the course from my schedule. In spite of the instructor's assurances to the opposite, I felt that my perspective was not really welcome. I also had trouble analyzing pieces of music with the hopes of explaining how they "worked." All of my training has encouraged me to approach music subjectively and with a consideration to the sociocultural domain. The literature we read for the class, however, seemed concerned with proving some sort of structural functionalism, and always carried an assumption of intrinsic worth and operation. I just couldn't do it.

Dropping that class was scary, but I feel like it was the right thing to do. I found the obliteration of living people from the musical works troubling, and I kept remembering interviews with musicians who work hard at connecting people and music through physical action. Don't their efforts count for something?

But I did learn a few important things. I'm starting to believe that the scientific and structuralist approach seeks to explain the deeply personal and spiritual experiences of classical music theorists. By adopting an ostensibly objective approach, the theorist seems to preserve the integrity of a sacred object. The resulting object's autonomy is part of an extremely important aspect of art music culture, and art culture in general, as sociologist Pierre Bourdieu has argued.

So now I find myself wondering about and examining how I experience music, especially classical music. To what extent do I experience musical works as powerful sacred objects? Only recently have I become aware of the bodies that make musical works, a subject Suzanne Cusick has written about and that ethnomusicology has become deeply concerned with. As a person who basically loves classical music, how are my beliefs and experiences shaped by an aesthetic of autonomy?

a/rhythmia, again

I've finally gotten around to listening to Alarm Will Sound's new album, a/rhythmia, and I've gotta say something. It totally rocks. The group displays an amazing range of musical styles, and presents them in a really pleasing arrangement. One track moves easily to the next, shifting from the playful frivolity of "Highland Balls and Village Halls" from Animals and the Origin of Dance by Benedict Mason to the happy innocence of Conlon Noncarrow's Player Piano Study 6. This is just a great album, a real pleasure. Alarm Will Sound sounds terrific, in my opinion better than on some of their other albums. While I'm likely to later deconstruct the album and explore the cultural politics therein, for now I'm having a great time listening. Buy this album!

a/rhythmia

With pleasure, I'd like to promote the new album of Alarm Will Sound, new music ensemble par excellence. The album, titled a/rhythmia, is a compilation of arrangements and compositions selected from various Alarm Will Sound concerts. The idea, I believe, comes from a series of concerts performed during the group's 2007/2008 seasons. Sound clips can be heard here. I'm pumped to see another album by the group, especially one that features a variety of composers. All of their earlier albums featured a particular composer, and I while I really enjoy those CDs, it's nice to see something that demonstrates the stylistic range that AWS employs in concert.

Tough Calls

So here's the deal. I had to choose two classes for this term at Western Ontario. Initially, I wanted to take Introduction to Interdisciplinary Analysis taught by Jonathan Burston of the Faculty of Media Studies and Emily Ansari's seminar on Shostakovich and Copland. Unfortunately, Burston's class was full, so I looked for and found another interesting course: Chris Roulston's Queer and Feminist Pedagogies. After an exchange of emails, a waiting list, and assurances that I had the cultural studies chops for the class (which I do) I got in. I was very excited, especially as I'm becoming increasingly interested in gender and related topics.

But the serendipitous fit I found in one class led to a conflict with another. Chris's class met at the same time as Emily's. Bummer. So I started searching for another class. Again.

After some discussion with faculty, I settled on the Selected Composer Study course with John Cuciurean (pronounced Koocheren). His class will survey musical works by Pierre Boulez, Milton Babbitt, György Ligeti, George Crumb, and Igor Stravinsky from the mid 20th century. (btw, who names a baby Igor? I know he was born in the 19th century, but come on! Do you you really want a grave robbing sidekick for a kid?). On one hand, this class is a great fit for me. I study new music, these guys wrote new music. I haven't had a class that covers this repertoire, and here's one that does.

On the other hand, the analytic approach might be a problem. This is a music theory course (duh duh DDUUUHHH). I haven't exactly had a great relationship with this field. In fact, at several points in my Master's thesis, I expressly criticized music theory, citing, in particular, its maintenance of objectivity where none exists, the intentionally difficult nature of its devices, and the relative pointlessness of certain music theory pursuits. That last one is in a footnote. I'm also worried about my competency to take this course. I've started reading a few of the articles assigned about George Crumb, and both rely heavily on set theory. I'm not totally lost with set theory, but it slows me down a lot. Oh, and for added drama, my girlfriend is a music theorist and all the issues I’ve raised here have lead to major arguments. So I am, needless to say, concerned about this class.

Amidst these emotional, intellectual, and personal concerns however, I find important sources of inspiration. First of all, nobody, at least to my knowledge, has combined music theory and ethnographic techniques for new music. Maybe I’m crazy, but I feel like there’s real potential for insightful research there. Structural analyses could provide a useful backdrop to a broader ethnographic study of the new music cultures. Indeed, structuralism and its associated tools carry a significant symbolic capital in new music, at least for some people.

Second, if I’m going to be critical about a field, I might as well see what’s happening in that field. In some ways, my earlier criticisms have been based on the bad instructors who taught music theory at the University of Tennessee. (As one friend put it, “I can’t believe they’re allowed to offer a master’s in music theory at UT.”) And isn’t it a least possible that some meaningful things can come out of structural analysis? Surely people aren’t going into music theory careers without believing in their work.

Finally, I wonder how much any of it matters, anyway. I argue for a different approach to new music. So what? In the end, what does any academic field offer, particularly cultural studies, where it’s turtles all the way down?

Who knows? Maybe I’ll learn something. For now, I'm catagorizing my work in the class and my related fears under "entry into the field."

Cheap tricks, part 2

And, here's the promised second installment from the final chapter of my thesis.

In the course of my work on this project, I also began to question the accepted institutionalization of classical music. In my experience, “music” as an undergraduate college major typically addresses a comparatively narrow range of cultures and includes only certain peoples (and times, genres, contexts, social classes, etc.). Only in my graduate education did I become aware of the wealth of musical practices in the world and the inadequacy of my prior knowledge. Moreover, I came to see that, before my graduate work, I had perceived music in terms that echoed the opinions of my informants: I shunned commercial music and exoticized musics that I understood as foreign. I also believed in the intrinsic superiority of difficult music.

In hindsight, I find the preconceptions I once held disconcerting, especially when I consider that I earned an undergraduate degree in music education. Whose music was I preparing to teach, and to whom? The answers that my curriculum presumed were “the greatest music ever written” and “to everybody,” respectively. Such universalist beliefs seem to fuel many people’s rationalization for teaching, performing, listening to, and otherwise consuming art music. Indeed, art music historically has been exempted from cultural studies precisely because of its status as an objectified collection of masterworks.

I have thus come to see and even appreciate western art music as a cultural practice. A long time practitioner of classical music and product of patronage systems, I understand and relate to the style in a very personal and even fulfilling way. But I can no longer support the presentation of art music as appealing to all people, regardless of their cultural background.

Further, through my study of Bourdieu’s theories, I realized that academic culture operates according to parameters that mirror those of artistic culture. Difference certainly helps produce existence in academic cultures, though straying too far from the norm can result in exclusion. We too seek institutional patronage and circulate symbolic capital, such as degrees, awards, fellowships, and recognition by prominent publishers and societies. Similar modes of institutionalization, as well as the frequent education of art musicians in colleges and universities, underscore and enhance the similarities between new music and academic cultures.

Cheap tricks

As I wait for classes to begin at Western, I find myself in a bit of a scholastic holding phase. So I am doing what any self respecting nerd in training would: catching up on some long intended reading. After a failed attempt to read Judith Butler, I remembered that I've been meaning to check out the "Cyborg Manifesto" by Donna Haraway. It's a really interesting analysis of gender and technology, and I hope to apply it to new music, and maybe to Pamela Z in particular.

In the meantime, I thought I'd post excerpts from the final chapter of my thesis. Yes, it's a bit of a cheap trick, but what the heck?

From Chapter 5: Reflections and Conclusions

Many of my perspectives on classical and new music have changed while writing this thesis. When I first began research for this project a year and a half ago, I hoped to find people interested in saving classical music in general and in promoting new music to contemporary audiences specifically. I found many people who espoused this goal, and many who shared my concerns and interest. I discovered and increasingly became part of an avid community of bloggers and musicians frequently debating topics such as survivability and accessibility in art music. And many of the musicians in Alarm Will Sound, eighth blackbird, and even Yarn/Wire described their desires to connect with a broader audience.

While I had found the types of communities, musicians, and discussions I had sought, I increasingly began to question the elitist nature of new music practice and the neocolonialist rhetoric of its strategies. My training as an ethnomusicologist encouraged me to examine the cultural representation and western confrontations of “the other.” With these concepts in mind, I found myself frequently disturbed by what I perceived to be insensitivity to such issues.

As I became increasingly disillusioned with classical and new music, I found discomfort in interactions with, and statements advanced by, many of my friends, colleagues, and informants. I continue struggle to distinguish between the “field” and my personal life (Clifford & Marcus, 1986), and I can no longer listen to new music without consciously reflecting on the culture’s potential exploitation of others, including popular and non-western musicians. Indeed, even as I wrote this conclusion, I spoke with a friend in the doctoral composition program at Indiana University whose attitudes toward cultural appropriation troubled me. Prior to writing this thesis I would have debated with him moral questions surrounding of the use of non-western music and the ramifications of such activities. This time, however, I chose to let the issue pass because I knew the discussion would result in endless exchanges over what constituted appropriation, and that his indoctrination in classical music would prevent him from sympathizing with my perspective.

Next time: More from Reflections and Conclusions!

Concerns

After my defense I circulated copies of my thesis to the ensembles and individuals I discussed. One of the biggest surprises I had was the response from one musician (I'm going to keep the person anonymous). The interlocutor in question took issue with a lot of what I said in the thesis, in particular the concept that difference equals opposition when applied to one of the ensembles in the thesis. Ultimately I decided to disagree about a collection of theoretical points while conceding others. We exchanged emails and I made several changes to the document based in the person's concerns.

But the whole experience has my thinking. Did I really do a good job with this project? How ethnographic is my thesis, after all? In my intro chapter, I made the following statement:

Cultural theorist John Van Maanen has argued that ethnography posits “questions at the margins of two cultures [those of the ethnographer and the people he or she studies]” (1988, p. 4). Van Maanen’s observation brings to light the constructedness of ethnography in general, and illustrates the subjectivity of my own research. Whenever possible, I have endeavored to share with my interlocutors my interpretations of the activities I have observed. Ultimately, the constructs, frames, and language I employ describe my own position as much as those of my informants (Kisliuk, 1997).

Reflecting on this I have realized the following potential polemic. My culture, academia, required a finished document by a certain date. The document had to meet certain requirement of form and content. I only had a limited amount of time to conduct fieldwork. In my desire and effort to meet these requirements, I have likely shortchanged certain aspects of new music culture that interlocutors would find deeply significant and meaningful. And I still have not elaborated on a sound structure/social structure framework for new music. The closest I came was in a post about tenets of new music that never made it into the final document.

I'm not saying that the thesis sucks, or that it has nothing to offer. I am confident in myself, my panel of advisers, and the informants who complemented my efforts. But I want to keep working on this. There's so much more to do, and I need more fieldwork, more conversations. I need to actually create relationships with the people I study. I want to better understand and analyze their concerns and desires. I want to create a significant contribution to academic literature that frames new music in humanizing terms. One that includes the complexities, contradictions, and marvels of the people who create and participate in new music.

I can't rely on blogs so much this time. This time I need much more face to face interaction whenever and wherever possible. And I need different tools, new theoretical frames that address metaphor, gender, and class.

I've got four years at the University of Western Ontario. I hope it's enough to produce some really good work. After that, I need to get a job where, hopefully, I can keep working, keep expanding and contracting my perspective.