Phase-shifting process music as an analogue for social identitity: or, re-thinking intersectionality via "It's Gonna Rain"

So, I'm working on am argument that social identities (race, gender, etc.) are mutually constitutive, and that metaphors of "intersection" and "blending" don't accurately capture the ontology of social identities (as mutually constitutive). As a part of the argument, I offer an alternative metaphor/image/illustration - Steve Reich's theory of process music. This is 100% a WORK IN PROGRESS, so I would really extra super-duper appreciate any feedback!


Steve Reich’s theory of “process music,” particularly as exhibited in his early phase-shifting pieces, is a useful metaphor, or even analogue, for the phenomenology of social identities. There are (at least) two features of phase-shifting process music that also accurately characterize the lived experience of coincident social identities: (1) the absence of a macro-level formal structure that is independent and determinative of micro-level events, and (2) the predominance of indeterminate, “irrational” relationships that we tend to perceive only when they briefly coalesce into “landmarks.”

First, process music is characterized by its lack of predetermined, overarching structure: a piece’s large-scale, general structure piece evolves or emerges from a sequence of micro-level events in which each new event follows from neither the previous event nor from some overarching plan. The macro-structure of a process piece is generated by its micro-structure insofar as the two are identical: as K. Robert Schwartz explains, “in Reich, structure cannot be a framework which supports an unrelated façade of sounds; rather, sound and structure must be identical.” In Reich’s terms, musical processes “determine all the note-to-note (sound-to-sound) details and the overall form simultaneously.” Take, for example, Reich’s first phasing piece, It’s Gonna Rain. In this piece, Reich loops a snippet of found sound (an excerpt from San Francisco street preacher Brother Walter’s sermon on Noah – and the sound of a pigeon flapping its wings in the background – that Reich recorded in Union Square in 1964), and records two identical tapes full of these loops. The tapes are placed on two identical players, and they begin in complete unison, repeating the vocal “It’s gonna rain!” over and over…until eventually, due slight variances in the playback speed of the two recorders, the two tapes move very gradually but increasingly out of synch. “As the process of phasing progresses,” Schwartz explains, “new and unexpected polyrhythmic configurations, resulting harmonic combinations, and melodic patterns evolve, since the two channels of tape constantly change their relationship to one another” (Schwartz, 384). Particularly in the Reich phasing pieces that utilize tape, the unpredictable and irregular behavior of the tape players make it impossible to predict exactly how the “note-to-note details” will unfold – there is no logic or regularity to it (e.g., the phasing of windshield wipers). In other words, there is no overarching structure to a process piece because the micro-level evolution of the piece is, to a certain extent, random. The gradual increase of one track’s speed does not occur at a consistent rate; it has no measured or measurable tempo or meter.

Because the rate of time-shifting of a phase piece is both inconsistent and very, very gradual, most of the piece consists in “irrational” relationships between the two tapes. That is to say, the shifting doesn’t occur at easily-recognizable intervals: it doesn’t jump along by thirty-second note intervals (or eight-note intervals, or any regular, measurable interval), but speeds up gradually, continually, and irregularly. A majority of the time, the two tapes are somewhere between a recognizable interval apart; they sound out of synch, but this out-of-synchness is not metered. This is the main way a phase-shifting piece differs from a canon or a round: in these formats, the different voices or (in a fugue) subjects are separated by regular intervals (e.g., a measure or a beat). In a phase piece, most of the time the voices are between recognizable intervals; it doesn’t sound like a pattern, but like garbeldygook. There are, however, brief moments when the voices lock into a recognizable relationship. As Paul Epstein explains,

During phasing the ear will identify certain discrete landmark situations – the splitting of a unison, the doubling of tempo at the midpoint. Even though it is apparent that these have been arrived at gradually, the ear identifies them within only a narrow margin of error, and this results in a feeling of abrupt change…In such cases the discontinuity is purely perceptual, the actual change being merely one of degree.”

Discrete social identities are like the “discrete landmark situations” in a phase piece. We see these “landmark situations” (i.e., separate social identities) as individual only because of our perceptual habituation to see them as such. There is a certain point at which we perceive “race” or “gender” as the most prominent feature of an experience, but that is only because this specific configuration of events has arrived at an arrangement we have pre-identified as a “landmark”. But, these landmarks aren’t really, experientially, landmarks. We tend to perceive them as determinate (indeed, Reich uses the term “rational”) points in an otherwise indeterminate (what Reich calls “irrational”) morass. Most of a phasing piece consists of the indeterminate or “irrational” parts; the “rational” parts are transient. We should imagine social identities similarly: their relations to one another are indeterminate and “irrational” – we can’t pick them apart, they don’t come into clear focus. With social identitites, we tend to take these momentary, transient “landmark” as representative of the entirety of experience, when, in fact, they are anything but representative of the vast majority of our experience.
Social identities are not lived as separate or separable. Our bodies do not “have” a race or a gender, but it is also true that social identities are not merely conceptual entities that have no purchase on corporeal experience. Thus, in the same way that process music lacks overarching form separate from its sound-to-sound details, there is no pure, distilled, generalizable concept of “race” or “gender” that can be broadly applied to a range of phenomena. Each articulation of race proceeds as an articulation of gender, class, sexuality, nationality, bodily ability, and so forth. Our social identities are the “unexpected resulting patterns” (Schwartz, 387) from our repeated yet constantly evolving interaction with our social and material environments. We “compose” what we, upon reflection, understand as our social identities from the micro-level unfolding of our experiences in the particular bodies we have, inhabiting our specific contexts.

You can listen to "It's Gonna Rain" at about 3:10 in this video:

George Michael fucks gender, wonders "If I Were a Boy..."

So, in spite of her husband's regressive gender politics (see below), Beyonce had some serious genderfucking onstage last night in London. I'm still trying to wrap my head around it.

George Michael joined B onstage for "If I Were a Boy", one of B's recent singles. The track relies on typical gender stereotypes: the song's presumably female narrator argues that if she were a boy, she'd know how to love a woman (not take her for granted, not hurt her, etc.), and thus be a "better man" than the aforementioned stereotypical dude.

So, when Mr. "Freedom '90" sings "If I were a boy, I think I could understand/How it feels to love a woman/I swear I'd be a better man", this is no mere inversion of stereotypical heterosexual gender roles. It totally fucks the idea of binary/hetero gender. The sung claim asserts that while GM is not already a "boy" (b/c he's pretty famously not heterosexual), if this gay man were a (hetero)"boy", he would, b/c he's not a straight dude, perform straight dudeness (i.e., heterosexual masculinity) better than "real" straight dudes. I'm not even sure where to begin thinking about race here...

Sometimes the clothes do not make the man, indeed!

In fact, this performance interestingly complements the "Freedom '90" video, where GM's musical coming out is lip-synched by female supermodels...which is, in a way, it's own sort of female-to-male conjecturing (i.e., women hypothetically positing male identity). Linda Evangelista even lip-synchs: "Heaven knows I was just a young boy, didn't know what I wanted to be/I was every hungry schoolgirl's pride and joy, guess that was enough for me" -- sounds a lot like "If I were a (hetero)boy...".

Video for "Freedom '90" here (embedding was disabled): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTugeLRZ6GI

oh, and i gotta love that B is going for a Tina Turner "Beyond the Thunderdome" look...

Death of Autotune, or massive repudiation of perceived effeminacy?

Ok, so, Jay-Z has released a new track titled "DOA (Death of Autotune)", produced by Mr. Autotune extraordinare Kanye West.

There's a ton of media buzz about the track (which seems to be the purpose of a track which attacks a massively popular fad). Some people are noting how the position he takes in this track makes Jay seem like the curmudgeonly "rockist" old man of hip-hop. However, no one has addressed the way that Jay's repudiation of Autotune is couched as a repudiation of femininity.

Here's the track (not the best quality, sorry):



There is gendered language and imagery all over this track. Feminized terms (Autotune, melody, tight pants) are contrasted with masculinized terms (violence, male anatomy, "hardness" as bodily comportment and "hardness" as in un-melodic difficult listening). Autotune is consistently feminized throughout the track, and is set in contrast to Jay's macho sound and stylings. We'll start with the obvious instances of gendering, and then go on to the more interesting and subtle ways that Jay deploys gender in the track.

Jay characterizes users of Autotune as both dressing and sounding like women. They do so because they lack balls (thus, no need to tuck, and no deep voice). In a not-too-thinly veiled dig at Kanye (who wears tight jeans and neon colors), Jay states: "You boys jeans too tight, your colors too bright, your voice too light". This line calls on Jay's opening line in "Swagger Like Us," where he also contrasts himself to a feminized (indeed, gonad-less), tight-jeans wearing Kanye. Unlike Kanye, Jay "can't wear skinny jeans 'cause my knots don't fit". The use of Autotune is evidence of, as Jay argues, "your lack of aggression/Pull your backskirt down/ grow a set, man". It's pretty clear that Jay is equating Autotune with the lack of "balls" in both the literal and metaphorical sense. To use Autotune is to be soft, easy, light, and trendy; it is the opposite of masculine aggression, toughness, difficulty, virtuosity, and expertise.

Here's Jay's "knots don't fit" comment, around the 1:53 mark: .

Thus, sounding something like an uncanny latter-day Adorno or Babbitt, Jay feminizes commercially successful pop music by opposing it to "hard" masculine/macho corporeal styles. His new track "ain't a #1 record/It's practically assault with a deadly weapon". So we can infer from this claim that chart-topping popular music is "easy" in a number of senses: easy to digest, easy to listen to, easy to make, etc. As such, these #1 records aren't properly masculine - they need to "grow a set" and become a little more cantankerous and more difficult to make and digest.

This valuing of difficulty informs Jay's stated rejection of melody. Jay claims that "My raps don't have melodies"...but the clarinet in the background sure is melodic, and then there's that guitar riff, and the hook from Steam/Bananarama's "Na Na Hey Hey"... In his interview with Hot97, Jay equates the use of melody with the use of Autotune. Interview here:

So, having catchy hooks (i.e., melodies) is feminized (b/c it's popular, easy to listen to, not tough or violent) in the same way that the users of Autotune are feminized -- they lack literal and metaphoric "balls".

In the end, then, this song is just as much - if not more - about the repudiation of Autotune's perceived femininity than it is about the repudiation of Autotune's aesthetic.

Y'all can probably guess where I come down on this issue...