Page 198 - Cultural Studies Volume 11

192 CULTURAL STUDIES

the books, however, is in the way that they deal with the obvious follow-up question
to that claim: so what do we do next? Slobin can’t answer this question in any
definitive way (which will probably frustrate some readers, even if it shouldn’t),
but, to his great credit, he doesn’t pretend to do so. More importantly, what he
does do is offer enough in the way of ‘suggestions for future research’ to make it
clear that he is pointing out the flaws in our current ways of thinking about music
and culture because he is very much interested in correcting those flaws. The
MDLP, on the other hand, seems perfectly content simply to point out that those
flaws exist; the question of what (if anything) might be done about those flaws,
however, doesn’t seem to have crossed their minds at all.

Notes

1 It is possible that Slobin would object to the notion that his project is focused on
building theoretical models, as he insists that, ‘above all, I do not mean to present a
model, nor will I come up with one-sentence definitions of terms’ (p. 12, emphasis
in original). I take Slobin’s objections here, however, to mean that he isn’t trying to
construct static or rigidly prescriptive models from which future critics dare not stray,
and not that the various abstract categories and concepts he lays out cannot—or
should not—be seen as models (albeit deliberately loose ones) of recurring patterns
on the (micro)musical terrain.
2 See, for example, his claims that ‘societies (nation-state bounded regions) have an
overarching, dominating—if not domineering—mainstream that is internalized in
the consciousness of governments, industry, subcultures, and individuals as ideology.
Let us call it hegemony’ (p. 27); that ‘ideology reflects hegemony’ (p. 28); and that
‘hegemony begins at home, with the penetration of ideology as a part of every
citizen’s inner life’ (p. 75).
3 See, in particular, his use of the concept of codeswitching (borrowed from
sociolinguistics) in order to explain the meaning of particular micromusical texts (pp.
85–97). To be sure, this is a creative and interesting approach to the question of how
performers and composers engage in stylistic bricolage in the creation of subcultural
musics, but Slobin’s argument here effectively reduces the social and cultural
meaning of music to a question of authorial intention, insofar as he ignores the role
that audiences inevitably play in the production of that meaning.
4 If nothing else, those local musics that consciously set themselves up in opposition
to the mainstream inevitably (and ironically) depend on its continued presence and
good health in order to be able to define themselves as oppositional.
5 My use of the term ‘minor’ here is taken from Deleuze and Guattari’s notion of minor
literature: ‘A minor literature doesn’t come from a minor language; it is rather that
which a minority constructs within a major language’ (1975/86:16). Unlike the
subcultural micromusics that Slobin describes, a minor cultural formation (whether
centered around literature or some other phenomenon) does not necessarily revolve
around a local community, but its relationship to the hegemonic mainstream may be
similar enough to that of micromusics to render Slobin’s categories of use in
describing and analyzing such formations.