How do people relate to the music they value? Listening is a central relation, but there are many... more How do people relate to the music they value? Listening is a central relation, but there are many others. As Charles Keil observed, people may find music, be invaded by music, use music, participate in music, and so on. This chapter explores a relation that may be called possessing music or owning music. Theodor W. Adorno and Simon Frith both emphasized such relations in the context of their very different accounts of mass-media music. A psychoanalytic approach, drawing on the ideas of Melanie Klein and D. W. Winnicott, clarifies the nature of these relations. A close reading of ethnographic interviews from the collection My Music shows some of the specific forms that such relations can take, which are different for every individual.
Quodlibet Revista De Especializacion Musical, 2003
Es una traduccion de: Narrative, drama and emotion in instrumental music. Publicado en "The ... more Es una traduccion de: Narrative, drama and emotion in instrumental music. Publicado en "The Joumal of aesthetics and art crlticism" 55:3 (verano de 1997). Ed. Blackwell
Music theorists often suggest that performance can communicate analytical insights. I disagree, a... more Music theorists often suggest that performance can communicate analytical insights. I disagree, arguing both experientially and by an analogy with Donald Davidson's philosophy of language. Composition and performance are better understood as stages in a unified process; thus, both as composition or, perhaps better, both as performance. First written and presented 1989, revised 1997-98.
Shifty harmonies in ‘West End Girls’This first section is for readers interested in technical mus... more Shifty harmonies in ‘West End Girls’This first section is for readers interested in technical musical analysis. Others may wish to skip ahead to the next section: while one of my goals is to link technical, interpretive and political concerns, it is possible to read this paper with relatively little attention to the technicalities.At the beginning of the Pet Shop Boys' ‘West End Girls’, after some street sounds and a sustained chord, there is a three-chord progression (Cmaj7, D, E), mingling harmonies from the keys of e minor and E major (0:21-0:24; see Example 1). The bass-line goes up, with a major triad over each note; only the third chord is free of additional, dissonant notes. The second chord sounds like a way of passing smoothly from the first one to the third.
Page 1. A CONVERSATION ABOUT FEMINISM AND MUSIC PAULINE OLIVEROS AND FRED MAUS INTRODUCTION THE C... more Page 1. A CONVERSATION ABOUT FEMINISM AND MUSIC PAULINE OLIVEROS AND FRED MAUS INTRODUCTION THE COMPOSER Pauline Oliveros has often written about music; her writings from 1963 to 1980 are collected in a book called Software for ...
WHAT RELATION might music theory have to feminist thought?1 This question might be heard as propo... more WHAT RELATION might music theory have to feminist thought?1 This question might be heard as proposing an interdisciplinary linkage, a cooperation between two initially self-sufficient discourses. But before trying to construct such a linkage, it is important to consider ...
... same details? No account of music as a loose conjunction between, on one hand, ingeniously pa... more ... same details? No account of music as a loose conjunction between, on one hand, ingeniously patterned sounds, and on the other hand, ex-pressions or evocations of various emotional states, will be plau-sible. A better account ...
The lyrics of the rock group R.E.M. repeatedly address issues of personal privacy, often figuring... more The lyrics of the rock group R.E.M. repeatedly address issues of personal privacy, often figuring privacy spatially through description of an enclosed space. Given the usual topics of rock songs, this is a surprising theme. This essay explores R.E.M.'s treatment of privacy by commenting on three individual songs, discussing the lyrics in conjunction with musical and performative aspects of the songs. Consideration of R.E.M.'s lyrics is likely to focus on Michael Stipe, the singer for the group. He is almost always the creator and performer of the texts, and so it is natural to assume that the words and singing somehow evoke Stipe's own self-expressive subjectivity-not necessarily through direct literal self-depiction, but perhaps through continuities between Stipe's creative work and other aspects of his life. Thus, Michael Stipe will be central to this article. Stipe is known for the obscurity of many of his lyrics and, especially in earlier recordings, his unclear enunciation in singing the songs. These impediments to full communication relate to my topic: they are, themselves, public performances of privacy. The lyrics of the songs I discuss fall somewhere between Stipe's most difficult verbal texts and his most transparent. As I understand it, my task in discussing such songs is to unfold meanings without introducing false clarity. Thus, someone who desires lucid solutions for R.E.M.'s enigmas might become impatient with my style, which often seeks to respect and perpetuate the irresolute nature of the songs themselves. I shall discuss the three songs in detail, treating them with the close attention more often directed to "art music." This reflects my conviction that such attention is one way to enrich the experience of these songs, despite their origin in the somewhat different context of popular music. 1 Readers will, sooner or later, need to hear recordings of the songs and read transcripts of their lyrics (the latter readily available online) in order to follow my descriptions.
... "This is exactly the kind of 5 Babbitt, Words about Music, ed. by Steven Dembski and... more ... "This is exactly the kind of 5 Babbitt, Words about Music, ed. by Steven Dembski and Joseph Straus (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1987), pp. ... RESPONSE TO ROSENWALD thing you often miss in Schenker: explicit discussion of motivic par-allelism..." (p. 133). ...
How do people relate to the music they value? Listening is a central relation, but there are many... more How do people relate to the music they value? Listening is a central relation, but there are many others. As Charles Keil observed, people may find music, be invaded by music, use music, participate in music, and so on. This chapter explores a relation that may be called possessing music or owning music. Theodor W. Adorno and Simon Frith both emphasized such relations in the context of their very different accounts of mass-media music. A psychoanalytic approach, drawing on the ideas of Melanie Klein and D. W. Winnicott, clarifies the nature of these relations. A close reading of ethnographic interviews from the collection My Music shows some of the specific forms that such relations can take, which are different for every individual.
Quodlibet Revista De Especializacion Musical, 2003
Es una traduccion de: Narrative, drama and emotion in instrumental music. Publicado en "The ... more Es una traduccion de: Narrative, drama and emotion in instrumental music. Publicado en "The Joumal of aesthetics and art crlticism" 55:3 (verano de 1997). Ed. Blackwell
Music theorists often suggest that performance can communicate analytical insights. I disagree, a... more Music theorists often suggest that performance can communicate analytical insights. I disagree, arguing both experientially and by an analogy with Donald Davidson's philosophy of language. Composition and performance are better understood as stages in a unified process; thus, both as composition or, perhaps better, both as performance. First written and presented 1989, revised 1997-98.
Shifty harmonies in ‘West End Girls’This first section is for readers interested in technical mus... more Shifty harmonies in ‘West End Girls’This first section is for readers interested in technical musical analysis. Others may wish to skip ahead to the next section: while one of my goals is to link technical, interpretive and political concerns, it is possible to read this paper with relatively little attention to the technicalities.At the beginning of the Pet Shop Boys' ‘West End Girls’, after some street sounds and a sustained chord, there is a three-chord progression (Cmaj7, D, E), mingling harmonies from the keys of e minor and E major (0:21-0:24; see Example 1). The bass-line goes up, with a major triad over each note; only the third chord is free of additional, dissonant notes. The second chord sounds like a way of passing smoothly from the first one to the third.
Page 1. A CONVERSATION ABOUT FEMINISM AND MUSIC PAULINE OLIVEROS AND FRED MAUS INTRODUCTION THE C... more Page 1. A CONVERSATION ABOUT FEMINISM AND MUSIC PAULINE OLIVEROS AND FRED MAUS INTRODUCTION THE COMPOSER Pauline Oliveros has often written about music; her writings from 1963 to 1980 are collected in a book called Software for ...
WHAT RELATION might music theory have to feminist thought?1 This question might be heard as propo... more WHAT RELATION might music theory have to feminist thought?1 This question might be heard as proposing an interdisciplinary linkage, a cooperation between two initially self-sufficient discourses. But before trying to construct such a linkage, it is important to consider ...
... same details? No account of music as a loose conjunction between, on one hand, ingeniously pa... more ... same details? No account of music as a loose conjunction between, on one hand, ingeniously patterned sounds, and on the other hand, ex-pressions or evocations of various emotional states, will be plau-sible. A better account ...
The lyrics of the rock group R.E.M. repeatedly address issues of personal privacy, often figuring... more The lyrics of the rock group R.E.M. repeatedly address issues of personal privacy, often figuring privacy spatially through description of an enclosed space. Given the usual topics of rock songs, this is a surprising theme. This essay explores R.E.M.'s treatment of privacy by commenting on three individual songs, discussing the lyrics in conjunction with musical and performative aspects of the songs. Consideration of R.E.M.'s lyrics is likely to focus on Michael Stipe, the singer for the group. He is almost always the creator and performer of the texts, and so it is natural to assume that the words and singing somehow evoke Stipe's own self-expressive subjectivity-not necessarily through direct literal self-depiction, but perhaps through continuities between Stipe's creative work and other aspects of his life. Thus, Michael Stipe will be central to this article. Stipe is known for the obscurity of many of his lyrics and, especially in earlier recordings, his unclear enunciation in singing the songs. These impediments to full communication relate to my topic: they are, themselves, public performances of privacy. The lyrics of the songs I discuss fall somewhere between Stipe's most difficult verbal texts and his most transparent. As I understand it, my task in discussing such songs is to unfold meanings without introducing false clarity. Thus, someone who desires lucid solutions for R.E.M.'s enigmas might become impatient with my style, which often seeks to respect and perpetuate the irresolute nature of the songs themselves. I shall discuss the three songs in detail, treating them with the close attention more often directed to "art music." This reflects my conviction that such attention is one way to enrich the experience of these songs, despite their origin in the somewhat different context of popular music. 1 Readers will, sooner or later, need to hear recordings of the songs and read transcripts of their lyrics (the latter readily available online) in order to follow my descriptions.
... "This is exactly the kind of 5 Babbitt, Words about Music, ed. by Steven Dembski and... more ... "This is exactly the kind of 5 Babbitt, Words about Music, ed. by Steven Dembski and Joseph Straus (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1987), pp. ... RESPONSE TO ROSENWALD thing you often miss in Schenker: explicit discussion of motivic par-allelism..." (p. 133). ...
Presentation for a conference in New York City, December 2015, in honor of Suzanne Cusick's resea... more Presentation for a conference in New York City, December 2015, in honor of Suzanne Cusick's research and teaching in musicology. The paper is partly memories of my interactions with Suzanne, and includes comments on her paper "On a Lesbian Relationship with Music."
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