Disabling Music Performance

Abstract

When a performer’s disability directly affects the execution of a musical script, the “dual performances of music and disability” (Straus 2011) are intertwined, so that one directly influences the other. This chapter uses the termsaudibleandsilent disabilitiesas aural analogues to the more commonly used termsvisibleandinvisible disabilities. In music performance, aural disabilities stem frommusical impairments, which emerge from conflicts with three interrelated sets of conventions associated with musical instruments, performance practices and musical scores (in nonimprovised performances), and ideological expectations of a societal audience. Just as curbs, stairs, and door handles constitute part of the “constructed normalcy” of social performance, so do these three musical conventions propose and construct anormal performance bodythat real bodies must strive to match. Conversely,disablist music(like the one-hand piano repertoire) subverts the normal performance body by accommodating aurally disabled performers excluded from conformational musical practices.

Reclaiming disabled creativity: How cultural models make legible the creativity of people with disabilities

“…Attaching caveats or qualifiers like the term savant deprioritizes the creative act and attends instead to the disabled body. For example, Howe (2016) described an audience’s reaction to two pieces performed by an orchestra comprised of physically disabled musicians. The first, provided with no note or introduction, elicited meager applause from the audience.…”

“…The audience provided a standing ovation to the second piece that followed a disclosure of the performers’ disabilities. The audience failed to critically engage with the creative act (Howe, 2016). Instead, it lauded a feat taken to mean that the performers had overcome their disabilities, evidenced through a feat associated with abled-bodiness.…”

“…The interweaving of cultural membership and identity requires perpetual (re)appraisal. Appraising multiple experiences or cultural memberships prevents a reductivist account of people’s experiences that contribute to creativity (Erevelles, 2014; Howe, 2016).…”

Teaching Sul Tasto: Making String Ensembles Accessible for Students with Light and Sound Sensitivities

“…Disabilities can also be considered visible or invisible depending on how they present. A disability might be made visible by one’s appearance or mobility aids like wheelchairs or canes, while invisible disabilities do not necessarily manifest outward (Howe 2015), like chronic pain or immune system disorders. Both visible and invisible disabilities come with social stigma that contributes to harmful narratives about disabled people (Paetzold et al 2008).…”

(dis)Ability and Music Education: Paralympian Patrick Anderson and the Experience of Disability in Music

“…Garland Thomson (1997) refers to this idealized body as the normate: "a very narrowly defined profile that describes only a minority of actual people" (8). Speaking specifically to music performance, Howe (2016) writes, "This normal performance body usually possesses all limbs, with above-average hand and finger size, lung capacity, and strength, among other qualities" (196). Lubet's (2010) argument is well supported by the history of research in music education on disability.…”