Summary for Holsinger

In his article The Musical Somatics of Hildegard of Bingen, Holsinger proposes that the music of Hildegard and female sexual desire and pleasure, and devotional experience are in many ways inseparable, because he believes that the imagery and vocabulary of female sexual pleasure were an integral part of her musical creativity. He shows that Hildegard’s music constitutes a mode of sexual pleasure, anxiety, and fascination, exploring the techniques and implications of embodiment in Hildegard’s musico-poetic production.

The anxiety can be best described as being generated by bodily obedience. In her utter submission to God, she experienced three major visions during the time she was with the Benedictine order. She described herself as the vessel or the instrument of God, saying, “for I am a cithara sounding praises and piercing the hardness of heart with good will.” Her visions are full of the imagery of sexual anxiety and violence. Within those visions, she perceived the musical tortures of the Apocalypse, as well as the curious appearance of the lira “lying with its strings” across the body of the son of man. As to maintain the tempering of the instrumental body, accounted by Holsinger, strict musical discipline of the body on Earth can ensure a concordant harmonia in heaven.

The fascination refers to her repeated emphasis on the Virgin’s anatomy in her lyrics. The interpretive key to the musicality of desire and embodiment in her Symphonia requires both formal analysis and study of her voluminous writings. The text of Symphonia celebrates the miraculous birth of Christ, presenting a very sensual image of the Virgin’s organs. The notes that fall upon the words that relate to sexual pleasure tend to be treated with greater dramatic effects. When compared to the norms of the contemporary repertory, her melodic line is considered excessively physical and emotive.

The various forms of desire registered in the Symphonia, as written by Holsinger, pervaded Hildegard’s entire musical world. A group of nuns live in this world in intimate proximity, raising their voices together in song and allowing music, with the actual cantus resonating between the nun’s bodies as well as the Symphonia, binding the bodies of the nun together to grasp part of the pleasure of the Virgin Mary. Often she sexualized the entire body, not simply the genitals. She characterizes the pleasure in a woman as comparable to the sun, which “gently, calmly, and continuously spreads the earth with its heat, so that it may bring forth fruit.” Hildegard’s lyrics transfers the pleasure from masculine stem to feminine womb, which is related to fertility, and she implies that the female desire and sexuality paradoxically does not depend on male penetration, as the title of the article calls, a woman can be “moved to pleasure without the touch of a man” (sine tactu viri). Therefore the female-male-female constructions of triangulated desire often yield to female-female eroticized performance.

If Beyonce Were a Boy...

"If I were a boy
I think I could understand
How it feels to love a girl
I swear I'd be a better man

I'd listen to her
'Cuz I know how it hurts
When you lose the one you wanted
'Cuz he's taken you for granted
And everything you had got destroyed
If I were a boy..."

Comparison to Telugu and Tamil Padams

While reading Holsinger's article, I first noticed that every passage used to show the sexuality present in Hildegard's works personified female sexuality. The Antichrist appears from the vagina of a woman, while the male genitalia is hidden by a harp. The next few pages talk about Hildegard's vivid imagery of the female giving birth, the Virgin Mary's conception, etc.

This juxtaposition of sexuality and spiritual devotion reminded me of Telugu and Tamil padams: devotional poetry-songs. These songs often contained images of God as a customer of courtesans. Ksetrayya (one of the most celebrated authors of padams) and other writers generally composed these from the point of view of the courtesan. That is, it would be written in the voice of a courtesan searching for her lover, as the lord, to join her. While there are many cases of directly explicit sexual tones, in many cases, the expression was not directly sexual. The main theme in all of these was spiritual devotion. I was interested to see how spiritual devotion can have many sexual overtones in both forms; it seems as though the body is described sexually as a means of reconciling the mind with the "higher" pleasure of religious ecstasy. For instance, take this passage from When God is a Customer: Telugu Courtesan Songs by Ksetrayya and Others:

The whole town fast asleep,
the whole world pitch dark,
and the seas utterly still,
when it's one long extended night,
if He who sleeps on the snake,
who once devoured the earth, and kept it in his belly,
will not come to the rescue,
who will save my life? (5.2.1)

Deep ocean, earth and sky
hidden away,
it's one long monstrous night:
if my Kannan too,
dark as the blue lily,
will not come,
now who will save my life,
sinner that I am?
O heart, you too are not on my side. (5.2.2)

O heart, you too are not on my side.
The long night with no end
has lengthened into an eon.
My Lord Rama will not come,
with his protecting bow.
I do not know how it will end—
I with all my potent sins,
born as a woman. (5.2.3)

"Those born as women, see much grief,
but I'll not look at it," says the Sun
and he hides himself;
our Dark Lord, with red lips and great eyes,
who once measured this earth,
he too will not come.
Who will quell the unthinkable ills
of my heart? (5.2.4)

This lovesickness stands behind me
and torments my heart.
This eon of a night
faces me and buries my sight.
My lord, the wheel forever firm in his hands,
will not come.
So who will save this long life of mine
that finds no end at all? (5.2.6)

Ramanujan, A.K. When God is a Customer: Telugu Courtesan Songs by Ksetrayya and Others. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993. Pages 9–10.

In this song, the speaker is a young woman, obviously separated from her lover. This lover is identified as the various forms of Vishnu—Kannan, or Krishna; Rama; he who sleeps on the snake; and the Dark Lord are all various forms of Vishnu. The lover refuses to come, and the woman is alone at night. She is tortured with longing, and spends time wrestling with gender issues. She blames herself, her "sins," her womanhood, and possibly the lover as well.

I thought this compares interestingly with Hildegard's use of sexual language to reconcile the body with spiritual devotion.

Red Hot Chili Peppers: "Aeroplane"

Because it's the official music video, I can't embed it, so here's the link to it on YouTube.

I learned of this song thanks to participation on Blip (basically a Twitter-for-music social network) and fell in love with it.  In search of shirtless males in music videos, for the sake of my comments on the Mika song, I looked up the Red Hot Chili Peppers on YouTube and found their official page.  So I checked out the video for Aeroplane.  It wasn't the best example of what I wanted, but as I let the song play, I suddenly realized the lyrics seem to relate a LOT to what the chapter on Hildegard's work was talking about.

Now, as is the case with many music videos, I admit I don't have much idea what this one is supposed to mean.  But some of the lyrics in particular hit me.  I'll copy/paste the full lyrics at the end (from Sing365) and pull out a few lines in particular to relate back to the reading.  [Note: pardon the profanity; I've starred-out a few words in the original lyrics.]

I like pleasure spiked with pain - This reminds me of the bodily/erotic pleasure, on one hand, and the pain and strain of pushing the vocal capacity to its limits, found together in singing Hildegard's compositions.

and music is my aeroplane - Music is the vehicle (okay, terrible accidental pun) via which the pleasure and pain merge.

songbird sweet and sour Jane - another pleasure/pain dichotomy.

Someone better slap me,
Before I start to rust,
Before I start to decompose - Clear references to the body and description as if it is literally deteriorating.


My melancholy baby,
The star of mazzy must,
Push her voice inside of me - This is a reference to some female, her singing ability, and penetration (which has a decidedly sexual flavoring).  Unlike Hildegard, though, whom the author interprets as talking about female-only sexuality (and sexual space, in the sense of the womb and flowing of winds in and out), this singer is a male referring to a female's voice interacting with him bodily.

Just one note could make me float,
Could make me float away,
One note from,
The song she wrote,
Could f*** me where I lay - This imbues the music itself - produced by a female (this time composed, not just sung) - with apparently a complete sexual power over him (the singer).  This is interesting actually because it removes entirely the female's body from the scene; the sexuality is transferred to the music she produced.

Just one note,
Could make me choke,
One note that's,
Not a lie,
Just one note,
Could cut my throat,
One note could make
me die. - Now we've lost the sexual meaning of the music and instead it has a power to bring on pain ("choke", "cut my throat") and death.  In the vein of Hildegard, this almost seems like a warning: if you don't do with the music as you should, it will cause the end of you - and in a negative way.  I'm recalling her visions that threatened her to share the messages she was given, or else she would undergo further torture, I assume.


----- 

I like pleasure spiked with pain and music is my aeroplane,
It's my aeroplane,
Songbird sweet and sour Jane and music is my aeroplane,
It's my aeroplane
pleasure spiked with pain,
that motherf***ers always spiked with pain.

Looking in my own eyes (hey lord),
I can't find the love I want,
Someone better slap me,
Before I start to rust,
Before I start to decompose,
Looking in my rear view mirror,
Looking in my rear view mirror,
I can make it disappear,
I can make it disappear (have no fear),

I like pleasure spiked with pain and music is my aeroplane,
It's my aeroplane,
Songbird sweet and sour Jane and,
music is my aeroplane,
It's my aeroplane,
pleasure spiked with pain,
that motherf***ers always spiked with pain,

Sitting in my kitchen (hey girl),
I'm turning into dust again,
My melancholy baby,
The star of mazzy must,
Push her voice inside of me,

I'm overcoming gravity,
I'm overcoming gravity,
(It's easy when you're sad to be,)
It's easy when you're sad, sad like me

I like pleasure spiked with pain and music is my aeroplane,
It's my aeroplane,
Songbird sweet and sour Jane,
and music is my aeroplane,
It's my aeroplane,
pleasure spiked with pain...,

Just one note could make me float,
Could make me float away,
One note from,
The song she wrote,
Could f*** me where I lay,
Just one note,
Could make me choke,
One note that's,
Not a lie,
Just one note,
Could cut my throat,
One note could make
me die.

I like pleasure spiked with pain and music is my aeroplane,
It's my aeroplane,
Songbird sweet and sour Jane,
and music is my aeroplane,
It's my aeroplane,
That's spiked with pain.

(my aeroplane, my aeroplane, my aeroplane, my aeroplane)

...it's my aeroplane..(x8)..

Response to Holsinger - Croom

According to Holsinger, Hildegard viewed the musically embodied life as a disciplined life; taking proper care of one's body "lead[s] to musical "tempering" of the body, the strings of which will resonate correctly only if the body is properly fed" (p. 96). The idea seems to be that, without disciplined action towards the regular maintenance of the body (e.g. eating moderately), the human body may no longer "bind together its parts into a musical whole" (p. 96). But if this really is Hildegard's view about the musical body, then it seems that it might contrasts with her musical style in, for instance, O viridissima virga. This is because, deviating from standard practice, Hildegard's use of internal centonization in O viridissima virga was for the purpose of avoiding to use "the same melodic fragment over and over as a simple reference point" (p. 118). That is, in order to achieve greater expressivity, Hildegard strategically deviated from the regularized, "tempered" use of simple repetitions of melodic fragments. Further, Holsinger later explains that Hildegard's compositions anticipate Bach's in that the works were intentionally composed so as to be physically demanding to the point of inducing suffering in musicians that would resemble religious suffering (p. 135). So what I find strange is this: if it's essential to Hildegard's conception of the body that it remain 'musical' in that it remains harmoniously tempered and regularly disciplined, is this in conflict with her musical style whereby, in order to attain higher expressivity, she breaks with 'the harmoniously tempered and regularly disciplined' technique of standard centonization? For Hildegard, is the musical life one that is tempered so as to be healthy, one that is untempered so as to be expressive, or harmed so as to be religiously humbled? Or is the musical life a struggle between all of these?

Mika, "We Are Golden"

I'm probably two or thee years behind the times, but I just "discovered" Mika while eating breakfast in Riga two weeks ago. His song/video "Grace Kelly" was playing on German MTV on the video screen in the hotel dining room.

Listening to the song, and viewing the video, what can you say about this performance in terms of not only music and the body, but in terms of gender and sexuality as well? How are the latter related to the former, specifically in Western popular culture/popular music? How do various types of bodies get presented for consumption, and what do these presentations (presume to) tell us about gender/sexual identity? To whom are these images addressed - or, to use Michael Warner's terminology, what sorts of "publics" do they create? What does a moving, singing body "do" that a photograph doesn't, and on what registers?

Of course, you needn't answer these questions; I only offer them as a way of starting things off. Add your responses as comments to this post, instead of starting a new post for each response.

(By the way - the formatting of this clip seems to be too wide for the column width on this blog, so if you want to watch it without the major cropping, go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEhutIEUq8k.)

What does it mean to call music profound?

For those of you have have requested it, here is one of my sources (my favorite so far) for the 'emotional abstraction' part of my paper. It's a great read and if you're anything like me it's got a lot of those lines that make you hit the desk, like "YEAH, THAT IS SO TRUE!"

If the link doesn't work for you, just let me know and I'll send you an electronic copy :)

"The Experience of Profundity in Music", Bennett Reimer

http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/3333288.pdf

caryl.

The Falsetto - What Does It (Or Can It) Express?

What does the falsetto express? Initially, one might think that singing in such a high register would be expressive of 'femininity'. That is, to sing in such a high voice is to express one's feminine or more youthful nature. However, as we saw through the course of our interesting discussion in class the other day, there's nothing essentially 'feminine' about the falsetto. For instance, Maxwell features the falsetto in "This Woman's Work", but I don't find this song feminine at all. I think what Maxwell expresses in "This Woman's Work" is not femininity, but rather vulnerability. But vulnerability needn't be feminine; for instance, a man's most courageous moment can be exactly when he's expressing his vulnerability towards the person he loves. In this sense I find Maxwell's use of the falsetto expressive of both masculinity and vulnerability. So what is the nature of the relationship between the falsetto, femininity, and vulnerability? Is there some single fixed relationship, or are there several cross-cutting relationships? Maybe the falsetto is expressive of vulnerability, since in singing in that register one's voice is more likely to crack or break. Since falsetto is by definition a non-standard register in which to sing, to sing it is to take a risk and deviate from a norm, which may make one vulnerable. And maybe it's because falsetto is associated with vulnerability, that it's also associated with femininity. Or no? What do you think?