Schwartz, Laura
(2019)
Repair and Self-Formation through Verbal Notation: Analyzing Self in Works by Jennifer Walshe and Pauline Oliveros
and
An Anatomical Study on Escape [Original Composition].
Doctoral Dissertation, University of Pittsburgh.
(Unpublished)
Abstract
In this dissertation, I explore how the notational content of the score document can be a catalyst for the formation of a professionalized performer’s subjecthood. Verbal notation is an extreme example of a kind of Western art music composition that allows for subject formation. In verbally notated scores, Cartesian mind/body binary performers become practitioners, ones that assume the roles of composer, performer, and audience, often simultaneously. When performers become practitioners, the subjecthood so formed repairs the damage of the Cartesian mind/body binary laced into musical training. Repair here moves well beyond Elizabeth Spelman’s definition of the term (from her book Repair (2002)), which focuses on the process of returning something to its original function. Rather, a performer’s move into a composer’s or audience member’s role allows them to realize selfhood in an entirely different manner than in conventionally notated scores. I argue that verbal scores facilitate the emergence of two types of selfhood. The fluidity of roles forms the first type of score-facilitated selfhood, a repaired, formerly Cartesian, performer. I show how a Cartesian performer (a body to a Cartesian composer’s mind) is repaired into a performer and constructed by these scores through an analysis of listening—as an embodied process of attention, interpretation, and understanding— and time— as a recognized labor and embodiment of the present, the past, and the future. The second type of selfhood, a practitioner-self, is formed through the perspective of embodied self-awareness. Through exploration of notational components that facilitate awareness, I show how a practitioner is formed through models of attention. I focus my analysis on two verbally notated works— Pauline Oliveros’s Breaking Boundaries (1996) and Jennifer Walshe’s THIS IS WHY PEOPLE O.D. ON PILLS (2004). Through these two analyses of self, I demonstrate how verbal notation can facilitate a professionalized performing person’s repair and self-formation.
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Details
| Item Type: |
University of Pittsburgh ETD
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| Status: |
Unpublished |
| Creators/Authors: |
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| ETD Committee: |
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| Date: |
25 June 2019 |
| Date Type: |
Publication |
| Defense Date: |
25 March 2019 |
| Approval Date: |
25 June 2019 |
| Submission Date: |
3 April 2019 |
| Access Restriction: |
No restriction; Release the ETD for access worldwide immediately. |
| Number of Pages: |
121 |
| Institution: |
University of Pittsburgh |
| Schools and Programs: |
Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences > Music |
| Degree: |
PhD - Doctor of Philosophy |
| Thesis Type: |
Doctoral Dissertation |
| Refereed: |
Yes |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: |
verbal notation, Jennifer Walshe, Pauline Oliveros, music notation, self-formation, self-repair, self, repair, time, listening, text score |
| Date Deposited: |
25 Jun 2019 21:52 |
| Last Modified: |
25 Jun 2019 21:52 |
| URI: |
http://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/id/eprint/36248 |
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