Bodies that sing: the formation of singing subjects

Abstract

This study explores how singing subject positions are discursively produced in various social spaces, including how people come to understand themselves as 'non-singers' and 'not musical'. The notion of 'non-singers' is addressed as a socially mediated construction primarily achieved through the formation of White' bourgeois subjectivity and various boundary-keeping practices necessary for the preservation of 'respectable space'. 'White' bourgeois subjectivity requires the preservation of social hierarchies. Therefore, discussions about singing practices as cultural phenomena and socially mediating practices are taken up in terms of how they reinforce social hierarchies by race, class, gender, and sexuality through the dominating discourses and practices of 'Whiteness' in social relations. This study is positioned within the field of Community Music focusing on informal singing practices and a wide range of teaching/learning practices. The primary data comes from observations and interviews with a select group of people who teach singing to adults outside of formal music education and who use a variety of alternative approaches to singing. I include my own practice in this data. Other primary data comes from interviews from a small sampling of so-called non-singers. Secondary data comes from a wide range of sources that address the phenomenon of individual and group singing. Analysis of the data is informed by feminist, poststructuralist and postmodern theories of subject formation, critical race theory, class formation, spatial theory, and linguistics. Because this exploration of the 'singing subject' is based in a discourse that sees singing as a developmental phenomenon, the singer/non-singer binary can be challenged. Understanding how this socially and culturally mediated construction results in practices of exclusion and subordination provides insights into the creation of anti-subordinating practices and approaches to singing based in counter-discourses of resistance and alternative practices. This opens up possibilities for educators to treat singing as socially transformative and liberatory--positively affecting social relations among individual and collective subjects, and shaping discourses that affect communities and institutions. This study builds on research which attempts to find pedagogical principles and strategies that can move music educators, song leaders and teachers of singing to creatively incorporate critical reflection practices into our teaching.