This is a redraft of my PhD dissertations' introduction. I tried to be as concise as possible and kept it to two pages. We'll see what this version morphs into! There is also an audio version available below.
There are many factors that may influence a sound artist’s creative practice in Western European Classical Music (WECM). Zembylas and Niederauer write in their book that when asked about their education and process, composers ‘find themselves in a culturally hyper-encoded referential space, which is structured in part by the canon and in part by morals, and which they view with varying degrees of ambivalence’ (2018:43). This is due in part to canon fundamentalism and what bell hooks calls the ‘white supremacist capitalist patriarchy’ (2005). WECM staff-based notation most readily supports the aesthetics and performance practices of Europe. As a legacy of colonialism, it is the most prevalent form of notation taught in conservatoires and universities not only in Europe, where it originated, but also throughout the Americas, in Australasia, and in parts of Africa and Asia. Though composers falling outside of the white male norm have always managed to find places for themselves in the classical music ecosystem (Thurman, 2013; Schumann, 2023; Ngwe n.d.; de Brito n.d.; Slater n.d.), their works have frequently been marginalized, and they have been denied access to performances, financial supports, and recognition—continuing a pattern of erasure. McClary writes that women composers often discover throughout their careers that, ‘many of the forms and conventional procedures of presumably value-free music are saturated with hidden patriarchal narratives, images, [and] agendas’ (1991:154). Sexism and racism are a part of WECM’s historical narrative, and we can see this in the programming of orchestras (Deemer and Meals, 2022), the erasure of Black composers and performers (Thurman, 2013; Schumann, 2023), the effects of gender-based programming discrimination (Doolittle and Banas, 2018), and the control white people have had over BIPOC artists’ bodies (Robbins, 2023). Because of how marginalised voices have been erased and or pushed to the fringes, the way in which marginalised composers experience notation systems has not been studied thoroughly. How might our identities in race, gender, and disability affect our compositional process? What are the parameters for us to succeed within a white-majority industry? And, as we navigate the ‘hyper-encoded [WECM] referential space’, how is our process affected, changed, or morphed? When do we have agency and when do we not?
Many of the composers Zembylas and Niederauer interviewed also site the influence of language in their work. ‘The centrality of language manifests itself in the fact that creative composition practices unfold not only in a sensory-auditory manner, but also in verbal discourse’ (43). But problems arise when language, in this instance English and German, are part of a history of coloniality and imperialism. Luis Navarro Del Angel, a live coding musician, often works to bridge the distance between live coding’s English dependency and Spanish coding musicians (n.d.). The effect is that more people outside of the contemporary European framework gain access to live coding. Artists have also begun to make coding languages based on Yoruba and other West African languages. Although Zembylas and Niederauer’s book shows the compositional process of five Austrian-based composers in great depth, the demographics of the composers does situate their research outcome within a Eurological framework (Lewis, 2002). Interviewees were professional contemporary art music composers, ages 35-55, with 10-30 years of experience, all living in Austria at the time of interview ‘with similar occupational and institutional constraints’ (5). All composers are white having come from Germany, Austria, Poland, and Croatia. This PhD project seeks to continue the type of work Zembylas and Niederauer have done while focusing on the experiences of Latinx composers living in the diaspora. The project will analyse the various ways our identities in race, gender, and disability may or may not inform our compositional practices and why.
We know that that the remnants of coloniality still affect musicians within the so called ‘new music’ scene (Dharmoo, 2019). Our identities are often flattened when working within the white racial frame of the WECM industry (Ewell, 2020). There are several live coding musicians in Latin America, West Central Africa, and Asia working to tackle the Western imperialism embedded in the global tech sector (Temkin, 2021; Nasser, 2018; Skuse, 2020; Hinojosa; 2020; Cocker 2017). It is through these perspectives that I aim to reveal in more detail the relationship a sound artist has with their notation and or coding system. I will look at how and why in our creative processes we negotiate our identities in race, gender, and disability. I know through my own practice that when I bring in my identities into a piece, I often have to negotiate the intensity of their representation. The negotiation affects my compositional choices, the notation system I use, the symbols I choose, and is also affected by the performers I work with and the audience (if I know ahead of time the date and place of a performance). I would not, for example, write an overtly queer, Mexican piece for a premier in a majority white, conservative city—even in 2022! I have realised that how I and others access race, gender, and disability severely impacts my compositional choices and I have shaped this project to investigate this very issue. This is directly tied to the remnants of coloniality and reveals the extent of WECM’s ‘white supremacist capitalist patriarchy’ (2005).
If we begin to understand the score and code as an active rather than neutral media object, and we understand its capacity to absorb societal anxieties (Jameson, 1979), then we can see that the score and code act like a filter. This filter, I argue, is what has been historically ‘hyper-encoded’ by and for the ‘white supremacist capitalist patriarchy’. It is only through direct contact with the filter, with score, notation, and code, that we can reveal our own relationship to the ‘white supremacist capitalist patriarchy’ and its effects on our identities in race, gender, and disability.
References - In Order Used
Dharmoo, G., 2019. 'Reflections of coloniality in the new music scene.' Intersections 39, 105–121.
Zembylas, T., Niederauer, M., 2017. Composing Processes and Artistic Agency: Tacit Knowledge in Composing, 1st ed. Routledge, Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2017. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315443928
Jhally, S., Patierno, M., Jhally, S., Hirshorn, H., 2005. bell hooks—Cultural criticism & transformation.
Thurman, K., 2013. A History of Black Musicians in Germany and Austria, 1870-1961: Race, Performance, and Reception.
Schumann, G., 2023. 'A Black Composer’s Legacy Flourishes 500 Years After His Birth.' The New York Times.
Ngwe, U., n.d. plainsightSOUND. https://www.plainsightsound.com/
de Brito, E., n.d. The Daffodil Perspective. https://www.mixcloud.com/TheDaffodilPerspective/stream/
Slater, A., n.d. Diversify the Stand. https://www.angelaslatercomposer.co.uk/diversify-the-stand.html
MCCLARY, SUSAN. Feminine Endings: Music, Gender, and Sexuality. NED-New edition, University of Minnesota Press, 1991. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5749/j.ctttt886. Accessed 28 Jan. 2023.
Deemer, D.R., 2022. 2022 Orchestra Repertoire Report.
Robbins, H., 2023. 'Positionality and self-advocacy: reflections on Lena Horne and directions in musical theatre scholarship.' Live presentation at Royal Conservatoire of Scotland.
Navarro del Angel, L., n.d. Artist Website: https://www.luisnavarrodelangel.net/#about
Lewis, G.E., 2002. Improvised Music after 1950: Afrological and Eurological Perspectives. Black Music Research Journal 22, 215–246. https://doi.org/10.2307/1519950
Ewell, P.A., 2019. 'Music Theory and the White Racial Frame'. A Journal of the Society for Music Theory 26:2. https://mtosmt.org/issues/mto.20.26.2/mto.20.26.2.ewell.html
Nasser, R. (2018) “A Personal Computer for Children of All Cultures”, in Decolonising the Digital: Technology as Cultural Practice. Sydney: Tactical Space Lab, pp. 21-36. Available at: http://ojs.decolonising.digital/index.php/decolonising_digital/article/view/PersonalComputer (Accessed: 28January2023).
Temkin, D., 2021. Coding in Indigenous African Languages [WWW Document]. esoteric.codes. URL https://esoteric.codes/blog/african-programming-languages (accessed 1.28.23).
Skuse, A., 2020. 'Disabled Approaches to Live Coding, Cripping the Code'.
Cadavid Hinojosa, L.P. (2020). Electronic _Khipu_: Thinking in Experimental Sound from an Ancestral Andean Interface. Computer Music Journal44(2), 39-54. https://www.muse.jhu.edu/article/801763.
Cocker, E., 2017. 'Weaving Codes/Coding Weaves: Penelopean Mêtis and the Weaver-Coder’s Kairos', TEXTILE 15:2,124-141,DOI: 10.1080/14759756.2017.1298233
Jameson, F., 1979. Reification and Utopia in Mass Culture. Social Text 130–148. https://doi.org/10.2307/466409