“Why Separating the Art from the Artist is Impossible” by Shelby Gardner

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Written By Shelby Gardner

An Analysis of Identity and Musical Culture

By Shelby Gardner

 

Recognize this piece?

That’s an excerpt from The Nutcracker by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, one of the most prominent composers of the romantic era. But did you know that he was gay? Perhaps, but that’s usually taught as more of a “fun fact” about composers, rather than a key to their creativity.

While music has a complex history, I aim to give a picture of an alternative one- addressing the ways in which queerness and identity play a role in the lives of musicians.


IDENTITY

First, I would like to lay out some feminist, queer, and trans concepts and terminology to understand the role of identity in music making.

“‘Queer is the adjective that describes that which is abject in society, transgressive and disordering of norms and normative practices. Queering is the process that actualizes that orientation.” -Victoria Moon Joyce

Intersectionality, a term coined by feminist and lawyer Kimberle Crenshaw in 1989, was used to describe the “intersection” of identities (race, gender, sexuality, class, religion, ability, etc.) that a person has- and the particular ways that they both are treated by and perceive the world because of these intersections. While gender (and therefore, sexuality) and race are social constructs, they are constructs that mean things in our society- including, but not limited to, the likelihood of certain economic status, education and career opportunities, and experiences of violence and incarceration. When one recognizes that they are a human individual who is also subject to the influence of multiple group politics, they can experience a certain type of freedom that balances self and community care.

INFLUENCE ON MUSICIANSHIP

Why does this matter? In terms of musicianship, there are so many factors that identity plays in a musician's life. One specific example is the way that our economic system impacts the music world. While you might think that fiscal (monetary) and social (identity) politics are separate, I will explain to you how these things specifically impact our own music community because they cannot be separated. Because of our current economic system, capitalism, the system functions on social hierarchies determined by identity. Those that adhere to the “norm”: white, cis, straight men statistically reap the most economic benefit.

Economic benefit allows for freedom of choice. For example, the choice to live in “good” neighborhoods versus “bad” neighborhoods. A “good” neighborhood is usually free of crime (or excessive policing), close access to food, away from any kind of factories emitting chemicals and pollution, and close to a good school (thanks to the way our taxes are distributed in our capitalist system).

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The education system is obviously flawed for many reasons, but I’ll talk specifically about music education. Those who suffer economic inequality do not typically live in school districts with adequate funding. This means that on top of a lack of resources for the entire school, there is especially a lack of resources for the “arts”, which is not valued by our capitalist system. For music education, this means that “better” music educators pick schools in “good” neighborhoods for pay or other reasons: maybe there is a lack of instruments, inability for working parents to help out with drop off and pick up or other needs for after school rehearsals and programs, a lack of funding to provide an extra bus schedule for extracurriculars, etc. Children in low income areas are not granted access to adequate music education to become musicians, which could be the most life changing identity that they take on.

Other oppressive social norms that impact the music community are what music educators and historians are taught in college, and then how they go on to shape the music community by what messages they send about identity when they are uninformed, the way that nationalism and colonization allow musicians feel entitled to take from other, less popular musicians (appreciation versus appropriation), and a general lack of representation in all fields of music, limiting what marginalized musicians think they can accomplish.

In "Nothing Better or Worse Than Being Black, Gay, and in the Band: A Qualitative Examination of Gay Undergraduates Participating in Historically Black College or University Marching Bands" by Bruce Allen Carter, he interviews four graduates from HBCU's. The abstract gives a descriptive overview of the findings:

“This collective case study examined the experiences of four African American gay band students attending historically Black colleges or universities (HCBUs) in the southern United States. This study explored influences that shaped the participants’ identities as they negotiated numerous complex sociocultural discourses pervasive and challenging to gay African American band students. Utilizing participative inquiry, participants were asked to read, reflect on, and respond to historical and current research literature concerning the schooling experiences of Black students. Their responses were analyzed within a multifaceted theoretical framework, including poststructural theory, critical race theory, critical theory, and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, or questioning (LGBT2Q) studies. Present throughout the participants’ descriptions was an ever-evolving and renegotiated gay African American identity within the HBCU band setting. Findings indicate that the construction of an African American gay male identity within an HBCU band setting was a source of tremendous consternation concurrent with positive experiences of acceptance and community. Numerous implications for music educators in K–12 settings are provided, including recognizing and stemming bullying and harassment in classroom settings.”

There are so many facets of identity that intersect in order to create these circumstances- and it is crucial to recognize that these real phenomena are happening because of identity and their intersections.

MUSIC AS IDENTITY

In Victoria Moon Joyce’s article, “What’s So Queer About Composing: Exploring Attali’s Concept of Composition from a Queer Perspective”, she asserts that “music as an identifactory practice has the potential to unsettle and influence identities because of its particularly queer qualities.” She explains that “music is prophecy… music mirrors culture while actively producing culture”. The act of creating music is original, new, and weird- it’s queer.

She questions “Are queers drawn to musical practices and production for its potentially protective cover? Is music a ground on which queer desire ironically has parity with heterosexual desire?”.  And it’s a really interesting question- especially because of what she points out afterwards. Composition is relational in that in order to communicate what is going on inside oneself, they must adhere to something that already exists (be that music theory or whatever else) while creating something entirely new and original. “In this sense it is a form of self-composing- composing one’s own life”. In this way, composition actively asserts difference. And that is what consumers want- something freakish and new while equally desirable.

She concludes with, “Composing disrupts normalizing identifactory codes and practices, and therefore represents an act of resistance to domination, control, and the deadening effect of repetition. It is a queer thing to compose.”

IMPLICATIONS

These are some musicians in the present impacted by queer music culture. This interview is specific to marching band, a site of strong nationalism combined with queer physicality. The intention of the interview is to humanize these theoretical concepts and to further outline the stakes of feminist, queer, and trans musical scholarship.

I would like to point out that music has another oppressive force throttling creativity- nationalism. Nationalism functions as a tool of imperialism and colonization. Colonization relies on social hierarchies- it’s essentially white rulers confiscating land and resources from locations with people of color because they can “do it better”. Nationalism serves to glorify the colonizer to make its citizens complicit in this process. Any song glorifying any country (not just appreciating the beauty) serves this purpose- including our own national anthem. “Many of the older anthems, including those of France and the USA, came into being during a period of national crisis. The earliest of all, that of Great Britain, was sung and printed at the time of the Jacobite rising, although the melody itself is probably much older; and by the end of the 18th century Spain, France and Austria had also adopted national anthems. It was the growing awareness of nationalism in the 19th century that led to their proliferation, especially in central Europe and South America. Japan’s national anthem dates from 1893, but it is only since 1949, when China adopted its anthem, that Eastern countries as a whole have followed the West’s example in this way. The emergence of new independent states in Africa and elsewhere since the end of World War II and the break-up of the former Soviet Union have led to a corresponding increase in the number of anthems now in use.” “National Anthems”, p. 1. Each of these national anthems developed during wartime, and the effects are still lingering today, especially in the music community.

CONCLUSIONS

These roots are not so simple to outgrow- queerness defies definition while these oppressive systems demand definition. However, I believe that because queerness is inherent to musical practice, the futurity of the musical world is bright. If all musicians are both taught to and allow themselves to understand their own relationship between their identity, the world, and their music making, the entire culture of music can diversify beyond belief. There is a future of a musical renaissance on the horizon.

KNOW THEIR NAMES

Here are some prominent musical figures from 1860 to present. I hope that you can enjoy their music while appreciating the ways their identity shaped their journeys.

  • 1870s- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

  • 1880s- Camille Saint-Saens

  • 1910s- Dame Ethel Smyth

  • 1930s- Francis Poulenc

  • 1940s- Aaron Copland

  • 1950s- Leonard Bernstein

  • 1960s- Samuel Barber

  • 1970s- David Bowie

  • 1980s- Dee Palmer

  • 1990s- Indigo Girls

  • 2000s- Lady Gaga

  • 2010s- Frank Ocean

  • 2020s- Lil Nas X

REFERENCES

Shelby Gardner

Shelby Gardner (she/her/hers) is a senior at the University of Louisville double-majoring in Music (she plays the flute) and Women’s, Gender, and Sexualities Studies, and working toward her Diversity Literacy Graduate Certificate. She is the president of American Association of University Women at UofL, and the Director of Social Activities and Fundraiser Chair for the Zeta Chapter of Delta Omicron. She recently completed an internship with The Village School of Louisville where she advised anti-bias approaches to the curriculum and institution development. She will begin her internship with UofL’s LGBTQIA+ Center in the fall. Upon graduation in May, she would like to be a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion consultant for the videogame industry.

https://www.instagram.com/spebbly/
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