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Article: Musicology and Difference: Gender and Sexuality in Music Scholarship.
- Article from:
- The Women's Review of Books
- Article date:
- June 1, 1994
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1994 Old City Publishing, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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In a different key
JANE CAMPION'S FILM The Piano turns on the mysterious, nonverbal power of music. Campion's mute heroine Ada finds another kind of voice through musical performance after her willful renunciation of speech. Ada's music-making, in this case the appropriate feminized mode of domestic piano playing, not only affects its listeners; it ultimately provokes social disruption.
The Piano and its provocative music raise issues of communication, power, selfhood and sexuality, as well as the cultural ideologies bound up in music's disruptive--and exciting--nature. Music moves us, but it's not speech; it says something, but it's often difficult to tell ...