{"title":"Music Theory’s Therapeutic Imperative and the Tyranny of the Normal","authors":"Joseph N. Straus","doi":"10.1093/MTS/MTAA030","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"\n Traditional music theory rationalizes abnormal musical elements (like dissonant or chromatic tones or formal anomalies) with respect to normal ones. It is thus allied with a medical model of disability, understood as a deficit or defect located within an individual body, and requiring remediation or cure. A newer sociocultural model of disability understands it as a culturally stigmatized deviance from normative standards for bodily appearance and functioning, analogous to (and intersectional with) race, gender, and sexuality as a source of affirmative political and cultural identity. The sociocultural model of disability suggests the possibility of a disablist music theory, one that subverts the traditional therapeutic imperative and resists the tyranny of the normal. Disablist music theory is music theory without norms, and without a commitment to wholeness, unity, coherence, and completeness—those fantasies of a normal, healthy body. Instead, disablist theory brings the seemingly anomalous event to the center of the discussion and revels in the commotion and discombobulation that result: it makes the normal strange. In the process, it opens up our sense of what music theory is and might be.","PeriodicalId":44994,"journal":{"name":"MUSIC THEORY SPECTRUM","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.6000,"publicationDate":"2021-01-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1093/MTS/MTAA030","citationCount":"3","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"MUSIC THEORY SPECTRUM","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1093/MTS/MTAA030","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"艺术学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"MUSIC","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 3
Abstract
Traditional music theory rationalizes abnormal musical elements (like dissonant or chromatic tones or formal anomalies) with respect to normal ones. It is thus allied with a medical model of disability, understood as a deficit or defect located within an individual body, and requiring remediation or cure. A newer sociocultural model of disability understands it as a culturally stigmatized deviance from normative standards for bodily appearance and functioning, analogous to (and intersectional with) race, gender, and sexuality as a source of affirmative political and cultural identity. The sociocultural model of disability suggests the possibility of a disablist music theory, one that subverts the traditional therapeutic imperative and resists the tyranny of the normal. Disablist music theory is music theory without norms, and without a commitment to wholeness, unity, coherence, and completeness—those fantasies of a normal, healthy body. Instead, disablist theory brings the seemingly anomalous event to the center of the discussion and revels in the commotion and discombobulation that result: it makes the normal strange. In the process, it opens up our sense of what music theory is and might be.
期刊介绍:
A leading journal in the field and an official publication of the Society for Music Theory, Music Theory Spectrum features articles on a wide range of topics in music theory and analysis, including aesthetics, critical theory and hermeneutics, history of theory, post-tonal theory, linear analysis, rhythm, music cognition, and the analysis of popular musics. The journal welcomes interdisciplinary articles revealing intersections with topics in other fields such as ethnomusicology, mathematics, musicology, philosophy, psychology, and performance. For further information about Music Theory Spectrum, please visit the Society for Music Theory homepage.