Introduction

Abstract

Queers have always listened widely, repurposing straight sounds for the music theorist’s “queer ear,” a concept that stands in contrast with queer soundings, by queer composers, who are also investigated in this volume. Privileging provisional, idiosyncratic, and non-normative listening practices, a queer ear enables us to counter music theory’s tendencies toward rationality, unity, unilinearity, teleology, and logical certainty. What unites the investigation of queer ear and queer soundings is the repurposing of “hard” music-theoretical apparatuses, as well as “soft” apparatuses like narratology and cultural theory, for queer ends. These repurposings contribute to the search for general principles—or “theory”—of queering that counters mainstream music theory’s proclivities, encouraging everyone to experiment with queer ways of listening.