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Many aspects of contemporary North Indian classical vocal music are gendered: genres, improvisational techniques and even certain ornaments evoke gendered connotations for musicians and listeners. However, analytical work on this music has failed to take gender into account; as a result, the relationship between gender and musical sound remains unexamined. In this article, I explore how issues of gender might come to bear on the close analysis of North Indian classical vocal music. First, I give an overview of the gendered musical landscape of the tradition. I then draw upon work by Judith Butler in order to theorise this in terms of what I call 'sonic performativity': I argue that North Indian classical musicians perform gender sonically and that this influences the subtlest nuances of musical style. Finally, I demonstrate ways in which considerations of gender inform the stylistic decisions of one singer, detailing how she negotiates gendered musical norms.
How might empirical musicology come into conversation with other ways of researching music? Discussions about interdisciplinarity in music studies have animated the pages of this journal since its first issue. Of particular concern have been questions about the possible relations between systematic, experimental, scientific, formalized or statistical approaches for studying music and other research methods, such as ethnography. Some of these discussions have involved attempts to classify and distinguish between different methodologies, or to locate them within broader historical trajectories in the study of music (
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