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Visualizing Racial Mixture and Movement: Music, Notation, Illustration
- Author(s):
- Brigitte Fielder (see profile)
- Date:
- 2015
- Subject(s):
- American literature
- Item Type:
- Article
- Tag(s):
- race, sheet music, Visual Culture, Visual culture
- Permanent URL:
- http://dx.doi.org/10.17613/M6XH0P
- Abstract:
- “Racial representation has often been confined by the media used to depict its complexity—from language that describes race via metaphors of color to the technology of racial representation in black-and-white that obscures nondualistic racial gradation. Written music, like the written word, is a technology of representation. The visual representation of music and the visual representation of race are similar in that they are not mimetic but symbolic. Just as quarter and half notes stand in for certain pitches and durations that might be interpreted through variations such as instrumentation and style, the presence and absence of black ink represents racial difference that in reality is nuanced by gradations in complexion, historical contexts, and cultural resonances of racialization. Music here implies the aural, but also the movement of dance; the waltz and the march produce bodies in motion. The movement of racialized bodies through geopolitical spaces and with relation to one another hints at race’s fluidity. In the two genres on this single sheet, we see what might be understood as different methodological frames for understanding their respective narratives of race. The waltz’s male and female pairing of partners suggests heterosexuality. The march denotes a different kind of movement, not simply interpersonal but movement through geopolitical spaces and in militaristic endeavors.”
- Metadata:
- xml
- Published as:
- Journal article
- Status:
- Published
- Last Updated:
- 6 years ago
- License:
- All Rights Reserved
- Share this:
Open access, open source, open to all
project_muse_578934.pdf