Recentering the Listener in Deconstructive Music

The problem with applying the term deconstruction to anything is that it raises expectations, perhaps too high. For all its disdain of totalization, to ever arrive at a final deconstruction (which Derrida would say is impossible) of whatever form of text, medium, or object that is under construction requires a total dismantling by the initial producer or the receiver of the text. This typically results in a contest where one side tries to remove as many footnotes as possible, while the other side tries to find them for the purposes of denying the (brand) label of "pure" deconstruction (another impossibility in Derrida's own construction of the theory). When it comes to music, one can imagine the obstacles that attend making a "new" sound that will dismantle all prior assumptions and foundations upon which the infrastructure of music has been built and thrives. There is always that one sound someone thinks they have heard somewhere before, upending a sense of superiority as a producer or consumer of the new. Eventually, either side finds itself trapped in a locked groove: if the song involves sounds—not just silence (see Cobussen on John Cage's work with silence and noise)—that a majority of listeners will accept as broadly falling under the rubric of music, then you have failed, condemned to resort to screaming and howling sporadically while you force your instrument to emit some kind of sound, probably screaming and howling. Interesting once, but hardly the kind of thing that will appeal to a large audience after they have figured it out—if they ever get that far.

That last sentence signals how deconstruction offers us a firm foundation for finding merit in what most music industry executives would consider a failure. What could be more antithetical to the ideology of corporate-produced music than one with a limited fan base that is created by people intent on making a product that hinders the industry's primary function of selling music to the most people? The fact that we are even returning to deconstruction (akin to a reissued album?) traps us within similar terms of the music industry's competition for newness. When I took down some books about deconstruction and saw the early 1980s copyrights, I admit that I momentarily pondered if it was worth the bother (right after I got over the shock of recalling that I had never heard the name Derrida pass through the lips of my undergraduate professors during those years). But I contend the reprise of deconstruction, including a recently renewed debate about its applicability to cultural studies, is worth the effort because the theory helps to multiply sites for making and finding meaning in places that may not seem so obvious.

Marcel Cobussen argues that "it is cumbersome to speak of 'deconstructive music.' All music, every composition, every improvisation, every performance (in principle) works deconstructively, but each in a different way" (2001, Section I, 5). I agree but will pursue this notion from the perspective of the listener. On the user end of transmission, all musical texts can be considered deconstructive in some manner as they either support or undermine a specific listener's assumptions about music—i.e., what is good, what is worth the efforts of fandom and spending money (be it for a recording or a ticket). Intertexuality speaks to a relationship that interweaves texts and gives them meaning. They are all part of a network of meaning—especially those that seem antithetical—that extends beyond sharing references since they create ways of self-understanding; indeed, they utterly rely on each other for it. The differences can be more effective than similarities in creating opportunities for self-definition as you more easily discern what you are not. The absence or "trace" of the other is always present in this process and drives it: "No element can function as a sign without relating to another element which is itself not simply present. . . . There are only, everywhere, differences and traces of traces" (Derrida 1981, 26).

Trace is a fit term for thinking about musical deconstruction...