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Instrumentality in the Expanded Field of Music Composition

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Instrumentality in the Expanded Field of Music Composition Instrumentality in the Expanded Field of Music Composition Kevin William Davis A dissertation presented to the faculty of the University of Virginia in candidacy for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Music University of Virginia May 2017 Copyright © 2017 by Kevin William Davis. All rights reserved. ii Abstract This dissertation develops a materialist musical analysis of instrumentality in music composition. Building on the work of Bruno Latour, Martin Heidegger, James J. Gibson, and others, I develop a theory of musical instrumentality that lays the groundwork for alternative readings of often-marginalized compositional practices. To develop this concept of instrumentality and the materialist musical hermeneutic it implies, I draw from theoretical discourses concerned with objects, tools, equipment, and instruments before proceeding to musical instruments specifically. By presenting the musical instrument as an integral part of the compositional frame, I point towards a materialist theory of music, providing an alternative framework for contemporary practices. Chapter 1 introduces a basic conceptual framework and summarizes the state of scholarship regarding instrumentality and composition. Chapter 2 examines the emergence of music that foregrounds musical instrumentality, focusing on the high modernist period of 1957-1969 or “the long sixties.” This music is interpreted as embodying the central crisis of subject-object relations in modernism as defined by Latour. I show how instrumentality is in flux during this period, indicative of a problematic relationship while also pointing towards possible resolutions. Chapter 3 analyzes the tools of music and instrumentality from a Heideggerian perspective, focusing on and critiquing his Broken Tool analogy. Chapter 4 considers a specifically musical instrumentality, drawing ideas from ecological psychology and phenomenology, to consider the processes of instrumentalization and reinstrumentalization. Chapter 5 contextualizes my creative work in regards to these ideas. iii Acknowledgments I would like to first express my gratitude to Ted Coffey, my dissertation chair. His insights and encouragement throughout this process were vital. I would also like to thank my committee, Matthew Burtner, Karl Hagstrom Miller, and Christa Robbins. Each of them brought important ideas to this dissertation. I am indebted to other members of the UVA faculty who provided feedback, including Judith Shatin, Michael Puri, Luke Dahl, Michelle Kisliuk, Fred Maus, Scott DeVeaux, and Rita Felski. I am also grateful to Kamran Ince, Robert Reigle, and Pieter Snapper and the rest of the faculty and staff of MIAM in Istanbul, who helped me lay the groundwork for this research. This document grew largely out of a seminar on enactive music by Juraj Kojs. In that seminar, I also got to know my doctoral cohort: Chris Peck, Braxton Sherouse, and Paul Turowski. Throughout my doctoral work, each of them has offered critical perspectives, kept me focused and inspired, and provided invaluable personal support. I am also indebted to Victor Szabo, Bonnie Jones, Brian Hulse, and Peter Bussigel, each of whom introduced me to aspects of philosophy and theory that became integral to this research. I would also like to thank Ryan Maguire, Jon Bellona, and Kristina Warren for their enthusiasm and willingness to help me work through these ideas. Eli Stine, Travis Thatcher, and Jon contributed technical assistance throughout this research. I am appreciative of Tyler Miller for his detailed proofreading. Lastly, I would like to thank my family—my father Gary and my brother Jeff who have long been supportive of my work and my unconventional path through life. iv Dedication For my mother v Table of Contents Abstract ..................................................................................................................................... iii Acknowledgments ..................................................................................................................... iv Dedication .................................................................................................................................... v Table of Contents ...................................................................................................................... vi Table of Figures ...................................................................................................................... viii Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 2 1. The Case for Instrumentality ....................................................................................... 5 Towards a Materialist Musical Theory .................................................................................... 5 Musica Instrumentalis .............................................................................................................. 6 In Composition ......................................................................................................................... 9 Sculpting in Time ................................................................................................................... 12 Acts of Composition ................................................................................................................. 17 Actants of Composition ......................................................................................................... 21 In Musicology ........................................................................................................................ 25 Philosophical Musicology: The Composite Body ................................................................. 28 Materialist Approaches ............................................................................................................ 29 A Political Economy of Music ............................................................................................... 29 Musicking .............................................................................................................................. 32 Ethnomusicology and Material Musical Culture ................................................................... 33 The Non-Human Turn ............................................................................................................. 36 New Materialism .................................................................................................................... 37 2. Here Comes Everything ............................................................................................... 41 Modernist Aesthetics and the Total Configuration ............................................................... 41 A Fetishism of Means ............................................................................................................ 41 The Total Configuration and the Long Sixties ...................................................................... 43 An Age of Wire and String ...................................................................................................... 45 Pianos Afford X ..................................................................................................................... 50 Piano Burning ........................................................................................................................ 55 The Isolated Instrument .......................................................................................................... 59 Objekt Musik .......................................................................................................................... 62 Afrological Traditions ............................................................................................................ 63 Technology ............................................................................................................................ 66 Noise ...................................................................................................................................... 68 We Have Never Been Modern ................................................................................................. 70 Objects Become the Subject .................................................................................................. 74 Action, Danger, New Cartographies ...................................................................................... 75 Tools Order a World .............................................................................................................. 78 Musique Informelle ................................................................................................................ 82 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................. 84 3. The Broken Tool ......................................................................................................... 85 Un-readiness-to-hand ............................................................................................................... 85 Dis-closure, Re-vealing .......................................................................................................... 89 vi Tool-Being ............................................................................................................................. 91 Critiques ...................................................................................................................................
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