Tonality as Law, Contravention, Performativity
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| Format: | Artículo científico |
| Sprache: | en |
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Sociedad de Etnomusicología
2009
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| _version_ | 1876452569247645696 |
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| author | Arved Ashby |
| author_facet | Arved Ashby |
| contents | Tonality as Law, Contravention, Performativity Arved Ashby Arte law identity legality tonality normative Through much of its history, tonality has been described in terms of law. And yet it represents the composer's negotiation of an individual identity within the socialized world of pitch relations, and as such took on more and more of a performative aspect across the twentieth century. With this shift, composers of art music readdressed the basic question: what kind of relation between the individual and the larger social order does art music demonstrate? Tonality is almost infinitely particularized, but we can go even further to say that tonal music is constituted in the act of its description: to describe a sub-type of tonal composition, to name its particular system of contraventions against tonal "law," is to comprise that sub-type. Tonality, in short, is a performative in both J.L. Austin's and Judith Butler's sense. The differences between normativity and performativity boil down to the relation of the individual to the general: if the law presumes compliant subjects, performative theory assumes a certain manner of individual failure, an essential and defining form of noncompliance. Legal theorists justify a normative conception of the law that will in turn justify specific legal decisions; performativity, on the other hand, precludes the kind of power structure that allows and perpetuates such dualisms. In looking into these aspects of tonal discourse, we arrive at the subject of tonal theory itself and the question of what that music-analytic term might actually mean. We find in the end that tonality resembles law only in a dialectical or Foucauldian sense, with principles given their significance by deviation from said principles: it is the contraventions that define the rule. 2009 artículo científico 1697-0101 https://www.redalyc.org/articulo.oa?id=82220946006 en http://www.redalyc.org/revista.oa?id=822 Trans. Revista Transcultural de Música application/pdf Sociedad de Etnomusicología Trans. Revista Transcultural de Música (España) Num.13 |
| format | Artículo científico |
| id | redalyc_82220946006 |
| institution | Redalyc |
| language | en |
| publishDate | 2009 |
| publisher | Sociedad de Etnomusicología |
| spellingShingle | Tonality as Law, Contravention, Performativity Arved Ashby Arte law identity legality tonality normative Tonality as Law, Contravention, Performativity Arved Ashby Arte law identity legality tonality normative Through much of its history, tonality has been described in terms of law. And yet it represents the composer's negotiation of an individual identity within the socialized world of pitch relations, and as such took on more and more of a performative aspect across the twentieth century. With this shift, composers of art music readdressed the basic question: what kind of relation between the individual and the larger social order does art music demonstrate? Tonality is almost infinitely particularized, but we can go even further to say that tonal music is constituted in the act of its description: to describe a sub-type of tonal composition, to name its particular system of contraventions against tonal "law," is to comprise that sub-type. Tonality, in short, is a performative in both J.L. Austin's and Judith Butler's sense. The differences between normativity and performativity boil down to the relation of the individual to the general: if the law presumes compliant subjects, performative theory assumes a certain manner of individual failure, an essential and defining form of noncompliance. Legal theorists justify a normative conception of the law that will in turn justify specific legal decisions; performativity, on the other hand, precludes the kind of power structure that allows and perpetuates such dualisms. In looking into these aspects of tonal discourse, we arrive at the subject of tonal theory itself and the question of what that music-analytic term might actually mean. We find in the end that tonality resembles law only in a dialectical or Foucauldian sense, with principles given their significance by deviation from said principles: it is the contraventions that define the rule. 2009 artículo científico 1697-0101 https://www.redalyc.org/articulo.oa?id=82220946006 en http://www.redalyc.org/revista.oa?id=822 Trans. Revista Transcultural de Música application/pdf Sociedad de Etnomusicología Trans. Revista Transcultural de Música (España) Num.13 |
| title | Tonality as Law, Contravention, Performativity |
| topic | Arte law identity legality tonality normative |
| url | https://www.redalyc.org/articulo.oa?id=82220946006 |