Erance of My Committee As a Whole: Henry Klumpenhouwer in Music, Rob
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
University of Alberta Music, Media, and Subjectivity: On The Limits of Determinism by Mickey Vallee A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Music Department of Sociology ©Mickey Vallee Spring 2010 Edmonton, Alberta Permission is hereby granted to the University of Alberta Libraries to reproduce single copies of this thesis and to lend or sell such copies for private, scholarly or scientific research purposes only. Where the thesis is converted to, or otherwise made available in digital form, the University of Alberta will advise potential users of the thesis of these terms. The author reserves all other publication and other rights in association with the copyright in the thesis and, except as herein before provided, neither the thesis nor any substantial portion thereof may be printed or otherwise reproduced in any material form whatsoever without the author's prior written permission. Examining Committee Henry Klumpenhouwer, Primary Co-Supervsior, Music Rob Shields, Secondary Co-Supervisor, Sociology Leo Mos, Psychology Doug Aoki, Sociology Jan Jagodzinzky, Education Will Straw, Art History and Communication Studies, McGill University DEDICATION For Oma and Opa. ABSTRACT This thesis explores the limitations of determinism in regards to music, media, and the constitution of subjectivity. Its methodological resource is derived from a synthesis between media ecology, social psychoanalysis, and music semiotics. The case studies describe the incorporation of nostalgia into popular music ballads, the domestication of the phonograph, the contemporary trend of mashups, and the studio technique of backmasking. The conclusion asks that we readjust our approach to music, media, and subjectivity to account for the possibility of creative acts that are bound within a network of determinants. I use, finally, the writings of Maurice Merleau-Ponty to explore the body as a primary site of indeterminate mediation, which renders possible for the subject a potential of creative embodied expression. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This thesis would not have been completed without the guidance and perseverance of my committee as a whole: Henry Klumpenhouwer in music, Rob Shields in sociology, and Leo Mos in psychology. Henry I thank for his guidance and especially his patience throughout my many years here, which have manifested many ideas and many drafts, each of which he gave serious critical attention and encouragement. Rob offered unending support for my creativity, allowing me to explore the potentials of the Intermedia Research Studio in particular. I thank Leo for cigarettes and coffee, for upholding the art of conversation and for illuminating the beautiful in scholarship. I am also thankful for the extensive conversations about and performance of music I have had with many extraordinary people over the years: Trevor, Michael, Everett, Amy, Craig, Jay, and countless others. I owe a great debt to the departments of music and sociology at the University of Alberta for allowing me the opportunity to teach a wide variety of courses in popular music, analysis, and media theory. Through these courses I was able to discuss the ideas in this thesis with the most open- minded and inspiring students an instructor could hope for. Lastly, the empowering aspects of this thesis would not have appeared without the arrival of Penelope Wren Vallee, who has shown me the simple virtues of creativity and love. My final gratitude is extended to Julia, my beacon and my muse, for her support and friendship, and for the pure enjoyment of things. TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction - Not Out, But Through It!...................................................................1 I - The Medium is the Method 1.1 The Medium is the Message ......................................................17 1.2 The Medium is the Mirror..........................................................22 1.3 The Medium is the Music ..........................................................35 1.4 The Medium is the Marrow .......................................................44 1.5 The Medium is the Milieu..........................................................55 II - The Afflicted Amalgamation of Music and Nostalgia 2.1 It Isn’t What It Was....................................................................58 2.2 The “Afflicted Imagination” ......................................................70 2.3 Haydn’s Farewell: A Case of Expunging Nostalgia ..................76 2.4 Romantic Distance and the Loss of Loss...................................81 2.5 After the Fall: Nostalgia and the Sentimental Ballad ................85 2.6 Towards Phonography ...............................................................89 III - The Second Master and The Domestication of Mechanical Phonographs 3.1 Eternal Speech ...........................................................................91 3.2 The Old Master’s Voice: “I Am The Edison Phonograph!”......94 3.3 From the Office to the Arcades..................................................98 3.4 From Obscenity to Testimony .................................................103 3.5 “Metaphysical Melancholy” and Mechanical Phonography...109 3.6 The New Master’s Voice……………………………………..114 IV - Convergence or Contingency? Mashups and Ventriloquist H.I.T.L.E.R. 4.1 The Grey Album ......................................................................125 4.2 The Empowerment of Postmodern Pastiche ............................131 4.3 Knee Deep in the Postmodern Shitter......................................137 4.4 Ventriloquist H.I.T.L.E.R. .......................................................143 4.5 The Contingencies of Media Ecologies ...................................151 V - Conclusion: “Turn me on, dead man!” Backmasking as the Veil of the Real 5.1 Pullhair Rubeye........................................................................155 5.2 Sound Interpellated -- Last Call for Determinism ...................158 5.4 I Will Like Spinning Plates......................................................163 5.5 Backmasked Anxiety ...............................................................165 5.6 Towards a Theory of Transition ..............................................171 5.7 The Ecology of Flesh ...............................................................175 Works Cited…….. ...............................................................................................184 LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Isolated Sources From The Grey Album ...............................................127 Table 2: Analysis of DJ Danger Mouse’s Remix of “Encore” ..............................128 Table 3: Backmasked Beatles Messages....................................................................166 Music, Media, and Subjectivity: On the Limits of Determinism INTRODUCTION Not Out, But Through It! A patient of Carl Jung’s once dreamt she was overlooking a circle of lions, in the middle of which a pit was filled with a hot burning substance. Knowing she had to go in, she dove from a very high place, submerging herself in the pit’s heat. With only her shoulder jutting out, Jung appeared in the dream and pushed her down, declaring: “Not out, but through it!” When she recounted what he’d said to her in the dream, Jung agreed that the only way out of a problem is by facing it directly (Jung 2007, 15). In this thesis I explore the determinism of psychoanalytic semiotics to selected intersections between music, media, and the constitution of the subject. While I do not rebuke such determinism I do not condone it in isolation. I actively resist the predominant trend in cultural studies to celebrate the empowerment of subjectivity, but I do not leave the subject suspended in disempowerment; I simply move through determinism as a dialectical step towards empowerment. The methodological resource is drawn from media determinism (McLuhan 1994; Ong 1967), the Lacanian constitution of the subject (Bowie 1991; Chiesa 2007; Hansen 2000; Lacan 1998, 2002), music semiotics (Shepherd and Wicke 1997; Schwarz 1999), and finally from a phenomenology of the body according to Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1968, 2002); though the latter makes an appearance only in the methods section and in the conclusion. I introduce Merleau-Ponty to suggest that the determinist perspective places severe limitations on the subject, 1 Music, Media, and Subjectivity: On the Limits of Determinism for as much as objects are themselves determinate of perception to a fixed proportion, the manner in which they are perceived through experience is essentially indeterminate. Indeed, although I have been swayed over the years by cultural populism to place culture ahead of its determinants, it is a sway that has conflicted with my own practices as a musician. I presume determinism and indeterminism as exposing a necessary and mysterious dialectic of creative expression. In my musical experience, restrictions constitute a predominant factor in the creative process; from the manufacture of musical instruments to the limited transductive capabilities of the studio, from the finite career options in the industry to the limited song structures and arrangements available, determinants are an everyday ubiquity for any practicing musician. In creating music one must persistently locate interminable means of constructing curvatures out of boundaries. This thesis thus succeeds as a historical exercise in its examination of such boundaries, but