UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
Los Angeles
Yoko Ono’s Experimental Vocality as Matrixial Borderspace:
Theorizing Yoko Ono’s Extended Vocal Technique and her Contributions to the
Development of Underground and Popular Vocal Repertoires, 1968 - Present
A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction
of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Musicology
by
Shelina Louise Brown
2018 © Copyright by
Shelina Louise Brown
2018
ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION
Yoko Ono’s Experimental Vocality as Matrixial Borderspace:
Theorizing Yoko Ono’s Extended Vocal Technique and her Contributions to the
Development of Underground and Popular Vocal Repertoires, 1968 - Present
by
Shelina Louise Brown
Doctor of Philosophy in Musicology
University of California, Los Angeles, 2018
Professor Timothy D. Taylor, Chair
This dissertation involves the development of a theoretical framework for understanding non-normative gendered vocal subjectivities emergent within counter- hegemonic, experimental vocal performances. In particular, I choose to focus on the extended vocal techniques of Yoko Ono that were developed in the context of her late
1960s and early 1970s collaborations with the Plastic Ono Band, and later came to exert a significant influence upon underground vocalists from the late 1970’s to the present day. As a theoretical foundation for my work, I primarily draw upon post-Lacanian feminist psychoanalyst, Bracha L. Ettinger’s Matrixial Borderspace (2006), adapting her lexicon for the analysis of experimental vocalities. In proposing a musicological