Performance and shame Andy McGuiness Introduction This chapter explores the subjectivity of music performers while they are performing in a particular way. I describe a kind of performance that is felicitous and creative, without the precise details being pre-planned by the performer—either before the performance takes place or even ‘just-intime’, during its course. The kind of music performance described in this chapter is creative in the very moment of performance; and by presenting a newly-created subjectivity, without either predetermining or censoring it, risks shame. I want to argue that this kind of performance (‘creative performance’ or ‘felicitous performance’ for short) depends on a particular state of selfconsciousness, which it is the aim of this essay to delineate. Although I refer to a field study of alternative rock bands which exemplify this approach, the kind of performance concerned—and the subjectivity which I argue is associated with it—is not necessarily confined to that style. In fact, arguments by Naomi Cumming (2000) in relation to performance of Western classical music help to delineate some features of the kind of creative performance under discussion. This essay, then, combines analysis of ethnographic fieldwork with approaches from formal aesthetics. Writings on the phenomenology of shame are used to bridge the two. The tools of philosophy of mind and of developmental studies are employed to dissect the structure of shame, in order to construct a model which will account for the findings of the ethnographic study and which can be reconciled with Cumming’s aesthetics. One more preparatory remark is in order. For simplicity, I have restricted the topic to the subjectivity of a single performer in relation to the audience, ignoring the relationship between coperformers. This is not meant to discount the sociality of music-making, nor the importance of relationships between performers. However, consideration of between-performer relations seems likely to introduce the issue of joint intentionality and recursive awareness (I am aware of your awareness of me – and so on), which would complicate and obscure the central issue of my argument. The present discussion of self-consciousness of the individual performer might serve as a starting point for an inquiry into the more complex situation of co-performers. Drawing on an ethnographic study of ‘alternative’ rock bands, undertaken in London and Bristol in 2007, I argue that the bands interviewed implement rehearsal strategies which promote motor emmp_am_rev_AM2_110430changesaccepted.doc 1 activity without cognitive involvement, including overlearning—that is, practising songs so that performance becomes automatic. The musicians interviewed rely in performance on what is sometimes called ‘muscular memory’--the movements required to play the correct notes at the correct time occur without awareness of what the correct notes or timing actually are. In fact, where a musician has practised a particular work through repetition and without focusing on knowing what the notes are, they will often be unable to name the notes they are playing—this applies also to Western classical musicians. The goal of the strategies employed by the alternative rock musicians intervewed appears to be a sense of bliss in performance. I argue that overlearnt movements are a way of abandoning predetermined action goals in performance, in order to achieve a particular kind of creative performance. What are the features of the kind of performance concerned? Writers on music speak of performances where the outcome is uncertain and subjective identity cannot be completely controlled—where, in fact, the performer’s subjectivity or sense of self is put at risk (Frith 1996: 214; Cumming 2000: 36ff). Deliberate control of performance would produce only a kind of musical ‘play acting’ of a subjectivity which has been objectively grasped by the performer. By contrast, commitment to a performance the outcome of which is uncertain—uncertain in terms both of how the performance will be shaped, and of how that unpredicted shaping will be received by the audience—precludes deliberate, distanced control. The position of the subject in this kind of committed musical performance can be related to JeanPaul Sartre’s (1958) picture of shame, with its structure of pre-reflective doing followed by reflective self-consciousness as the doer (the performer) becomes aware that they have been observed by the Other (the audience). According to Sartre, the structure of shame is intentional, it is a shameful apprehension of something and this something is me. [...] Through shame I have discovered an aspect of my being. [... I]t is in its primary structure shame before somebody. I have just made an awkward or vulgar gesture. This gesture clings to me; I neither judge it nor blame it. I simply live it. I realize it in the mode of for-itself. But now suddenly I raise my head. Somebody was there and has seen me. [... T]he Other is the indispensable mediator between myself and me. I am ashamed of myself as I appear to the Other. (Sartre 1958: 221-22, italics in original) In order to explore Sartre’s conception of shame and how it might apply in the special case of music performance, I introduce Dorothée Legrand’s (2007a) analysis of fundamental (prereflective) consciousness, the level of consciousness at which (in Sartre’s words) we ‘simply live’ our actions and a gesture is realized ‘in the mode of for-itself’. Prereflective consciousness is based in non-reflective motor awareness and is foundational for reflective consciousness. This emmp_am_rev_AM2_110430changesaccepted.doc 2 analysis is supported by psychological and psychoanalytic models of the development of the Self 1 in early childhood. Two such models are briefly discussed which recognize the existence of an integrated motor sense of the self—a knowing-how of the body in relation to the surrounding environment—prior to the emergence of a consciousness of the Self as seen by others (Stern 1985; Rochat 2003). Importantly, these different levels or layers of the Self are argued to persist into adulthood—adults are constantly in transition between the different layers of the Self which arise in the sequential developmental stages of childhood. The analysis of self-consciousness provides a means of mapping the structure of shame onto the structure of performance. A special feature of performance is its ongoing nature: rather than a completed action followed by awareness of observation by the Other, performance (of the kind I describe) is an ongoing process of pre-reflective doing complemented by reflective awareness from the stance of the Other. Performance, I argue, is paradigmatically simultaneously doing in a prereflective stance and observing in reflective stance; without, however, either mode of consciousness interfering with the action of the other. The separation between them is temporal: reflective observation is of the actions of the prereflective self in the preceding moment. I begin with an account of the approach to rehearsal and performance taken by the bands interviewed. Rehearsal and performance processes of alternative rock music The interview material in this section is drawn from an ethnographic study of ‘alternative’ rock bands, undertaken in London and Bristol in 2007. The bands interviewed have released selfrecorded albums through small record labels, and play gigs at small clubs in London and other cities in England. The two bands whose members are quoted here are Cove and biRdbATh, Recordings of the bands can be found online (biRdbATh n.d.; Cove n.d.). The lineup for biRdbATh consists of drums, bass, guitar, and vocals; Cove has no dedicated vocalist, but the guitarist sings at times. While the term ‘alternative’ is used to refer to widely disparate musical styles, these two bands share some features of style. Both bands are riff-driven, rather than utilising chord progressions. The bands both have drummers who (at least to my perception) tend to lead the beat—this is in contrast to, for example, pop bands or heavy metal bands, where the rhythm guitar usually leads the beat and controls the tempo. Vocals are sometimes present, but lyric content is not foregrounded (although biRdbATh utilises more vocals and their lyrics are more intelligible in performance than is the case for Cove). A sense of teleological song structure is also more important for biRdbATh than for Cove, but for both bands there is a tendency for sections within the song structures to be static. 1 Where ‘Self’ is capitalized, it refers to an integrated subject, situated in relation to other people. The uncapitalized ‘self’ will be used to refer to individual aspects or layers of selfconsciousness. emmp_am_rev_AM2_110430changesaccepted.doc 3 The songs tend to remain almost exactly the same from performance to performance—the music is not improvised and any changes tend to be incremental. Song structures typically consist of two or three different riffs, each taking a few seconds for one iteration but repeated many times in the song. A riff might be repeated many times before the change to a different riff in the new section, or two riffs might alternate in a section (each being played several times in succession). The members of Cove are slightly older (and more experienced as musicians) than the members of biRdbATh. Although some of the musicians were involved in other musical projects as well, music was not the main source of income for any. Performance events tend to take place in small clubs, where three bands (and sometimes more) will be scheduled to play on one night. Audience numbers vary from about 20, upwards (including members of bands not actually on stage at the time). Neither band banters a great deal with the audience; the guitarist of Cove may address only one remark to the audience before he and the bass player turn their backs (to face the drummer) for the rest of the set. Although some people in the audience may socialize and chat, the audience generally faces the stage, stands still, and watches. For Cove in particular, there was often a small number of people standing very still, close to the stage, and watching the musicians as if riveted to the floor; this was particularly striking when the band played a two-note riff, without change, for up to a minute. It is clear that the emphasis of value is on the process of performance, even more than the musical achievement which that process brings about—this is evident both in the interviews and in the musicians’ observable behaviour. I make this point partly to forestall any tendency to think of the approach to rehearsal and performance which emerges from the interviews as due only to a lack of formal musical training and the kind of skills valued in the music conservatoria. These skills certainly are lacking amongst the musicians I interviewed (and it is evident that the processes they use have been conditioned by that lack). However, the musicians are definitely aware that their creative compositional process (as opposed to their performance process) depends in part on not knowing music theory. This quote is typical: It’s with me all the time but I don’t know every note, I only sometimes know what I’m playing, in fact to be honest with you I think if I really learnt that and I was always really aware of it, I don’t think I’d write the same music when we’re jamming. 2 Simon, guitarist/singer, biRdbATh The value of not knowing music theory carries over to performance—music theoretic concepts and note names are not used to remember what to play. Instead, these musicians (in common with 2 Unless otherwise credited, quotes from interviews are from field work undertaken by the present author in 2007. emmp_am_rev_AM2_110430changesaccepted.doc 4 many rock musicians) rely on so-called ‘muscular memory’—memory which is bodily rather than cognitively encoded: 3 I don’t know I think a song that you know really well it’s just um ((shaking head)) 4 the same as how you remember anything. You know, kind of like, how do you remember where your front door is? It’s probably the same as that, you just know, don’t you, ‘cause you’re always walking out it. Simon, guitarist/singer, biRdbATh [I]t’s about physical memory as well, if you’re just playing it you know, your hand (...) – you just remember, it just becomes a sort of second nature of that’s how the song is, that’s where the fingers go, you know … Ben, bass guitarist, biRdbATh Riffs are drilled into memory through repetition: How do you remember the actual riff? [...] A lot of the time, that’s with repetition as well, (just) playing it again and again. 5 Ben, bass guitarist, biRdbATh [W]e wrote a new song today and we played it continually for a couple of hours. And I think, through repetition, that’ll be drilled in now. Simon, guitarist/singer, biRdbATh Just as there is an antipathy to music theory, there is a reluctance to count bars to keep track of an arrangement: No - I don’t personally, I know there’s some people that do. Er … it’s just a natural reaction, I think, once you’ve played it a few times [...] once you’ve played them through a few times it just becomes embedded. Tim, guitarist, biRdbATh 3 Despite the term ‘muscular memory’, the encoding is more probably in the brain than in the actual muscles involved. 4 Italicised text in double parentheses is used to annotate nonverbal activity, such as gestures and movements. 5 Text in parentheses in the interview transcripts indicates speech which is either unclear or spoken particular quietly. emmp_am_rev_AM2_110430changesaccepted.doc 5 [I]f there’s [...] something that’s sort of twelve bars or something like that we kind of get a bit confused and even though we should be trying to simplify it and sort it out, […] we just leave Simon to sing his part and we’ll remember when he’s got a certain vocal line that we can hear, ‘That’s the time to come in. Yeah, yeah, that’s it.’ Ben, bass guitarist, biRdbATh Generally, the musicians limit their cognitive awareness of where they are in the arrangement to awareness of the next change—that is, what the riff in the next section will consist of: I try and think, just like … the next change ((chuckles)) [...] [I]n my mind it all kind of links together, kind of like a little map. But if I kind of look at the whole thing, it’s just like, it’d be just like … a mess basically. Dave, guitarist, Cove I don’t really think ahead as such [....] That kind of makes me think of people playing chess, you know? And sort of thinking what they’re going to do next. Tim, guitarist, biRdbATh … it’s almost like, when you’re playing, if you think about it, that’s when you mess up … I find, then you sort of get that blank, if you think too many … steps ahead … Dave, guitarist, Cove However, the state of consciousness in performance is not merely an absent-minded repetition of overlearnt material—ideally, there is an alertness which, however, should not interfere with the processes of control via muscular memory: It’s weird it’s kind of concentrating but … a mixture of concentrating but kind of at the same time relaxing and not thinking about what you’re playing too much, and sort of jinxing yourself, if you really think about it, so - I don’t know, it’s weird, it’s some kind of stored ((L hand rises as if fretting guitar)) … Dave, guitarist, Cove In summary, these musicians’ approach to performance systematically eschews any approach which involves mental thought about how the music is to be played. To anticipate themes which come later in this essay, the mechanisms by which instruments are played are conscious at a ‘prereflective’, physical level, but not at a ‘reflective’, mental level. This is not simply a rejection of music theory in favour of a vernacular system of mnemonics such as ‘fourth fret’—rather, the musicians seem to wish to abdicate all mental control. The final quote above, with its reference to a mixture of ‘concentrating’ and ‘not thinking’, hints at the presence of a dual consciousness. It is this dual consciousness which I aim to explicate via the structure of shame. First, however, the next section discusses the relation of music performance to shame. emmp_am_rev_AM2_110430changesaccepted.doc 6 The risk of shame in music performance I want to bring to mind the kind of music performance where the subjectivity of the performer is an essential component of the performance. The artistic outcome of such performance is uncertain—in at least three ways, as I shall explain—and it therefore carries some risk for the performer’s sense of Self. Naomi Cumming’s ‘The Sonic Self’ (2000) is centred on the aesthetics of performance of works from the canon of classical violin music, but many of her insights are generalisable to other music as well. Cumming asks, where is the work, except in the performance? It does not have “life” if the performer fails to risk herself for it. Only by taking the risk of spontaneity, in playing with nuance, can a performer give the work a liveliness that will also convey her own interpretive character. (Cumming 2000: 41-42) In Cumming’s view, projection of the performer’s subjectivity—their Self—in the performance is not an optional extra but rather the one thing which will make the performance ‘live’. Not just the distanced involvement of the performer’s subjectivity, but commitment to the spontaneity of performance is required. Rather than the detached projection of a predetermined subjectivity which the performer calls forth and presents to the audience—like a ringmaster at the circus—Cumming describes a subjectivity which is displayed in the procession of moment-to-moment choices made in the course of performance. There are three closely linked uncertainties in this kind of performance. First, according to Cumming, the artistry of music performance—after all requirements of physical technique, stylistic convention, and even of expressive devices have been satisfied—is not, finally, an articulate code: it cannot be grasped and retained as though it were a material entity (2000: 31). She notes Jonathon Dunsby’s (1995) recognition of Western classical music performers’ impotence in the face of this fact: emmp_am_rev_AM2_110430changesaccepted.doc 7 Performers appear to [Dunsby] as inherently anxious, aware of the potential for a negation of their past prowess, and constantly responsible for its maintenance, without the surety of success. Sounds of Sartrean existentialism emerge in this consciousness that the “artistry” of a performing "self” is an ephemeral notion, requiring continuous recreation in ongoing acts of performance, yet never sure. [...] To perform, then, is to take a risk of losing the “artistic” self. (Cumming 2000: 31-32) This sense of uncertainty is not confined to the formal world of classical music but can also be found amongst rock musicians. From interviews with ‘JK’, the bass player of a ‘moderately successful self-described indie, alt-folk, pop band’, Geeves and McIlwain concluded: The inherent uncertainty in music performance resulting from its vulnerability to temporal and contextual specificity is, ironically, of greatest threat and value to JK. Feelings of exclusivity, privilege, success, and accomplishment stem from the informed yet inevitable gamble with uncertainty JK must take during performance and the sense that it has, on this occasion, paid off. Yet uncertainty also serves as the biggest obstacle to JK’s desired experience, with performance being a fleeting, nonreplicable creative experience. (Geeves and McIlwain 2009: 418) Spontaneous performance is uncertain of achievement at all, but a second uncertainty concerns just what a performance will project. It is precisely in the spontaneously determined details of performance that the performer’s subjectivity is, not just displayed, but formed. Exactly what course the performance will take in its fine details cannot be predicted, and therefore the Self which is created and displayed in performance cannot be examined beforehand but is discovered in the moment it is created in performance (Cumming 2000: 42). A performance which forms and displays the uncensored Self is risky. As Simon Frith notes, the ultimate embarrassment for a performer is the performance that doesn’t work—but whether a performance ‘works’ or not can only be decided by its effect, whether the audience responds appropriately or not: This is a normal aspect of everyday performance too: a risked intimacy—an endearment, a caress—is always a risked embarrassment; it’s the response which decides whether it was, indeed, fitting. (Frith 1996: 214) It is ‘unbearable’, writes Merleau-Ponty, when we feel our actions are not ‘taken up and understood, but observed as if they were an insect’s’ (1962: 360), precisely because we are aware of the possibility of an appropriate response: emmp_am_rev_AM2_110430changesaccepted.doc 8 But even then, the objectification of each by the other's gaze is felt as unbearable only because it takes the place of possible communication. (Merleau-Ponty 1962: 360-61) This is the third source of anxiety regarding committed performance. Since the performer cannot know precisely what subjectivity will be displayed, there is the risk that the audience will not respond appropriately. This particular risk of performance is real and is felt as such by the performer. Geeves and McIlwain note both the fundamental need for a ‘dynamic and reciprocal’ connection between performer and audience and the ‘element of uncertainty’ of the connection (2009: 418). I propose that the shame of a performance which does not receive the appropriate response is at least partly responsible for the anxiety which a performer feels regarding their artistic Self. The musical performing Self is susceptible to the same sense of risk and (and potentially, discouragement) as the performance of everyday intimacies which Frith describes. Since the performing Self cannot be grasped objectively and reproduced at will, anxiety and discouragement can make its very achievement elusive. The picture I have painted of performance, then, is of the coincidence of newly-realised Self with the revealing of it in a social setting: it is here that the possibility of a performed subjectivity arises and with it, the risk of shame. The structure of shame Part three of Sartre’s (1958) Being and Nothingness is titled ‘Being-for-Others’; the first chapter of it begins with a lengthy discussion of shame. As Sartre describes it, the key to the structure of shame is an initial unreflective action, which is followed by a sudden awareness of the action from the perspective of the Other. Sartre’s famous example in Being and Nothingness is of being caught spying through a keyhole, and it is archetypal precisely because in that situation one is expecting to see without being seen. The focus is not on oneself, but on the practical negotiation of objects in space; one is absorbed in acting. The unreflective action is followed by discovery. Since the individual so discovered has been wholly engaged in their actions without reflection on their social meaning, they are defenceless against the Other’s apprehension of them as the actor—they do not have an alternative self-view to offer: emmp_am_rev_AM2_110430changesaccepted.doc 9 Nevertheless I am that Ego; I do not reject it as a strange image, but it is present to me as a self which I am without knowing it; for I discover it in shame and, in other instances, in pride. (Sartre 1958: 261, italics in original) There is then, the possibility of pride arising out of the structure it shares with shame: the point is that one must first make an uncensored action out of the unreflective core self, and only under the gaze of an audience will it be determined whether or not its (social) meaning results in pride or— unbearably—in shame. In our inner imagination of what we are—in everyday life and in music performance—we assume a perfect correspondence between our impulses and they way they are received and understood by others, but when we realize those impulses in the real world this may not be so: In our experience (or imagination) of our own bodies, that is to say, there is always a gap between what is meant (the body directed from the inside) and what is read (the body interpreted from the outside); and this gap is a continual source of anxiety, an anxiety not so much that the body itself but its meaning is out of our control. (Frith 1996: 206) What Frith says about bodies applies equally to music performance, and Cumming also recognizes that I am unable directly to “express” some inner state “through” music, apart from the manipulation of its micro-structural shaping [...] Signs can take on a life of their own, becoming displaced from the meaning intended for them (Cumming 2000: 37) What is key here is the separation between my ‘inner state’ and the ‘I’ who seeks to express it. The ‘I’ which chooses a meaning to express may regret a miscommunication but this evasion is not available to the meanings of the whole self—the self which is not merely expressed, but actually formed in action. It is the essence of shame that the separation of actor from action is precluded: The meaning of shame is that suddenly I am to have no innerness any more, that I am all in all the me that is exposed to another’s gaze. (Connor 2001: 218) Guilt, by contrast, can be acknowledged: I did something bad. The acknowledgement of guilt places a ‘saving distance in the self between what it is and what it has done’ (Connor 2001: 218); but the subject of shame ‘is always on the side of his shame, there being no other side for him to take’ (Connor 2001: 219). emmp_am_rev_AM2_110430changesaccepted.doc 10 There is something which appears paradoxical about the nature of shame, which the contrast with guilt brings to light. One is caught in oneself, one’s whole self is caught and at the same time one sees one’s whole self—this seems impossible. A closed-circuit television system, no matter where the camera is pointed, will always be unable to show some part of itself (the camera lens, for instance) on the monitor—surely the self is like this? How can shame be so structured as to involve the whole self, and yet allow a detached ‘I’ to exist as observer? ‘I am ashamed of myself as I appear to the Other’ (Sartre 1958: 222). The Other who we find observing us can only provide the model; to experience shame we must somehow take on the same stance as the Other. How can this occur while preserving the inescapable pervasiveness of the whole being which is so essential to the nature of shame? I want to propose that the separation between the self observed and the (internal) observing self is temporal. Shame arises in the moment of transition between prereflective consciousness and reflective consciousness, where the reflective consciousness is modelled on the gaze of the impassive Other. A sequence is required. First we make some action prereflectively—an action which, since reflective consciousness is absent, is for the moment meaningless from the reflective stance: ‘... I neither judge it nor blame it. I simply live it’ (Sartre 1958: 222). This is followed by the sudden apprehension of how we appear to the Other. The separation between the whole Self and the observing self does not arise within the subject but is simply the subject in two different stances, prereflective and reflective, temporally separated. The reflective stance looks backwards in time to the whole Self; the whole Self (including the part in reflective mode) is now caught in shame. In the experience of shame, the transition to reflective consciousness traps the individual in the action just made in the prereflective mode: Because of the outwardly small occasion that has precipitated shame, the intense emotion seems inappropriate, incongruous, disproportionate to the incident that has aroused it. Hence a double shame is involved: we are ashamed because of the original episode and ashamed because we feel so deeply about anything so slight that a sensible person would not pay any attention to it. (Lynd 1958; as quoted in Connor 2001: 219-20) If we are ashamed at our shame, we can be ashamed again at our secondary shame—and so on, a progressive reflexivity which immobilizes the individual in reflection on the original momentary action. Finally in this section, I want to say something about the positive potential in the structure of shame. To say that the same structure can lead either to shame or pride does not convey either the pervasiveness or the sense of possibility involved. Shame gives you to yourself, in ‘an agonizing entirety you might never have had before’ (Connor 2001: 218). In achieving shame, the Self escapes the confines of its own idealized conception of itself, the unexamined whole being is emmp_am_rev_AM2_110430changesaccepted.doc 11 brought onto the stage and allowed to mean. The ‘I’—which normally controls how the Self is presented to the world—is relegated to a passive role of observation, in imitation of the Other: ‘ I ... must take myself to be the me that is all that others can make of me’ (Connor 2001: 218). With the loss of control, the ‘I’ also loses its position of censor or filter of the Self. Rather than the Self being diminished, it is given to the whole being of the person to achieve subjectivity: In shame, the I spreads and swells grandiosely to meet with its infinite belittling as the me, which is perhaps why Blake thought shame was the secret name for pride. (Connor 2001: 218) The prereflective self and observational consciousness I have so far used the terms ‘prereflective’ and ‘reflective’ with regard to the self, without explanation. This section deals with the self in terms of ‘self-consciousness’, correlating phenomenological and philosophical viewpoints with developmental perspectives. What I aim to show is that prereflective awareness of the body as subject is a necessary substrate of reflective consciousness. The importance of the body in music performance is obvious: it is the body which performs the actions which produce the sounds of music. Identifying the different kinds of bodily awareness which constitute prereflective self-consciousness will not only justify mapping the structure of shame onto music performance, but also help tease out some of the special characteristics of the kind of performance under discussion. Specifically, clarifying the components of prereflective consciousness—sensory perception, motor awareness, and aspects of body schema such as balance and proprioception—enables the separation of aspects of music performance into categories of prereflective and reflective consciousness. Dorothée Legrand clarifies the difference between observational and prereflective consciousness with the example of one’s left hand touching one’s right hand: Experience of the touched hand corresponds to an observational consciousness: the touched hand is taken as an intentional object of consciousness. Experience of the touching hand is different. It corresponds to what I call here pre-reflective bodily consciousness. At this level, the body is not an object of experience, it is the subject of experience and it is experienced as such. (Legrand 2007a: 499) The basic difference, then, is between a subjective experience of the body—the body in the position of subject—and the experience of the body as an intentional object (object-directedness). What does it mean to take something as an object? Drawing on the phenomenology of Edmund Husserl, Dan Zahavi notes that objecthood is constituted for us when we experience something as a unity or identity which transcends our differing experiences of it (Zahavi 2006: 7) emmp_am_rev_AM2_110430changesaccepted.doc 12 As Zahavi argues, the continuity of identity of the object through the different experiences which the subject has of it requires that subject and object are not the same thing. If I observe myself now as happy, now as sad, and so on, continuity and unity are not found in the different emotions I observe but in the existence of the subject which observes them. The self observed in introspection must be my own self, since it is available to my introspection; but, Zahavi argues, I cannot identify the introspected self as myself unless I know it is the object of my introspection (2006: 6). Therefore: My pre-reflective access to my own mental life in first-personal experience is immediate, non-observational and non-objectifying. It is non-objectifying in the sense that I do not occupy the position or perspective of a spectator or in(tro)spector on it. (Zahavi 2006: 6) Legrand argues that the pre-reflective dimension of consciousness is ‘paradigmatically’ (although perhaps not necessarily) ‘anchored to the subject’s body’ (Legrand 2007b: 577). The prereflective self cannot be known—at any one moment in time—though self-reflection or introspection. The foundation prereflective experience of the self must therefore depend on what Legrand calls ‘selfrelative’ information—which is (at least in large part) the experience by a single self of the ways that motor movement (efference, or output, from the organism) and sensory perception (afference, or input) interact: The present proposal is thus that a foundational bodily experience is pre-reflective and rooted in sensori-motor integration, rather than primarily on afference or primarily on efference. (Legrand 2007a: 513-14, italics in original) Legrand’s view of the prereflective self as ‘rooted in sensori-motor integration’ concurs with the developmental perspective. Developmental psychoanalyst Daniel Stern identifies what he calls the ‘sense of a core self’ which coheres in infants over the period between two and six months of age: This sense of a core self is thus an experiential sense of events. It is normally taken completely for granted and operates outside of awareness. A crucial term here is “sense of,” as distinct from “concepts of” or “knowledge of” or “awareness of” a self or other. The emphasis is on the palpable experiential realities of substance, action, sensation, affect, and time. Sense of self is not a cognitive construct. It is an experiential integration. (Stern 1985: 71) As in Legrand’s account of the prereflective self, the core self integrates sensory input and motor output in a unified body. As with the characterization of the prereflective self as nonobservational emmp_am_rev_AM2_110430changesaccepted.doc 13 and nonobjectified, the sense of the core self is not a cognitive construct—not something which it is necessary to think about—but the subjective integration of experiences. Stern’s core self corresponds closely to what Philippe Rochat identifies as ‘Level 2 self-awareness’ in a five-stage model of the development of consciousness: By 4 months, normally developing infants become “touch all” or “touche à tout” as the French say. They express systematic eye-hand coordination. [...] In addition, they calibrate their decision to reach in relation to their postural degrees of freedom, whether they are more or less able to move forward toward the object without losing balance and falling onto the ground. (Rochat 2003: 724) Here there is sensori-motor integration (of which eye-hand coordination is an example) together with an awareness of posture and balance, as in Legrand’s account. In the developmental story the emergence of the reflective self at about eighteen months of age— the first appearance of an integrated Self—succeeds the initial development of the prereflective self. This is the age at which infants first become aware that the image in the mirror is themselves. A further development occurs at about age three. At this fourth stage of development, the sense of self is maintained even wthout the immediate experience of the mirror. In Zahavi’s (2006) terms,the self is objectified, it transcends and perdures through its different appearances. ‘A permanent self is expressed: an entity that is represented as invariant over time and appearance changes’ (Rochat 2003: 722). The final level in Rochat’s model is full-blown observational consciousness. Individuals become aware not only of what they are but how they are in the mind of others, how they present to the public eye. Importantly for the model of performance I propose, the public eye is internalised and projected in the mind of others: The public outlook on the self is simulated for further evaluation of how one is perceived and valued by others. The result of this evaluation, more often than not is either a devaluation or a delusion, linked to so-called ‘‘selfconscious’’ emotions or attitudes such as pride or shame. (Rochat 2003: 722) Interestingly, the first appearance of the (still-developing) observational self, between two to three years of age, appears to result in spontaneous feelings of shame. Children at this age often begin to express embarrassment, especially when confronted with a mirror—as if the image made them suddenly aware of how they present to the word. ‘They behave not unlike criminals hiding their face to the cameras (Rochat 2003: 718). Thus, there appears to be a sound developmental basis, in addition to the philosophical one, for the structure of shame as described above. emmp_am_rev_AM2_110430changesaccepted.doc 14 Furthermore, Rochat proposes that the different levels of self-awareness which he identifies as developing sequentially through infancy are not stages which are abandoned as each succeeds the last, but rather layers of the self which persist through adulthood. Each layer or level of consciousness may be more or less activated at any moment (and the simultaneous activation of, and relation between, the bottom layer of sensori-motor integration and the reflective self is fundamental to my account of creative performance). Legrand sees the prereflective self as underpinning observational forms of consciousness. Rather than being one possible form of consciousness among others, it is ‘a foundational state, in the sense that it conditions the very possibility to recognize oneself as such at the observational reflective level’ (Legrand 2007a: 498). Unity and duality in performance Music performance, as I see it, preserves the fundamental structure of shame. I have argued that this structure is temporal, that it occurs in a moment of transition from prereflective action to reflective awareness of that action from the stance of the Other. In this section I want to link the structure of shame to accounts of dance and music performance, as a preliminary to teasing out what is actually occurring in performance. Legrand (2007a) contrasts a dancer learning a new choreography with an expert dancer who knows the choreography or is skilfully improvising. The dancer learning new steps will probably need to consciously control the position and movements of the body, which implies an observational stance to it—an ‘I’ which directs the body in the movements it makes. But for the one whose dance is skilful, observational consciousness is not only not necessary (according to Legrand) but might interfere with their performance: ‘the expert dancer embodies the dance’. Without observational consciousness, the dancer enjoys a prereflective experience of the body, which Legrand calls (following Gallagher) ‘performative awareness’ (Legrand 2007a: 501). This is very close to the model of creative performance elaborated in this essay. In both, the prereflective bodily self acts without interference from the observational or reflective self. The crucial difference is that the observational self is an essential component of my model, although still without interfering with the actions of the prereflective self. This is the ‘trick’ of performance, the elusive poise which some people simply have (and others don’t) and which for many performers is there to a greater or lesser degree during any performance. Without the reflective component of consciousness, there will be no performance but simply an absent minded doing. On the other hand, the absence of prereflective doing manifests in the performer as an inability to act fluently and responsively. Both kinds of consciousness were reported as present in performance and rehearsal by professional dancers within western European traditions, interviewed by Susan Ravn: emmp_am_rev_AM2_110430changesaccepted.doc 15 [T]he ballet dancers focus on the visual appearance of the body, but the latter is always regarded as forming the other side of what they all describe as a “sensing from inside” – and which, according to both these dancers and their instructors, is the most important sense of movement for becoming a good dancer. [...] The seven contemporary dancers in different ways focus on proprioception but they also describe a constant flow of ‘internal’ (e.g. proprioceptive) and ‘external’ (e. g. visual) information. As one of the dancers puts it: “I have almost the rhythm of like perceiving outside – perceiving internal – perceiving outside – perceiving internal, so there is constant flow or flux...”. (Legrand and Ravn 2009: 400, emphases removed) These quotes are typical of the duality of consciousness which many performers describe. The notion that the music performer must internalise the ear of the audience is a commonplace. The emphasis which in Western music pedagogy is placed on being able to hear what you are playing as it sounds to the audience (rather than what you imagine it sounds like) is an indication of the difficulty of the separation between action and observation (audition). Similarly, in pop music, Simon Frith writes of the necessary separation of musician-as-performer from artist-as-character. Pop singers, he says, are involved in a process of double enactment [...] the performer’s skill is to objectify an expressive gesture at the very moment of its expression[.] (Frith 1996: 212, italics in original) The objectification of the expressive gesture might not always be smoothly and comfortably carried out. Here is Greil Marcus’s description of Janis Joplin’s ‘stunning version of ‘Ball and Chain’ that would mark her as an overnight blues sensation’ (Doyle 2009) at the Monterey Pop Festival in 6 1967 : One minute into this performance and she’s not wearing her heart on her sleeve: all of her internal organs are draped over her body like a hideous new skin. [...] It’s no fun: there’s an instant in the last chorus of the performance when Joplin’s voice goes ... somewhere else, and it’s simply not credible that the music then ends with an ordinary flourish people can cheer for. How did she get back? (Marcus 1993, italics in original) Naomi Cumming draws on Richard Schechner’s (1990) description of theatrical performance as a model for music performance. Schechner argues that for a passionate performance to be successful requires both the passionate immersion of the actor in the role and the maintenance of a monitoring level of consciousness: 6 Several videos of this performance can be found on the internet. emmp_am_rev_AM2_110430changesaccepted.doc 16 The “monitoring” capacity described by Schechner is like that developed in many disciplined practices of performance—not a form of self-assessment but a dispassionate observational mode allowing control even when “passion” is being expressed. (Cumming 2000: 35) The structure here is a little more complicated than that which I have described for shame. Schechner makes the sound argument that an actor must preserve an awareness of the consequences of their actions, in order that Othello in a murderous rage does not actually cause the death of the actor playing Desdemona (just as Joplin must monitor her impassioned extermporizations so that they fit the predetermined structure of the song). Thus, the monitoring part of the actor is an ‘I’ who ‘stands outside observing and to some degree controlling’ (Schechner 1990: 37; as quoted in Cumming 2000: 35). We have here a description of a dual consciousness: the performer is engaged at the prereflective level with the material of their performance (the text, whether a play or a piece of music), while simultaneously in a reflective stance which monitors and objectifies the actions of the prereflective self. The need for a modicum of control by the monitoring part of the actor, which Schechner notes, is perhaps necessary in cases where behaviour is extemporized to some extent, ie. for acting (rather than, say, nonimprovised dance) and for musical performances which include improvisation but must conform to a predetermined form, in order that the actions of the prereflective self do not exceed the bounds of practicality. However Cumming translates the objective, monitoring level of awareness simply as that involved in the control of each aspect of the musical performance, thus losing the aspect of the detached and uninvolved observer. The omission of the impassive, disinterested observer from the picture betrays an ambivalence which can be found in the pages of ‘The Sonic Self’ (2000). On the one hand, Cumming wants to preserve the idea that the performer is engaged in expressing an inner state—which seems to imply a separation between the performer’s subjectivity and its expression. In line with the notion of an inner state which it is the performer’s job to express, Cumming argues that what is needed is a specific awareness of how music is a pattern of signs, where “inner” states find their character through the molding of audibly material form. (Cumming 2000: 41) Awareness of how music is a pattern of signs is necessary, according to Cumming, because from the point of view of the audience the performer ‘does not have a musical “self” apart from its sounding form’ (2000: 41). On the other hand, she argues that (rather than apprehending and then expressing an inner state) the performer’s subjectivity is actually constituted in their acts; that the performer discovers themselves in their actions; that they are ‘per-forming’ themselves through those acts (Cumming emmp_am_rev_AM2_110430changesaccepted.doc 17 2000: 42). This is in line with my view: I hold that the musical self of the performer (at least, in the kind of performance with which this essay is concerned) is created (rather than merely expressed) in the performance, not just for the audience but in reality. The audience will read the whole performance, not just what the performer wants it to mean. There is always some part of myself which I cannot see—it will include, at least, the part which does the seeing. As Cumming has it, ‘If showoffs try to prove themselves, conventionalists try to preserve themselves, and in so doing play their works as if they were the “preserves” of unalterable tradition’ (2000: 41). The totality of meaning of a performance always exceeds what the performer can apprehend objectively. The musician who seeks to present a predetermined meaning (separate from their whole, unexamined Self) to the audience will inescapably present meanings which are extra to those objectively apprehended. As Cumming has it, ‘If showoffs try to prove themselves, conventionalists try to preserve themselves, and in so doing play their works as if they were the “preserves” of unalterable tradition’ (2000: 41). These are the performances where the performer’s subjectivity is not at risk, because it is not created in the very process of performance. The performance which risks the Self, by contrast, makes no separation between the actions of performance and the Self which is formed in them. Active thought is involved—but the thinking is done via motor processes. In (creative) performance, doing and thinking are so aligned that thinking proceeds to deploy what the doing is to be, and doing provides the thinking with a manifest presence. What is thought out is precisely what is done, the thought-out dance and danced-out thought being one and the same ... dances are events brought forth by performing. (Beiswanger 1973; quoted in Frith 1996: 208) Performance creativity So far, I have explicated the structure of shame in terms of the prereflective and reflective modes of self-consciousness; and I have established that the simultaneous activity of bodily doing and reflective monitoring is recognized among performers from several performance traditions, including Western theatre, dance, and classical music, and alternative rock musicians. In this final section, I want to say more about what the duality of consciousness provides in performance and how it maps onto the structure of shame. I want also to make an argument about how the two modes of consciousness are balanced and interact in creative performance. I have argued that the structure of shame is temporal, that it occurs in a moment of transition from prereflective action to reflective awareness of that action from the stance of the Other. Creative performance, I argue, preserves the fundamental structure of shame while also exhibiting an important difference in its dynamics as I have so far described them. The creative performance emmp_am_rev_AM2_110430changesaccepted.doc 18 mode establishes a continuous balance between two simultaneous modes of self, the reflective and the prereflective. The difference from the ordinary experience of shame is that this moment of transition is extended —or rather, suspended on the flow of the music. In creative performance, each moment brings a new action, a new event in the flow of performed music, and that new action becomes the object of reflective consciousness in its turn. By contrast, in the ordinary experience of shame, the transition to reflective consciousness traps the individual in consciousness of the action just made in the prereflective mode. In sport, the colloquial term ‘choking’ refers to a breakdown of prereflective motor action caused by reflective consciousness obstructing the temporal flow: Interestingly, if one rises to the next levels of explicit self-awareness (Level 3 and above) while engaged in skilled actions such as playing tennis or golf, this transition is associated with dramatic changes in performance, typically a deterioration. Tennis and golf players will tell you that if they step into explicit self-consciousness, erring into explicitly thinking and reflecting on what they are doing, their game tends to collapse. (Rochat 2003: 729) In performance, the moment of transition must be dynamic—rather than being caught and immobilized by shame, the performer must continuously re-expose themselves to the risk of shame via new prereflective doing. The performative state is the ongoing maintenance of both prereflective doing and reflective observation. In felicitous performances, musicians sometimes report a feeling as if the music were playing itself; or as if the music were coming ‘through’ the performer, rather than ‘from’ them. The following quote conveys something of the experience, together with the sense of value associated with it. Geeves and McIlwain (2009) report this statement from an interview with ‘JK’, a bassist in an ‘indie, alt-folk pop band’: If you’re not nervous and [the] crowd is already into it…and if it’s a song that you know backwards…you just go into a little bit of a zone…. In that blissful moment it’s the same feeling you have when you really enjoy anything I think…. Your body knows what to do, and you just go into this trance [...] It’s just bliss. ('JK', quoted in Geeves and McIlwain 2009: 417) Similar to JK’s ideal of bliss in performance is the notion of ‘higher enlightenment’ in performance in this quote from the bass guitarist of an alternative rock band: emmp_am_rev_AM2_110430changesaccepted.doc 19 [I]t's a Zen, it’s a Zen thing I think. [… Y]ou know you’re almost on another level you’re almost – you’re not conscious of what you’re doing, you get to that stage where you’re kind of almost like a higher enlightenment kind of thing. [… Y]ou’re not quite sure what you’re doing and you’re pushed beyond another level. Ben, bass guitarist, biRdbATh What is most interesting about these two quotes is the dissociation between the skilful body and the thinking self, a dissociation experienced as a state of bliss or higher enlightenment. The statement that ‘your body knows what to do’ can be taken in this context to indicate that the observational self is not controlling the performance; while the phrase ‘you’re not quite sure what you’re doing’ indicates a separation between reflective consciousness and prereflective bodily doing. The blissful sense of higher enlightenment indicates, at least, a special state associated with performance. This sense of bliss is an ideal state—achievable, although for most performers not with certainty. In order to map these accounts of felicitous performance onto the structure—although not the experience—of shame, it is necessary to make explicit the distinction between agency and ownership of the body. A great deal has been written on the topic: what is important here is to establish both the possibility of a sense of ownership of the body without a sense of agency, and that both agency and ownership are properties of the prereflective self. This is important because I will argue that the approach of alternative rock musicians to performance involves a loss of agency. Gallagher defines the sense of agency as ‘The sense that I am the one who is causing or generating an action [...]’, while the sense of ownership is ‘The sense that I am the one who is undergoing an experience’ for example, the sense that my body is moving regardless of whether the movement is voluntary or involuntary (2000: 15). From these definitions, it appears that a loss of the sense of agency may yet leave the individual with their sense of body ownership intact. In normal experiences of willed or goal-directed action, the sense of agency and the sense of ownership coincide—ownership of body and action are indistinguishable (Gallagher 2000: 16). It is perfectly possible, however, to experience involuntary movements which are recognized as movements of one’s own body but without the sense of causing or controlling the movement: emmp_am_rev_AM2_110430changesaccepted.doc 20 The agent of the movement is the person who pushed me from behind, for example, or the physician who is manipulating my arm in a medical examination. Thus, my claim of ownership (my self-ascription that I am the one who is undergoing an experience) can be consistent with my lack of a sense of agency. (Gallagher 2000: 16) 7 With this kind of sense of ownership of the body in movement there is still a sense of self, of mine-ness. As Gallagher puts it: [A]lthough the body schema does not involve a consciousness of the body as a direct intentional object, body schematic processes may generate an ongoing pre-reflective experience of the body as it performs and moves in ways that are intentional as well as sometimes automatic[.] (Gallagher 2005: 239) ‘Automatic’ is just how the experience of performing overleant actions from ‘muscular memory’ might be described. Perhaps statements such as ‘Your body knows what to do, and you just go into this trance’ (Geeves and McIlwain 2009: 417) and ‘you’re not conscious of what you’re doing’ (Ben, bass guitarist, biRdbATh) describe a loss of agency. To describe movements as automatic, rather than intentional, indicates that the movements are not goal-directed—that is, that the musical result of the movement is not represented in imagination at the time of its execution. This is in line with Cumming’s view that the performer’s subjectivity is constituted in their acts, rather than preestablished and merely expressed in performance: in felicitous performance the prereflective self does not preconceive the effect of the actions it makes. The musical choices which display subjectivity are made directly in terms of motor actions, with the effect of those motor actions— nuances of timing, loudness and timbre—being available simultaneously to the audience and the performer’s reflective self. Thus the reflective self does not make musical choices, but simply observes (listens). The prereflective self continues its motor actions without interference from the reflective self. The separate functions of these two layers of consciousness are independent. That the two layers of self-consciousness do co-exist in the present moment is axiomatic—as argued above, the prereflective self is foundational ‘in the sense that it conditions the very possibility to recognize oneself as such at the observational reflective level’ (Legrand 2007a: 498). Similarly, reflective consciousness is the prerequisite for being-for-others, which would appear to be essential to any 7 The sense of ownership appears to rely (at least in part) on proprioception, the internal feedback to the brain regarding limb position and movement (Legrand 2007a: 494)—although it seems probable that, especially for whole-body movement, feedback from areas responsible for balance, such as the vestibular, would be involved. emmp_am_rev_AM2_110430changesaccepted.doc 21 notion of performance. The repetitive drilling to achieve overlearning can be seen as a strategy for removing reflective consciousness from any role in the mechanics of playing, including making moment-to-moment choices in how to play individual musical gestures. What defines ‘creative performance’ (as described here) is the continuous attention of the reflective self to the actions of the prereflective self in the preceding moment, but without attempting to control present or future actions. emmp_am_rev_AM2_110430changesaccepted.doc 22 Beiswanger, G. (1973). “Doing and Viewing Dances: A Perspective for the Study of Criticism.” Dance Perspectives 55(8). biRdbATh. (n.d.). MySpace page. Accessed 2011, from http://www.myspace.com/birdbath. Connor, S. (2001). “The shame of being a man.” Textual Practice 15(2): 211-30. Cove. (n.d.). MySpace page. Accessed 2011, from http://www.myspace.com/therealcove. Cumming, N. (2000). The Sonic Self. 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