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♪ Opening theme music ♪
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Hello, and welcome to this episode
of ArtsAbly in Conversation.
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My name is Diane Kolin.
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This series presents artists,
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academics, and project leaders
who dedicate their time and energy
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to a better accessibility for people
with disabilities in the arts.
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You can find more of these conversations
on our website, artsably.com,
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which is spelled A-R-T-S-A-B-L-Y dot com.
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♪ Theme music ♪
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Today, ArtsAbly is in conversation
with Dr. Jessica Holmes,
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Assistant Professor of Musicology
at the University of Copenhagen.
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Her research analyzes the representation of disability
in contemporary Western popular music
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with emphasis on vocality,
embodiment, and identity formation.
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Hello, Jessica.
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Hi, Diane.
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Jessica Holmes is an Assistant Professor
of Musicology at the University of Copenhagen,
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and she completed her
PhD at McGill University in Montreal.
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She's also the founder of the Arts and
Health Research Group in her university.
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Welcome.
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Thank you so much. Thank you for having me.
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My name is Jessica Holmes,
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and I'm a musician,
an interdisciplinary music scholar,
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a teacher, a mentor, and an advocate
with expertise in music and disability.
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I first got interested in the
academic study of music
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through my background as
a classically trained cellist and singer.
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So I was very active
in my church choir from a young age.
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My father is a Protestant Minister,
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so the church played a very important
role in my musical education.
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I also took private voice lessons as a teenager,
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and I attended Cardinal Carter
Academy for the Arts in Toronto,
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which is a performing arts high school,
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where I played in in the
orchestra as a cellist.
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Following high school, not unsurprisingly,
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I did a Bachelor of Music
at Western University.
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And while there, I had the opportunity
to take some upper division undergraduate
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music history seminars,
which I found to be utterly inspiring.
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And so I abandoned my plans to attend law school
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to pursue an MA in Musicology
at Western,
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and eventually a PhD in Musicology
at McGill, where I was the recipient of
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the Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship
for my dissertation on music, disability,
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and Embodiment in
Contemporary Performance.
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Following my PhD,
I worked four years at UCLA,
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first as a Postdoctoral Fellow
of Musicology,
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and then as a Departmental Lecturer
of Musicology, where I taught courses
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in Musicology and in the
Disability Studies Minor at UCLA.
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Fast forward to 2011 -
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sorry, 2021, I should say, not 2011,
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when I began my current tenure track appointment
at the University of Copenhagen,
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where, as you mentioned, I teach courses
in Musicology and popular music studies
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and serve as the founding
Chair of the Interdisciplinary
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Art and Health Research Cluster in the
Department of Arts and Cultural Studies.
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Today, you are an assistant
professor over there.
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What brought you to Copenhagen?
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You know, it really, in a way, was quite random.
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I was on the job market as a postdoctoral fellow
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and applying for jobs in North America,
in the UK, and in Europe.
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This was an opportunity. This was a position
that was calling for expertise in
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Popular Music Studies, which is a focus
of my work on music and disability.
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It just so happened that they hired me.
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So, I was very open to living in Europe
and excited about the opportunity to learn
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about academic life in a new country
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and in a new - a different, I should say,
system of higher education.
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Okay, thank you.
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I was interested - I would be interested in knowing more
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about your research because I know you've
done a lot of work in disability and music.
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That's how I know you,
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and I admire everything you've done in
terms of essays and writing about,
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for example, your Beethoven studies
and things like that.
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Can you talk a little
bit about your research?
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Absolutely.
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My scholarship examines the representation
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of disability in contemporary popular
music with attention to questions of
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vocality, embodiment,
and identity formation.
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This is work that's really located
at the intersections of disability studies,
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deaf studies, and MAD studies, and
bridges these perspectives with work
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in musicology,
pop music studies, sound studies,
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voice studies, and increasingly,
feminist media studies.
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Perhaps I can talk a little bit about
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my interest in music and disability before
elaborating on my research projects.
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This is an interest that really stems
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from my deep and long-standing
familial ties to disability.
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My late paternal grandfather had
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post-polio syndrome and was
a motorized scooter user.
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It was through our regular visits
and outings that I learned
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that the built environment isn't necessarily
designed for people on wheels,
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at least not consistently
in the '90s and in the early 2000s.
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My late maternal grandfather had
noise-induced hearing loss for most of his
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adult life as a result of his prolonged
exposure to industrial noise
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as the head of a large contracting
company in Victoria, British Columbia.
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And my paternal uncle has been
profoundly deaf since birth.
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So it was through witnessing the invisible
labors that both my late
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maternal grandfather and my paternal uncle
undertook and undertake
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to compensate for the failures
of the built environment
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and the technological constraints of their
hearing aids, such as lip reading,
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observing bodily gesture
to intuitive meaning
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oftentimes before words are spoken,
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that their visual, spatial, and rhythmic
propensity for music and the like,
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these types of things that got me
interested in further exploring
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the relationship between
disability and music and really
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investigating disability, both as a lived
experience and as an esthetic category.
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As you know, the interdisciplinary field
of disability studies maintains
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that what constitutes a disability,
our definition of disability,
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isn't inherent
in biology or in the natural world,
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but is rather tied to the structural
inequalities of the built environment,
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different implicit socio-cultural norms,
and socio-economic systems of power.
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In my work on music and disability,
I'm really interested in examining how
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music participates
in the complex socio-cultural construction
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of disability alongside
other positions of marginality
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and categories of identity, like gender,
like sexuality, race, class, and also age.
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In these ways, I really aim to embed
and center disability theory and the lived
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experience of disability in music studies
to impart a more
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diverse conception of music and human
biocultural diversity in the process.
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And this is a research agenda that really
culminates, after these many years,
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in two distinct areas of expertise represented
by my two current book projects.
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The first is on deaf ontologies of sound
and music, which you already mentioned.
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The second is devoted to the esthetics
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of mental health, gender, and race
in contemporary pop music.
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Okay, so these books -
can you tell a bit more about these books
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and how - when are we going to
see these books where you
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are in the process and the content,
of course, a little bit more?
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Yeah, absolutely.
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Under contract with the University of Michigan
Press for its Music and Social Justice series
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is my first book, Music at the Margins of Sense.
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This is a book that challenges
the prevailing misconceptions
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associated with deafness
in Western music through analyzing
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the creative endeavors of musicians
from across the diverse audiological
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and sociocultural spectrum of deafness,
including
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Scottish percussionist Dame Evelyn Glennie,
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Berlin-based sound artist Christine Sun Kim,
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DJ Troi Lee who is the director of
the UK-based Deaf Rave Collective,
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among many others.
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The book really argues for a multisensory,
multimodal conception of musicianship,
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what I simply call expert listening,
that defies
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passive sense by sense constructions
of the sensorium,
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the biological certainty ascribed
to so-called "normal hearing,"
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and the idealized listening subject,
implicit in Western music discourse.
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And expert listening,
this conception of musicianship that I
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champion in the book,
takes as its point of departure
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the disability rights movement's
universal demand for control.
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Clear from their slogan,
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Nothing About Us Without Us,
meaning that disabled people need be
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at the forefront of knowledge formation
and policy making about their lives.
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And I take this very seriously given
my own positionality as a white,
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able-bodied woman with hearing
and speaking privilege
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entering into the deaf community
and needing to take great care
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to responsibly manage these power dynamics
as I engage with my interlocutors.
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Expert listening is also rooted in what
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medical anthropologist Cassandra Hartley
calls disability expertise.
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That is: "the particular knowledge
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that disabled people develop and enact
about unorthodox configurations of agency,
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cultural norms, and relationships between
bodies, selves, and the designed world."
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So expert listening really tries to work
against an ideally sensing deaf person
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to draw on deaf anthropologist
Michele Friedner's verbiage.
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And what I mean by an
ideally sensing deaf person,
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is this idea that a deaf person inhabits
a world of complete and utter silence,
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so that deafness is a state of absolute
auditory silence,
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but has an innate
ability, by virtue of the ostensible
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compensatory mechanisms of the deaf brain,
to make up for that loss through the sense
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of touch, and therefore, the deafness
automatically bestows this inborn ability
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to experience music in a heightened
way through the sense of touch.
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And the book really tries to work against
those cultural mythologies
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that ideally sensing
deaf person,
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by really foregrounding the individual
modalities and means
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by which my interlocutors
engage with music, oftentimes
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through reframing and redefining what
music can be from an ontological
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standpoint, whether that means
through highlighting
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the musicality of visual spatial gesture,
the kinesthetic dynamics of rhythm
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relative to the perceptual limits of
pitch, the creative affordances
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of music technology and musical
instruments designed to mitigate against
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tinnitus and music-induced
hearing loss and the like.
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So that's the essence of music
at the margins of sense.
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I hope to see it in print
sometime in late 2025.
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I'm currently revising the manuscript.
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It's gone through a first round of peer review,
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and I'm hopeful that the process
will continue to go smoothly.
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Thank you.
And what about your second book then?
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Yeah. So my second book project,
which is in its very nascent stages
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of development, is tentatively titled
The Musical Vernacular of Depression.
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And it analyzes the representation
of depression in contemporary pop music
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as it reflects both on the increasing statistical
prevalence of clinical depression
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among young people and its associated
gender and racial inequalities,
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and the increasing thematic ubiquity of
depression in contemporary popular music.
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The book really tries to
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reframe depression or newly frame depression as
a coherent esthetic category
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with distinct semantic practices, stylistic
conventions, and affective cultures.
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What I think of as an emerging musical
vernacular of depression that blurs
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a biomedical construction of depression as
a common and serious mood disorder
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with a generational sensibility that is
unbounded by diagnosis and pathology.
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So the book examines musicians
disclosures of depression,
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the popularization of internet-based
micro-genres like ASMR, bedroom pop,
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and emo rap, the algorithmic logics
of Spotify's mood-based listening,
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and different musical trends on TikTok,
and how these contribute to
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the esthetic consolidation of the
musical vernacular of depression.
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I really argue that in these ways,
pop music transforms
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the way in which young people,
the ways in which young people conceive of,
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communicate about
and tend to their mental health.
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And in so doing, I really seek
to position pop music
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or to think of pop music as a medically
unregulated site of mental health discourse
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in order to deepen our humanistic
understanding of the relationship between
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biomedicine and pop culture
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and psychiatric understandings
of depression and social inequality.
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So I should say that my recent article
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in the current issue of the Journal
of the American Musicological Society
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on Billy Eilish and the Feminist Esthetics
of Depression serves as as a springboard
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and proof of concept
for this second book project.
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In this second book project,
I guess that there is always this
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conversation about
critical disability studies
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and the medical and social model,
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especially in depression and
topics like that, because
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it's really related to the medical model,
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but I assume that you were exploring
the social part of that too, right?
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Absolutely.
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It's a great question.
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One of the interventions the book hopes
to make is to really carve out
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new theoretical ground
through which to understand depression
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as it overlaps
and departs from the lived experiences
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and the discursive logics of disability,
of madness, and of melancholy.
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So I do approach depression
in the same way that I approach disability
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as a sociocultural
construct in many respects.
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And in so doing, I'm indebted to the work
of scholars like Ann Cvetkovich,
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who calls for the deep
pathologization of depression.
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She thinks of depression
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in relationship to
neoliberal capitalism,
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and neoliberal capitalism as creating the
conditions in which depression can thrive.
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At the same time,
I recognize that for many people who live
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with depression,
and through my own personal experiences,
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there is tremendous power
in thinking of depression
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as a biochemical imbalance of the brain,
or as a disease, or as a disorder.
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So there's a sense in which pop music can
teach us about that relationship between
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culture or the social model of depression,
and the biomedical model of depression.
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Pop music really blurs those divisions
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and offers an esthetic perspective
on a very complex -
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a very complex human
experience, one that is
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approached in the popular consciousness
with a considerable degree of urgency.
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We hear often about
depression as a public health crisis.
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We are often also told that depression is
a leading cause of disability worldwide.
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So there is a certain degree of complexity
and ambiguity, and urgency,
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with respect both to the
prevalence of depression
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and its relationship, its uneasy
relationship to disability.
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That's fascinating.
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I also wanted to go back briefly
to the first book project.
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Could you give examples of...
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Because we talked a lot about the theory
behind the book, but practically,
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when you mention other ways of listening,
other ways of living music or experiencing
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music through these artists that you are
mentioning in your book,
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and also this idea of creating instruments
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to mitigate or to transform the
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tinnitus experience, can you give us examples of,
practically, what are these instruments or
249
00:20:23,889 --> 00:20:31,129
what are examples of things that you
discussed with these artists
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to have this idea of the experience
of a person with deafness living music?
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Absolutely.
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I can give three
different concrete examples
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that I think speak to the diverse
conception of musicianship
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that the book advocates for
as one that spans
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00:20:55,687 --> 00:21:01,827
so-called formal musical training and
autodidactic forms of musical education.
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So let's start with Evelyn Glennie,
who is a musician that you know well.
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You visited her and you've taken a tour
of her percussion studio,
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and she is perhaps one of the most
visible deaf musicians of our age.
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As you know, Evelyn Glennie
practices her signature
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listening through touch or
touching the sound,
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sensing music through vibrations,
using the percussion instrument
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to draw out the sound,
to really
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00:21:39,898 --> 00:21:43,201
circumvent the sort of usual
264
00:21:43,201 --> 00:21:49,875
audiological means of access
by practicing this deeply embodied form
265
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of listening that is interdependent
with her instruments.
266
00:21:54,246 --> 00:21:57,983
And we know she has a vast and very
267
00:21:58,016 --> 00:22:01,520
exciting collection
of percussion instruments.
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So we see in Evelyn Glennie's example,
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a musician who practices this holistic
conception of listening that also engages
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visual spatial cues as well as
tactility and rhythm.
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And Evelyn Glennie does have the benefit
of a formal musical education.
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Deathness is this, as I mentioned earlier,
very plural and diverse experience.
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There is no monolithic
deaf experience of music.
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And as you know, Evelyn began to lose
her hearing around the age of nine.
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So she did have the benefit
of a formal musical training
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before the onset of her hearing loss.
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00:22:52,571 --> 00:23:01,346
But over the years, was able to
unlean and relearn
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00:23:01,747 --> 00:23:08,220
new ways of engaging with music
and engaging with sound,
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while also drawing on her very strong
background in music performance.
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00:23:14,893 --> 00:23:20,766
Then we have the example
of Christine Sun Kim,
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00:23:20,766 --> 00:23:28,540
who is profoundly deaf, who communicates
primarily using sign language.
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Her artistic practice as a sound artist
283
00:23:33,345 --> 00:23:38,250
centers on what she calls on learning
sound etiquette.
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00:23:38,450 --> 00:23:43,588
That is the implicit hearing norms
285
00:23:43,588 --> 00:23:49,060
that she internalized from a young age, governing
286
00:23:49,060 --> 00:23:53,465
when and when not to make sounds.
287
00:23:53,465 --> 00:23:57,903
An invisible social contract that really
divides along hearing and deaf lines.
288
00:23:57,903 --> 00:24:01,406
So she's really reclaiming
a sense of ownership
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00:24:01,406 --> 00:24:04,843
over sound from the hearing world.
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And in Christine Sun Kim's example,
291
00:24:08,213 --> 00:24:15,287
we see her engaging with non-sonorous,
oftentimes,
292
00:24:15,287 --> 00:24:20,025
articulations of music as in her
Face Opera,
293
00:24:20,058 --> 00:24:23,995
which is a piece scored for nine,
prelingually,
294
00:24:24,029 --> 00:24:28,433
deaf performers, whereby they sing using
silent facial gesture
295
00:24:28,433 --> 00:24:31,603
from the American sign language lexicon,
296
00:24:31,603 --> 00:24:37,042
which is a piece that challenges
the fundamental -
297
00:24:37,042 --> 00:24:40,479
that challenges our
298
00:24:40,479 --> 00:24:48,019
understanding of music in so far as sound is
a fundamental precondition for music.
299
00:24:48,053 --> 00:24:53,992
She really makes the case
that music can exist independent of sound.
300
00:24:54,025 --> 00:24:56,461
In her iconic
301
00:24:57,062 --> 00:25:00,999
visual music,
she repurposes symbols
302
00:25:01,032 --> 00:25:08,773
from Western musical notation along
witty written
303
00:25:08,940 --> 00:25:15,380
cues from her everyday experiences as
a deaf woman of color navigating
304
00:25:15,413 --> 00:25:21,953
the hearing world
to offer reflections on some of those
305
00:25:21,987 --> 00:25:27,125
experiences, and in the process, really
invites the listener
306
00:25:27,125 --> 00:25:36,468
to think more deeply and more expansively
about music and about entry points
307
00:25:36,501 --> 00:25:43,208
to music and to sound,
framing music as, once again,
308
00:25:43,241 --> 00:25:49,814
a deeply embodied experience
that engages the whole of the sensorium.
309
00:25:50,482 --> 00:25:56,821
And the final example that I can speak
to is American-born Dutch-based violinist
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00:25:56,855 --> 00:26:03,228
Monica Germino, who is
an experimental violinist.
311
00:26:03,261 --> 00:26:07,132
She used to play with
Bang On A Can Collective.
312
00:26:07,165 --> 00:26:10,969
Many years ago, Monica developed
what's called hyperacusis,
313
00:26:10,969 --> 00:26:15,574
which in medical terms
is a disorder of loudness perception
314
00:26:15,607 --> 00:26:20,979
that often causes severe acoustic pain
and physical discomfort
315
00:26:21,046 --> 00:26:27,652
in certain registers or certain
timbers could prove triggering.
316
00:26:28,286 --> 00:26:29,854
So
317
00:26:30,088 --> 00:26:33,725
in and around the time that her
audiologist
318
00:26:33,725 --> 00:26:37,696
suggested that she cease
from playing violin,
319
00:26:37,729 --> 00:26:47,505
several of her friends got together
to co-compose a theatrical suite
320
00:26:47,539 --> 00:26:52,277
to explore the potential
of low decibel violin music.
321
00:26:52,310 --> 00:26:56,681
And this was a suite that was scored for
322
00:26:56,681 --> 00:27:02,887
low decibel violin and mutes,
and one in which she used
323
00:27:02,921 --> 00:27:09,194
her whisper violin,
which was designed by a luthier
324
00:27:09,194 --> 00:27:13,698
as a low decibel frame violin
to mitigate against
325
00:27:13,732 --> 00:27:22,007
the effects of her hyperacusis while also
protecting existing hearing thresholds.
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00:27:22,440 --> 00:27:26,845
I really think of Monica's violin playing
327
00:27:26,845 --> 00:27:32,250
and the ways in which she retooled
her violin playing and
328
00:27:32,250 --> 00:27:39,824
reframed her relationship to the violin
as a kind of auditory self-regulation,
329
00:27:40,659 --> 00:27:48,166
a self-directed treatment protocol,
if you will, beyond medically regulated
330
00:27:48,199 --> 00:27:52,470
channels that, once again,
help to make up for the failures
331
00:27:52,504 --> 00:27:58,076
and perils of a
dysregulated sonic environment.
332
00:27:58,109 --> 00:28:05,150
Once again, shifting the onus
of deficit and compensation away from
333
00:28:05,150 --> 00:28:09,754
the deaf sensorium onto
the built environment.
334
00:28:10,155 --> 00:28:16,694
So this whisper violin and this
theatrical suite MUTED
335
00:28:16,694 --> 00:28:22,500
composed for low decibel
violins is an example of
336
00:28:22,500 --> 00:28:27,806
one of these ways in which a person
337
00:28:27,806 --> 00:28:34,946
with noise-induced hearing loss
and hyperacusis engages with music,
338
00:28:34,979 --> 00:28:40,618
perhaps by defying certain esthetic
conventions and even the norms,
339
00:28:40,652 --> 00:28:45,457
the acoustical norms of the
built musical environment.
340
00:28:46,724 --> 00:28:50,328
These are really fascinating examples.
341
00:28:50,395 --> 00:28:53,998
It's a good segue to my next question,
342
00:28:54,032 --> 00:28:59,804
which is really
looking at accessibility in the arts.
343
00:28:59,804 --> 00:29:04,042
I wonder what accessibility
in the arts means for you.
344
00:29:04,075 --> 00:29:06,311
In my work on music and disability,
345
00:29:06,344 --> 00:29:10,882
I'm really interested in exploring
the dynamic tension
346
00:29:10,915 --> 00:29:16,454
and reciprocity between the musician's
body and the physical limitations and
347
00:29:16,488 --> 00:29:20,792
the creative affordances
of the designed world.
348
00:29:20,825 --> 00:29:22,794
I hinted at this earlier.
349
00:29:22,827 --> 00:29:27,098
In so far as customary portrayals of music
and deafness are concerned,
350
00:29:27,132 --> 00:29:31,169
I'm really interested in shifting
the burden of deficit and compensation
351
00:29:31,202 --> 00:29:38,042
away from the presumed failures and the
innate plasticity of the deaf sensorium
352
00:29:38,042 --> 00:29:42,814
onto the built environment
by foregrounding the disabling
353
00:29:42,847 --> 00:29:47,318
and enabling
capacities of what musicologist Blake Howe
354
00:29:47,352 --> 00:29:51,356
refers to as the constructive
normalcy of music performance.
355
00:29:51,356 --> 00:29:54,325
And there he's invoking Lennard J. Davis
356
00:29:54,325 --> 00:29:59,664
when he talks about constructed normalcy
within the context of disability.
357
00:29:59,697 --> 00:30:01,499
And I'm going to quote Howe.
358
00:30:01,533 --> 00:30:07,806
He says: "Just as architectural features
of society have the potential to exclude
359
00:30:07,806 --> 00:30:12,844
and stigmatize bodily difference,
so too do the conventions of music
360
00:30:12,877 --> 00:30:20,385
performance frame certain actions,
behaviors, and appearances as disabling."
361
00:30:20,652 --> 00:30:26,991
And what I gather from
Howe's description
362
00:30:26,991 --> 00:30:33,998
is that music transpires and is experienced within
and through a built esthetic environment
363
00:30:34,032 --> 00:30:40,171
with a naturalized set of corporeal
biases, physical biases and conventions,
364
00:30:40,205 --> 00:30:45,376
from instrument design to concert venues
and sound systems,
365
00:30:45,410 --> 00:30:49,414
to sound recording and production
technology, to music software design,
366
00:30:49,447 --> 00:30:54,152
to the modalities and literacies
of different music media.
367
00:30:54,185 --> 00:30:56,554
To Howe's point the physical habitats
368
00:30:56,554 --> 00:31:02,093
associated with some of these conventions,
with some of these objects, with some of these spaces,
369
00:31:02,093 --> 00:31:07,065
are accessible or are either accessible or
370
00:31:07,065 --> 00:31:12,403
inaccessible to the extent that they
have the capacity to enable and disable.
371
00:31:12,437 --> 00:31:16,407
And I'm thinking, especially here in terms of
372
00:31:16,407 --> 00:31:21,412
literal access, what Bess Williamson
describes as literal access.
373
00:31:21,446 --> 00:31:25,183
That is one's ability,
and I'm quoting from Williamson here,
374
00:31:25,216 --> 00:31:30,655
one's ability to enter, move about within,
and operate the facilities of a site.
375
00:31:30,688 --> 00:31:36,828
So we can think about literal access in
the musical realm along those same lines.
376
00:31:36,861 --> 00:31:39,864
So in my work, I really think about
377
00:31:39,897 --> 00:31:46,104
the question: how do musicians from across
the diverse audiological and sociocultural
378
00:31:46,104 --> 00:31:52,543
spectrum of disability or deafness
approach, mediate, circumvent,
379
00:31:52,577 --> 00:31:58,950
and in some cases, altogether, reject
the esthetic constraints and implicit
380
00:31:58,983 --> 00:32:03,121
hearing norms of music discourse
or sound etiquette,
381
00:32:03,154 --> 00:32:07,058
to draw on Christine Sun Kim's
characterization,
382
00:32:07,091 --> 00:32:12,363
by foregrounding the multisensory
and multimodal aspects of musicianships,
383
00:32:12,397 --> 00:32:19,337
spanning both sonorous and non-sonorous
conceptions of music and sound.
384
00:32:19,370 --> 00:32:23,241
So in that sense, I think a lot about this
385
00:32:23,274 --> 00:32:31,849
active dynamic notion of music perception
and creation, where disability,
386
00:32:31,883 --> 00:32:37,255
and here I'm going to quote from Howe once
again, engenders the flourishing of new,
387
00:32:37,288 --> 00:32:41,392
different, and intrinsically valuable
modes of music making
388
00:32:41,426 --> 00:32:45,296
that are unbounded, ultimately,
and these are my words,
389
00:32:45,296 --> 00:32:50,568
by some of the restrictions and
constraints of conventional music making.
390
00:32:51,235 --> 00:32:56,274
It's funny that you're mentioning Blake Howe
because when you were talking about
391
00:32:56,307 --> 00:33:01,646
your book, I was thinking of
some of his writings, like
392
00:33:01,646 --> 00:33:07,719
the articles about the one handed pianist,
for example, where he was talking about
393
00:33:07,752 --> 00:33:13,491
the perception of -
the different perceptions of an audience
394
00:33:13,524 --> 00:33:18,930
while listening and watching
a performer with disability,
395
00:33:18,930 --> 00:33:21,833
and in this case, a one handed pianist,
396
00:33:21,833 --> 00:33:25,703
in a public sphere
397
00:33:25,703 --> 00:33:30,641
and a public understanding
of the music and reception of the music.
398
00:33:30,675 --> 00:33:35,246
I was thinking of that, these writings.
399
00:33:35,246 --> 00:33:37,648
So thank you for quoting Blake Howe.
400
00:33:37,682 --> 00:33:44,922
I think that's a great example
of academic connections.
401
00:33:44,956 --> 00:33:46,424
Yeah.
Oh, wonderful.
402
00:33:46,457 --> 00:33:56,167
I think I'm very indebted to Blake Howe
as a mentor, colleague, and as a writer.
403
00:33:56,167 --> 00:34:01,506
I think he's a beautiful writer,
404
00:34:01,939 --> 00:34:07,578
and to my mind, his work is foundational to
405
00:34:07,612 --> 00:34:12,216
music and disability studies
as a subfield of music studies.
406
00:34:12,250 --> 00:34:18,856
So I'm glad that you find his work
meaningful and generative, too.
407
00:34:19,257 --> 00:34:21,492
He's also someone very approachable
408
00:34:21,526 --> 00:34:25,263
with whom we can talk and we
can debate and exchange.
409
00:34:25,830 --> 00:34:27,065
Yeah.
410
00:34:27,065 --> 00:34:31,836
Plus, you're right about the fact that
really he was among the first people
411
00:34:31,869 --> 00:34:38,109
to really write in an academic
world and decide to bring together
412
00:34:38,142 --> 00:34:46,184
scholars to edit this first book about
disability studies and music.
413
00:34:46,217 --> 00:34:49,921
And then many, many others
appeared after that.
414
00:34:49,954 --> 00:34:57,228
Really, all this work has been
also very influential to my own research.
415
00:34:57,261 --> 00:34:59,497
So thank you for that.
Of course.
416
00:34:59,530 --> 00:35:01,299
That's wonderful.
417
00:35:01,532 --> 00:35:07,338
To conclude, I have a question about
inspirations.
418
00:35:07,371 --> 00:35:10,575
We just mentioned
419
00:35:11,342 --> 00:35:18,249
several scholars and several artists
who inspired or different works.
420
00:35:18,816 --> 00:35:22,720
I was, had this idea of -
421
00:35:22,720 --> 00:35:26,491
Maybe there is always in our mind someone,
422
00:35:26,491 --> 00:35:29,494
this one person that we would like to meet
423
00:35:29,527 --> 00:35:36,300
or that we would like to talk
with and converse about this inspiration.
424
00:35:36,334 --> 00:35:43,774
I was wondering if you had one person who
is active in the field of music
425
00:35:43,808 --> 00:35:50,214
intersections between disability and
music, maybe, in the arts, who would it be?
426
00:35:50,248 --> 00:35:53,184
This is going to sound terribly cliché,
427
00:35:53,217 --> 00:35:56,954
but I would I have to say Joni Mitchell
for a few different reasons.
428
00:35:57,388 --> 00:35:59,957
First,
429
00:36:01,893 --> 00:36:06,898
Joni's music figures prominently
in my coming-of-age story,
430
00:36:06,931 --> 00:36:13,604
in my understanding of womanhood,
and my own singing voice and songwriting,
431
00:36:13,604 --> 00:36:16,941
having discovered her music
in my first year of college.
432
00:36:16,974 --> 00:36:25,816
So I've always been an admirer
and lover of Joni Mitchell's music.
433
00:36:26,684 --> 00:36:29,520
And second, like my late paternal grandfather,
434
00:36:29,554 --> 00:36:33,824
she contracted polio during one of the
major outbreaks of the 20th century.
435
00:36:33,824 --> 00:36:39,130
And this is an experience that has had
a lasting impact on her musical craft
436
00:36:39,163 --> 00:36:43,367
as she sought to devise
unorthodox guitar tunings
437
00:36:43,367 --> 00:36:47,939
that more readily corresponded to the
unique architecture of her hand.
438
00:36:47,972 --> 00:36:50,107
And once again,
439
00:36:50,141 --> 00:36:59,784
to return to some of your questions around
accessibility, and in particular,
440
00:36:59,784 --> 00:37:05,122
Blake Howe's discussion of musicianship
and the ways in which
441
00:37:05,122 --> 00:37:10,394
again, and I'll quote from Howe,
disability engenders this flourishing
442
00:37:10,428 --> 00:37:14,865
of new and intrinsically valuable
modes of music making.
443
00:37:14,865 --> 00:37:24,775
I think her work is a shining example
of that and the ways in which
444
00:37:25,543 --> 00:37:29,981
some of the conventions of music,
the ways in which disability
445
00:37:29,981 --> 00:37:32,950
can sort of unsettle some
of the conventions of
446
00:37:32,950 --> 00:37:37,455
music performance and playing technique
in ways that are unbounded,
447
00:37:37,455 --> 00:37:43,160
that are really unbounded and imaginative.
448
00:37:44,061 --> 00:37:46,564
Thank you so much for your
work and for your words.
449
00:37:46,597 --> 00:37:50,301
It was a fantastic discussion.
I really enjoyed it.
450
00:37:50,301 --> 00:37:53,371
And all the best for your books
451
00:37:53,371 --> 00:37:57,441
and your upcoming projects and your
452
00:37:57,441 --> 00:38:00,444
teaching in Copenhagen, everything.
453
00:38:00,444 --> 00:38:03,314
Thank you so much. Thank you so much
for having me, Diane.
454
00:38:03,314 --> 00:38:05,549
It's been a pleasure.
Thank you.
455
00:38:05,583 --> 00:38:10,721
And yes, we will publish some of the links
456
00:38:10,755 --> 00:38:14,959
to the resources that you mentioned
on ArtsAbly's website.
457
00:38:14,959 --> 00:38:16,260
Wonderful.
458
00:38:16,727 --> 00:38:18,262
Thank you.
Have a great day.
459
00:38:18,295 --> 00:38:19,397
You too.
Bye-bye.
460
00:38:19,397 --> 00:38:20,164
Bye.
461
00:38:21,632 --> 00:38:26,771
♪ Closing theme music ♪