Of pain, passing and longing for music

Abstract

Despite musicology’s historic veneration of ‘tragic’ (mostly physically or mentally impaired) artists, disability studies is still a new and controversial field in music scholarship. This essay addresses the recent emergence of disability studies in music scholarship from the perspective of a non‐visibly disabled musician and researcher. It examines the internal dissonance of passing as pain‐free and non‐disabled, the limitations of focusing on visible difference in musical performance and the complexities of performance where impairment, damage or pain is aurally evident, connecting the listener to the performer’s body. It calls for the study of musical bodies in all their manifestations, using pain and disability as analytic constructs.

Keywords:

• music
• identity
• pain
• passing
• non‐visibly disabled
• performance

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to Alan Roulstone, Luis‐Manuel Garcia, Royce and Sarah Cain, Kristin McGee and Danielle Robinson for feedback and support.

Notes

1. Throughout this essay, I use the first person plural to refer to musicians, disabled musicians, and non‐visibly disabled musicians. I do not mean to imply that I speak for all musicians, disabled musicians or non‐visibly disabled musicians, nor do I mean to imply that all think alike or share the same experiences.

2. In using the word impaired or impairment to refer to bodily deficits, I employ Disability Studies use of impairment and wish to avoid the connotations of the North American legal term impaired (i.e. ‘impaired driving’), which implies choice.

3. In this article, I define disability as a category of identity.