A THOUSAND DISSONANCES

Abstract

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1. A compelling account of the impact of neo-liberalism on subjectivity is given in Davies and Saltmarsh (2007 Davies , Bronwyn , and Sue Saltmarsh . 2007 . Gender economies: Literacy and the gendered production of neo-liberal subjectivities . Gender and Education 19 ( 1 ): 1 – 20 .[Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). 2. Analyses of music and the historical overviews of music analysis in various publications support this view. See, for example, the following widely used analytical textbooks: Nicholas Cook, A Guide to Musical Analysis (1987 Cook , Nicholas . 1987 . A guide to musical analysis . London and Melbourne : J.M. Dent . [Google Scholar]) and Allen Forte, The Structure of Atonal Music (1973 Forte , Allen . 1973 . The structure of atonal music . New Haven, , CT and London : Yale University Press . [Google Scholar]). These are focused on music of the Western tradition and its male composers. Male composers also dominate discussion in the following: Bent and Drabkin (1984 Bent , Ian , with William Drabkin . 1984 . The new Grove handbooks in music: Analysis . London : Macmillan . [Google Scholar]), Pople (1994 Pople , Anthony 1994 . Theory, analysis and meaning in music . Cambridge : Cambridge University Press . [Google Scholar]), and in recent issues of Music Analysis, Perspectives of New Music and Music Theory Spectrum. Although critical of the positivist approaches to analysis, Kerman's Musicology (1985 Kerman , Joseph. 1985 . Musicology . London : Fontana/Collins . [Google Scholar]) does not specifically identify women as an unrepresented group in his call for the discipline to embrace criticism. Fred Maus's critique (1993) reveals analysis to be like a science-oriented theory, which might be one reason for the absence of women's music. 3. The earliest challenge was issued by Joseph Kerman (1980 Kerman , Joseph. 1980 . How we got into analysis, and how to get out . Critical Inquiry 7 : 311 – 31 .[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]), followed by another from Kerman in Musicology (1985). As Kofi Agawu notes, Kerman's book (1985) was ‘a key text in debates about the nature and purposes of musicology from the mid-1980s onwards’ (2004, 280). Maus (1993 Maus , Fred Everett . 1993 . Masculine discourse in music theory . Perspectives of New Music 31 ( 2 ): 264 – 93 .[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) was among the early voices calling for the inclusion of feminist theory in music analysis. Other challenges to musicology for a more critical perspective came from important figures such as Susan McClary (1989 Mcclary , Susan . 1989 . Terminal prestige: The case of avant-garde music composition . Cultural Critique 12 : 57 – 81 .[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar] 1991 Mcclary , Susan . 1991 . Feminine endings: Music, gender, and sexuality . Minneapolis and Oxford : University of Minnesota Press . [Google Scholar]); Lawrence Kramer (1992 Kramer , Lawrence . 1992 . The musicology of the future . Repercussions 1 ( 1 ): 5 – 18 . [Google Scholar] 1993 Kramer , Lawrence . 1993 . Music criticism and the postmodernist turn: In contrary motion with Gary Tomlinson . Current Musicology 53 : 25 – 35 . [Google Scholar]); Philip Brett (1994 Brett , Philip. 1994 . Musicality, essentialism and the closet . In Queering the pitch: The new gay and lesbian musicology P. Brett , E. Wood and G.C. Thomas . London and New York : Routledge . [Google Scholar]); Rose Subotnik (1991 Subotnik , Rose . 1991 . Developing variations: Style and ideology in Western music . Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press . [Google Scholar]); Gary Tomlinson (1993 Tomlinson , Gary . 1993 . Musical pasts and postmodern musicologies: A response to Lawrence Kramer . Current Musicology 53 : 18 – 24 . [Google Scholar]); Ruth Solie (1993 Solie , Ruth . 1993 . Introduction: On ‘difference’ . In Musicology and difference: Gender and sexuality in music scholarship Ruth A. Solie . Berkeley and London : University of California Press . [Google Scholar]); more latterly, Robert Fink (1999 Fink , Robert. 1999 . Going flat: Post hierarchical music theory and the musical surface . In Rethinking music N. Cook and M. Everist . Oxford : Oxford University Press . [Google Scholar]); and numerous others. 4. While there has been a tendency in some quarters for the terms ‘critical’ musicology and ‘new’ musicology to be used interchangeably, it is important to note that the US ‘new musicologists’ came under fire from the UK ‘critical musicologists’ for their apparent lack of self-reflexivity and for failing to recognise the biases of their accounts of modernism, which they were accused of perpetuating. See Clarke (2004 Clarke , David. 2004 . Editorial: Twentieth-century music—plural . Twentieth Century Music 1 ( 2 ): 155 – 59 . [Google Scholar], 156). It is also important to note that while these debates are happening in the Northern hemisphere there is a virtual silence from Australia musicology. 5. The earliest disparaging review of McClary's work was given by Pieter C. Van den Toorn (1991 Van Den Toorn , Pieter C. 1991 . Politics, feminism, and contemporary music theory . Journal of Musicology 9 ( 3 ): 257 – 99 .[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). He followed this with an attack on the ‘new’ musicology in his book Music, Politics, and the Academy (1995 Van Den Toorn , Pieter C. . 1995 . Music, politics, and the academy . Berkeley and Los Angeles : University of California Press . [Google Scholar]), in which he stressed the importance of structural analysis. He argues that focusing on cultural issues diminishes the experience and value of music. Ruth Solie (1991 Solie , Ruth . 1991 . What do feminists want? A reply to Pieter van den Toorn . Journal of Musicology 9 ( 4 ): 399 – 410 .[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]) provided a measured response to Van den Toorn's initial criticism of McClary, but ultimately she sides with the feminist position. Other reviews, many of which are negative, include Elaine Barkin (1992 Barkin , Elaine. 1992 . Either/other . Perspectives of New Music 30 ( 2 ): 206 – 33 . [Google Scholar]), to which McClary herself replied (1992 Mcclary , Susan . 1992 . A response to Elaine Barkin . Perspectives of New Music 30 ( 2 ): 234 – 239 . [Google Scholar]); Treitler (1993 Treitler , Leo. 1993 . Gender and other dualities of music history . In Musicology and difference: Gender and sexuality in music scholarship Ruth A. Solie . Berkeley and London : University of California Press . [Google Scholar]); Higgins (1993 Higgins , Paula . 1993 . Women in music, feminist criticism, and guerrilla musicology: Reflections on recent polemics . 19th Century Music 27 ( 2 ): 174 – 92 .[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]); Kallick (1993 Kallick , Jenny . 1993 . Review . Journal of Music Theory 37 ( 2 ): 391 – 402 . [Google Scholar]); Sayrs (1993/94 Sayrs , Elizabeth. 1993/94 . Deconstructing McClary: Narrative, feminine sexuality, and feminism in Susan McClary's Feminine endings . College Music Symposium: Journal of the College Music Society 33–34: 41–55. [Google Scholar]); and Temple (1996 Temple , Mary Kay . 1996 . War inna babbelogue . The Musical Times 135 ( 1841 ): 5 – 9 . [Google Scholar]). See also Martin (1995 Martin , Peter J. 1995 . Sounds and society: Themes in the sociology of music . Manchester and New York : Manchester University Press . [Google Scholar]). 6. Significant among the number of books to surface during in this period were: McClary (1991 Mcclary , Susan . 1991 . Feminine endings: Music, gender, and sexuality . Minneapolis and Oxford : University of Minnesota Press . [Google Scholar]); Citron (1993 Citron , Marcia . 1993 . Gender and the musical canon . Cambridge : Cambridge University Press . [Google Scholar]); Cook and Tsou (1994 Cook , Susan C. , and Judy J. Tsou 1994 . Cecilia reclaimed: Feminist perspectives on gender and music . Urbana and Chicago : University of Illinois Press . [Google Scholar]); Green (1997 Green , Lucy. 1997 . Music, gender, education . Cambridge : Cambridge University Press .[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]); Macarthur and Poynton (1999 Macarthur , Sally , and Cate Poynton 1999 . Musics and feminisms . Sydney : Australian Music Centre . [Google Scholar]); Hisama (2002 Hisama , Ellie M. 2002 . Gendering musical modernism: The music of Ruth Crawford, Marion Bauer, and Miriam Gideon . Cambridge : Cambridge University Press . [Google Scholar]); and Macarthur (2002 Macarthur , Sally . 2002 . Feminist aesthetics in music . Westport, , CT : Greenwood . [Google Scholar]). There were also a number of articles published in journals and books, including a sustained effort to keep women's music on the agenda by key figures such as Eva Rieger, Susan McClary, Suzanne Cusick and Ruth Solie. Suzanne Cusick has recently taken over the editorship of the annual Women & Music: A Journal of Gender and Culture, which focuses on women's music. 7. Perhaps the most noteworthy example, owing to its almost exclusive attention given to music by male composers in the early 1990s, was the journal Perspectives of New Music, which included a feminist theory forum. See, in particular, Perspectives of New Music 1992, 30 (2): 202–43; 1993, 31 (2): 230–93; 1994, 32 (1): 8–88; and 1994, 32 (2): 148–49. 8. Koskoff substantiates this claim in a footnote, citing a wide-ranging array of recent literature written from the respective genre-perspectives. 9. I have borrowed the clever title of Koskoff's article which signifies just about all the possible ways in which she would conceive her genderist ethnomusicological work to be viewed: ‘left out’, ‘out in left field’, ‘left the field’ or simply ‘left’. 10. She suggests that a separation between genderist ethnomusicology and musicology began to emerge in the 1990s, an observation confirmed from a search of over 1,500 books and articles written since the 1990s on women and music, with more publications devoted to Western musicology and significantly less to ethnomusicology. See Koskoff (2005, 90–93). 11. See, for example, publications associated with the ‘new’ or ‘critical’ musicology from around the turn of the twenty-first century, such as: Cook and Everist (1999 Cook , Nicholas , and Mark Everist 1999 . Rethinking music . Oxford : Oxford University Press . [Google Scholar]), which includes one article out of 24 devoted to gender and feminism, and a sprinkling of others which deal with feminist issues and politics in among larger discussions of music; Born and Hesmondalgh (2000 Born , Georgina , and David Hesmondalgh 2000 . Western music and its others: Difference, representation, and appropriation in music . Berkeley and London : University of California Press . [Google Scholar]); Lochhead and Auner (2002 Lochhead , Judy , and Jospeh Auner 2002 . Postmodern music/postmodern thought . New York and London : Routledge . [Google Scholar]); Clayton, Herbert, and Middleton (2003 Clayton , Martin , Trevor Herbert , and Richard Middleton 2003 . The cultural study of music: A critical introduction . New York and London : Routledge . [Google Scholar]); and Dell'Antonio (2004 Dell'antonio , Andrew 2004 . Beyond structural listening? Postmodern modes of hearing . Berkeley and London : University of California Press .[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). 12. See Macarthur (2007 Macarthur , Sally . 2007 . Gender and the tertiary music curriculum in Australia . In Music in Australian tertiary institutions: Issues for the 21st century . Available from http://www.nactmus.org.au/NACTMUS2007/tertiary_music_curriculum.html [Google Scholar]). Statistics also paint a dismal picture for women composers in the concert hall. Jennifer Fowler's analysis (2006 Fowler , Jennifer . 2006 . The BBC Proms: Where are the women? Journal of the IAWM 12 ( 2 ): 21 – 22 . Also published as: Fowler, Jennifer. 2006–2007. Where are the women? Music Forum 13 (1): 24–25. [Google Scholar]) of the British Proms, with data gathered from 1989 to 2006, showed that women's music constituted less than 1 per cent of music programmed in the Proms (with more than 100 composers represented each year), and that in 2006 there were no women composers and no women conductors represented. Macarthur's analysis of women's music performed by Australian music groups in the period 1985–1995 showed that of a total of around 15,000 works their music constituted less than 2 per cent of all music performed, a statistic which dropped to 1 per cent in 2004–2005. See Sally Macarthur (2006a Macarthur , Sally . 2006a . The cultural work of the musical work: Light Sorrow (1985), Black Sun (1989) . In Intercultural music: Creation and interpretation Sally Macarthur , Bruce Crossman , and Ronaldo Morelos . Sydney : Australian Music Centre . [Google Scholar] b Macarthur , Sally . 2006b . Raising the platform for women . Music Forum 12 ( 2 ): 40 – 43 . [Google Scholar]). These data yielded a statistically significant result and have been shown to resemble other statistics which, from time to time, are posted to the e-mail membership list of the International Alliance for Women in Music (IAWM). 13. Green (1997 Green , Lucy. 1997 . Music, gender, education . Cambridge : Cambridge University Press .[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) identifies the links between music and ideology in British secondary education, demonstrating how patriarchal attitudes towards femininity and women's music are maintained, reproduced and become self-perpetuating. 14. Agawu makes the point that: ‘we are urged to look beyond formalism and positivism, and to embrace criticism, especially his (Kerman's) brand of criticism. Interpretations, not facts, are in short supply, we are told’ (2004, 267; emphasis added). 15. Braidotti suggests that ‘human bodies caught in the spinning machine of multiple differences at the end of postmodernity become simultaneously disposable commodities to be vampirised and also decisive agents for political and ethical transformation’ (2005, 171). 16. See Halberstam (2005, 76–92), where she suggests that the relations between time and space, between ‘seeing and not seeing, appearing and disappearing, knowing and not knowing’ (2005, 78) necessarily, at some point, render the transgendered character in the film Boys Don't Cry invisible in order to remain viable. 17. The ‘nomad’ is a philosophical concept drawn from Deleuze that was developed by Braidotti (1994 Braidotti , Rosi . 1994 . Nomadic subjects: Embodiment and sexual difference in contemporary feminist theory . New York : Columbia University Press . [Google Scholar]). It is an analytical device that is applicable to subjectivity and for thinking about the ways in which subjects transgress boundaries and subvert conventions. It makes multiple connections and is in a constant state of flux. It is both dynamic and transgressive. According to Elizabeth Gould, nomadism includes a figuration that is at once metaphorical and embodied in an intellectual style and consciousness that suggests alternative subjectivities, making possible political agency in the context of fluid identities. It represents a theoretical style in design, and analysis of research that is fundamentally expressive and material. (2004 Gould , Elizabeth. 2004 . Feminist theory in music education research: Grrl-illa games as nomadic practice (or how music education fell from grace) . Music Education Research 6 ( 1 ): 67 – 80 .[Taylor & Francis Online] , [Google Scholar], 68) Applied to the institutional setting of music, the nomad could be conceived as a feminist who simultaneously works within and outside the conventions of institutional practice. In this conception, the feminist nomad musicologist is actively resistant to the authority of the institution as it attempts to constrain its mobility and produces work that is both political and theoretical. 18. Another work of Boyd's that makes a similar extra-musical connection as Angry Earth to events in the wider social domain is Black Sun for orchestra (1989, pub. 1998), which is a musical reflection on the Tiananmen Square massacre. 19. In an interview on Radio National with Andrew Ford, Saturday 16 September 2006 (2006b), Boyd described how she embodied the anger of the work. 20. Tacey states that: ‘The revelation of the sacred in this country will … be profoundly feminine. The feminine face of God is creational, embodied and immanental … To emphasise this feminine dimension means that we have revealed and unconcealed the feminine aspect of God the Father’ (2000, 256). While recognising that both men and women have access to the feminine, Tacey suggests that there is a discernable paradigm shift underway in which women's contribution to culture is becoming more visible than it has ever been hitherto. He says that the ‘masculine principle’, which has dominated the institutional Judaeo-Christian Church for centuries, ‘requires grounding, “incarnation”, and reinvigoration through passionate involvement in the mysteries of the feminine and in natural creation’ (2000, 102), adding that, ‘women, the body and nature constitute the missing Trinity in our Western religious traditions, philosophical and sociopolitical world view’ (2000, 232).