Enjoying Gospel Drumming: an Investigation of ‘Post-Racial’ Appropriation, Consumption, and Idealization in Contemporary Black Musicianship
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Enjoying Gospel Drumming: An Investigation of ‘Post-Racial’ Appropriation, Consumption, and Idealization in Contemporary Black Musicianship by Daniel Stadnicki A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Affairs in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Music and Culture Carleton University Ottawa, Ontario ©2012, Daniel Stadnicki 1 Library and Archives Bibliotheque et Canada Archives Canada Published Heritage Direction du 1+1Branch Patrimoine de I'edition 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington Ottawa ON K1A0N4 Ottawa ON K1A 0N4 Canada Canada Your file Votre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-93587-3 Our file Notre reference ISBN: 978-0-494-93587-3 NOTICE: AVIS: The author has granted a non L'auteur a accorde une licence non exclusive exclusive license allowing Library and permettant a la Bibliotheque et Archives Archives Canada to reproduce, Canada de reproduire, publier, archiver, publish, archive, preserve, conserve, sauvegarder, conserver, transmettre au public communicate to the public by par telecommunication ou par I'lnternet, preter, telecommunication or on the Internet, distribuer et vendre des theses partout dans le loan, distrbute and sell theses monde, a des fins commerciales ou autres, sur worldwide, for commercial or non support microforme, papier, electronique et/ou commercial purposes, in microform, autres formats. paper, electronic and/or any other formats. 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Canada Abstract: In this paper, I will examine the implications of post-racial ideology as a form of anti-racism in the 21st century. I argue that post-racial positions can detrimentally affect collective understandings of difference, diminish awareness of the persistence of racism and of the difficult history of race relations in North America, and pose a number of theoretical issues for the study of popular music and culture. Drawing upon critical race theory, ethnomusicology, popular music studies, and the work of Slavoj Zizek— particularly his theory enjoymentof as a political factor—this study will outline how the capitalistic ideal of instant gratification is invested in post-racial outlooks. As a case study, I will refer to my research on black Pentecostal ‘gospel drumming’ and on the mainstream drumming industry in order to frame this discussion. 2 Acknowledgements: Thank you to William Echard for your constant guidance and support throughout the development of this project; to James Deaville for your incredible generosity and encouragement; to my fellow classmates and MCGSS members for the fun and engaging environment; to Jesse Stewart, Geraldine Finn, Paul Theberge, and James Wright for our countless discussions and your consequent inspirations in my work; to Anna Hoefnagels for connecting me with Regula Qureshi at the University of Alberta; to Leslie MacDonald-Hicks for our illuminating discussions on everything musical and theological; to Karen Burke at York University for helping me secure interview participants early on in this study; to Tara, Chris, and Cory for opening your homes and talking frankly with me in person and via Skype; to my loving parents, family, and band mates for everything that they do and believe. I am grateful to both the Ontario Provincial Government (Ontario Graduate Scholarship) and the Social Sciences Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) for funding this work. This thesis is dedicated to Michy. 3 Table of Contents: Introduction.......................................................................................................5 Chapter 1. Case Study: Gospel Drumming.................................................................................................. 13 A. The Church as Site of Musical Habitus: Mapping the Historical and Religious Contexts of Black Pentecostalism ......................................................................... 18 I. The Spirit, Professionalism, and the Intangibility o f‘Feel’.......................................................... 22 B. Branding the Inexpressible: Tensions and Issues in the Commodification and Professionalization of Gospel........................................................... 31 I. Shedding, Shouting: Gospel Chops and Linear Drumming.....................................40 II. Gospel as a Drumming Style................................................ 43 III. Mainstream Narratives and Presentations of Gospel Drumming: Objective Techniques, Particular Contexts ............................ 48 IV. Racial Reverberations .............................................................56 2. Positioning the Logics of Post-Racial Ideologies................................................................................................. 62 C. Music and Culture: Mapping the Relevance of Ideology Critique................................63 I. Laying the Groundwork: Post-ideology, Culturalization, and Depoliticization............. 66 II. The Post-Racial Frame (or, the Romance of Upward Mobility).................................74 D. Problematics: Three Analyses of Post-Racial Music Consumption...................... 87 I. The (Capitalistic) Ideology of Authenticity in Popular Culture: Consuming ‘Real’ Gospel...................................................... 87 II. Constructing‘BlackMusic:’ Academia and Americanization............................................. 97 III. The Question of Pleasure in a Post-Racial, Multicultural Context: ZiZek’s Theory of Enjoyment and its Musical Implications 106 3. Racism Within the Society of Unprohibited Enjoyment............................................................................................... 116 I. Subjective Ontologies of Pleasure and Consumption: The Limits of Relativism and Counter-Cultural Ideology... 117 4. Conclusion.............................................................................................. 136 5. Bibliography........................................................................................ 141 4 Introduction: This thesis will examine and problematize a number of issues that were raised in my study of a recent development in mainstream drumming culture: ‘gospel drumming.’ In many international drum magazines, websites, and music instrument retail stores, gospel products and topics have saturated the market and its discourse—most apparently in the form of educational DVDs; appearances by gospel drummers at drum conferences and festivals; special edition gospel-labeled sticks, cymbals, and drums; as well as in thousands of web videos and discussion boards that debate and represent gospel drumming in different ways. Its cultural association with black Pentecostal religiosity is signified both implicitly and explicitly throughout these diverse spaces of drumming consumer culture, articulating ‘gospel’ within a discourse of specific consumer interests, ideologies, and judgments. In some respects, this often-overt cultural association with a distinctly American drumming style is juxtaposed with many techniques and products that are not ‘culturalized’ in the same way (e.g., linear patterns, or snare rudiments, such as ‘paradiddles,’ etc.), with the result that these techniques and products are rendered seemingly neutral in terms of ethnicity and cultural basis. In contrast, and often at the same time, the discourse situates gospel drumming within an overview of distinctly African American musical developments and contributions (e.g., jazz, New Orleans second-line drumming, for instance) such that it is historically positioned within a narrative of melting pot American nationalism. Similarly and more generally, culturalized and cross-cultural genres like Afro-Cuban, West African, and Latin-jazz are often framed in a world music/world rhythms context in the mainstream drumming industry, fostering practices of multicultural inclusivity, collaboration, and mutual appropriation which can 5 obscure boundaries between gospel drumming, African American music in general, and other musics of the African diaspora. However, there exists a conflicting element in the gospel drumming discourse, one that reinvigorates a number of longstanding debates within popular music studies and ethnomusicology. The techniques and patterns of gospel drumming are often expressed through a rhetoric of objectivity and neutrality—as the impartial appropriation of drumming skills and the reduction of all forms of music to notational representations— while simultaneously there exists a profound emphasis on aspects of the style which are implicitly or explicitly asserted to be authentic and innate aspects, which problematically evokes notions of musical essentialism and racial understanding. What could explain