Do You Hear What I Hear?

Do You Hear What I Hear?

What would it mean to approach the world of music with a feminist ear?

Written By

Linda Dusman

NewMusicBox would like to welcome composer and sound artist Linda Dusman to the Chatter roster. Dusman’s compositions are recorded on the NEUMA, Capstone, and New Albany labels. A frequent contributor to the literature on contemporary music and performance, her articles have appeared in Link, Perspectives of New Music, and Interface, as well as a number of anthologies. She is on sabbatical from the music faculty of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County during 2008-09.—MS

Linda Dusman

I just returned from an idyllic seven days at the Walden Teacher Training Institute in Dublin, New Hampshire. There are many aspects of this program that could have fed into my perception of my experience as “idyllic”: the peaceful country campus of the Dublin School, the good spirits and dedication of the faculty, the delicious food, the ingenious and creative musicianship methodology created by Vermont native Grace Cushman, and beginning everyday singing perfectly tuned 5ths, 3rds, and octaves, to name a few.

But in retrospect I think the most idyllic aspect of the experience was the relative absence of hierarchies—in social situations, the academic environment, and indeed in the methodology itself. Imagine an approach to tone in which every relationship is based on the overtone series, in which one learns of a tonality based on the hierarchy of tonic/dominant as one of many options. Imagine teaching that way, so that technique, repertoire, and composing exist as equal pursuits, from the minute one begins to study music.

Though she may not have identified herself as such, Grace Cushman must have been a feminist. Girls and boys both occupied her classes which began in the 1940s; when she arrived at Peabody Conservatory she selected freshmen Pam Quist and David Hogan to be her protégées. And in the sounding out of her musical philosophy and methodology, the equality of her approach enabled composition and improvisation using any materials, referenced only to the acoustical resonances created by physical vibrations.

What would it mean to approach the world of music with a feminist ear? In the absence of hierarchies and even binaries, could I finally hear clearly? What sort of music would I compose? How would I perceive the soundings of other composers? And might it ever be possible to hear an equality of voices in the world of contemporary classical music, to perceive its possible presence?