Queer Music Theory

Lee, Gavin

doi:10.1093/mts/mtz019

Cited by 5 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…Babbi once referred to his 1930s interest in 12-tone music somewhat ironically, saying that other composers "knew something of my deviant interests" (Amirkhanian and Babbi 1984). I find that, in retrospect, Hilferty's "deviant ear, a queer ear" confession has new resonance, as Gavin Lee (2020) finds commonality between queer theory and the phenomenological theories of Babbi 's protégé David Lewin.…”

Section: Interpenetrable Meaning and Pushing The Horizon Of Possibilitymentioning

confidence: 87%

Portmantonality and Babbitt’s Poetics ofDouble Entendre

Mailman

2020

MTO

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This essay presents a theory of musical and verbal double entendre inspired by and applicable to the late-period music of Milton Babbitt. Rather than assuming the appropriateness of any single method (which might tend toward singularity of meaning), a number of approaches are applied to three late works: primarily his Whirled Series (1987), and secondarily his Canonical Form (1983) and Gloss on ’Round Midnight (2001). These are interpreted through various kinds of analysis, not only serial, but also tonal (chordal and voice-leading), associational, pitch-permeational, and form-functional. Connections to Tin-Pan-Alley song lyrics, jazz improvisation, hermeneutics, and Gibsonian affordances are discussed in relation to these musical analyses. All this is done to infer and cultivate connections (represented as a conceptual integration networks) between Babbitt’s extra-theoretic verbal expression and extra-dodecaphonic aspects of his music, connections that suggest an underlying poetics (a tacit motivational philosophy implicitly fueling his creativity) that provides pragmatic benefit to the artistic ambitions of diverse personal identities.

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Section: Interpenetrable Meaning and Pushing The Horizon Of Possibilitymentioning

confidence: 87%

Portmantonality and Babbitt’s Poetics ofDouble Entendre

Mailman

2020

MTO

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“…33 Ibid., 278-283. 34 Duggan 2002 35 Lee 2019, 145, quoting Lewin 1986, 382. 36 Sofer 2014 kind of metaphorically embodied perspective without actually betraying how one's body comes to be oriented within and among academic and scholarly spaces.…”

Section: Pitfalls Of Music Theory's Homonormative Discoursementioning

confidence: 99%

Specters of Sex. Tracing the Tools and Techniques of Contemporary Music Analysis

Sofer¹

2020

ZGMTH

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Music has often served as a vehicle for sexual expression. But within a musical context saturated with many sonic phenomena, music-analytical tools can be limited in their ability to pinpoint evidence of sex acts, pleasure, or satisfaction. Centering on sonic experience and perception, this article challenges the common trope of the disembodied and disinterested music theorist by proposing that, rather than neglecting sexual discourses, like-minded music theorists have instead established a veritable field founded on the commonly-held belief that sex and music are (in some cases) interchangeable. The article proposes that the meta-theorization of these engagements constitutes a discursive "social epistemology" thereby positioning such diverse contributions as part of the core music-theoretical "standard" of what was once called "mainstream music theory." Musik hat oft als Mittel für sexuellen Ausdruck gedient. Doch können musikanalytische Werkzeuge innerhalb eines musikalischen Kontexts, der von einer Vielzahl an Klangphänomenen erfüllt ist, in ihrer Fähigkeit eingeschränkt sein, sexuelle Handlungen, Genuss oder Befriedigung festzumachen. Dieser Artikel untersucht, fokussiert auf das Erleben und Wahrnehmen von Klängen, sexuell inspirierte Musik und vergleicht sie mit erfahrungsorientiertem sexuell-verkörperten Schreiben über Musik. Durch eine Auseinandersetzung mit analytischen Ansätzen zu musikalisch-sexuellem Engagement, zeigt der Artikel auf, dass Musiktheoretiker*innen Diskurse über Sexualität kaum vernachlässigt haben, und hinterfragt so das Stereotyp des körper-und interesselosen Musiktheoretikers. Gleichgesinnte Theoretiker*innen haben hingegen einen Forschungsbereich entwickelt, der auf der Überzeugung basiert, dass Sex und Musik (in manchen Fällen) austauschbar sind. Der Artikel verdeutlicht, dass die Entwicklung einer Metatheorie für dieses Engagement eine diskursive "soziale Erkenntnistheorie" konstituiert. Damit erweitert der Artikel diese vielfältigen Beiträge und positioniert sie als Teil des Kerns musiktheoretischer "Standards" innerhalb der einst sogenannten "mainstream music theory".

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Music Theory’s Therapeutic Imperative and the Tyranny of the Normal

Straus¹

2021

Music Theory Spectrum

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Traditional music theory rationalizes abnormal musical elements (like dissonant or chromatic tones or formal anomalies) with respect to normal ones. It is thus allied with a medical model of disability, understood as a deficit or defect located within an individual body, and requiring remediation or cure. A newer sociocultural model of disability understands it as a culturally stigmatized deviance from normative standards for bodily appearance and functioning, analogous to (and intersectional with) race, gender, and sexuality as a source of affirmative political and cultural identity. The sociocultural model of disability suggests the possibility of a disablist music theory, one that subverts the traditional therapeutic imperative and resists the tyranny of the normal. Disablist music theory is music theory without norms, and without a commitment to wholeness, unity, coherence, and completeness—those fantasies of a normal, healthy body. Instead, disablist theory brings the seemingly anomalous event to the center of the discussion and revels in the commotion and discombobulation that result: it makes the normal strange. In the process, it opens up our sense of what music theory is and might be.

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Queer Music Theory

Cited by 5 publications

References 20 publications

Portmantonality and Babbitt’s Poetics ofDouble Entendre

Portmantonality and Babbitt’s Poetics ofDouble Entendre

Specters of Sex. Tracing the Tools and Techniques of Contemporary Music Analysis

Music Theory’s Therapeutic Imperative and the Tyranny of the Normal

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