The writing presented here represents a further attempt to delve deeper in to some of the concepts found in the work of Lacan. Following on from the previous chapter where the relationship between subject and objects was considered and applied to musical contexts, this chapter reveals the thinking and reading of the researcher as he endeavours to find ways that psychoanalysis can be used for the reading of the data that he collected in the observation of popular musicians in rehearsal.
It also represents a realisation that in order to understand better the ideas taken from Žižek it would be vital to also look at the writing by Lacan to which he refers. For the researcher this was new territory, Lacan’s writing is dense and involved, there is much commentary that the researcher would not be able to make complete sense of. A decision was made to focus on the key chapters by both Lacan and Žižek on the ‘Graph of Desire’, using this to devise a model that could be use for the analysis of collected data.
The result is an imperfect and partial interpretation of some psychoanalytical concepts, but also a useful model of how musicians might think about music and their activities that was then applied to a reading of the rehearsal of popular musicians. This analysis is presented in the next chapter.
‘Psychoanalysing Musicianship: Identity in ‘Che Vuoi?’ and the ‘Subject Supposed To Know’
Introduction
The purpose of this chapter is to set forth the key concepts that the researcher wishes to draw upon from the work of Slavoj Žižek and Jacques Lacan in devising a conception of musicianship using a psychoanalytical approach to culture for use in researching discourse in music education. As a music teacher the researcher is concerned with the progression of his
students into an ever growing confidence and identification with their own musicianship. He wants them to identify with the term musician as this will better help them understand the musical skills and knowledge they are acquiring, as well as the emotional and intellectual models they need to develop to negotiate their musical relationships and performances. Music teachers must encourage their students to take ownership over musical learning and to do this a relationship of trust must be established.
However, the roles of student and teacher are not equivalent each has different expectations, aims and ways of understanding musical learning. I will argue that Lacan’s concern with the desire of the analyst is encapsulated in his proposition of ‘the subject supposed to know’ and that a parallel can be drawn with the aims of the music teacher. To fully explore this relationship it will be necessary to draw on a reading of Lacan’s key ideas and the way they can be applied to culture by Žižek in his chapter entitled “Che Vuoi?”. The consequences for the way culture is understood from this reading provides insight into the debates in music education on identity of teachers and engagement of learners, it also provides a viewpoint on the role of popular culture and its relationship to hegemony.
The chapter is composed of a number of parallels. The trust placed in the analyst plays a similar role to the trust placed in the teacher. Transference and the dissolution of transference are interpreted into two stages of musicianship. Symptoms are read as musical goals. Žižek’s chapter on the ‘Graph of Desire’ is then drawn upon to develop a model of musicianship. This happens in three parts: identity, identification and beyond identification. Finally, the ‘subject supposed to know’ is posited as a perspective for the music teacher to enable them to use the model of musicianship that has been developed through the course of this chapter. The trust placed in the teacher
Trust between a teacher and their student is vital for learning, without the belief that they have a common goal – that of the student
learning with the help of the teacher – it will be difficult for them to communicate with each other or even want to work together. In psychoanalysis trust is also important, but there are two stages to the process: the patient must first trust the analyst to help by revealing the underlying fantasies from which their symptoms originate and then the patient must realise that the analyst does not have the answers, cannot alleviate them of their symptoms. The patient must learn to recognise in themselves the way identity is formed through their symptoms.
Lacan’s language in his seminars is a dense transcription of speeches he presented. The following passage illustrates how Lacan felt the identity of the analyst is central to the process of psychoanalysis:
The aim of my teaching has been and still is the training of analysts. The training of analysts is a subject that is well to the forefront of analytic research. Nevertheless in the analytic literature, its principles are lost sight of. It is clear that in the absence of adequate criteria – since for the psycho- analyst there is no substantial beyond by which to justify his conviction that he is qualified to exercise his function – the substitution can be interpreted in only one way – as simulation.
Yet what he gains is of incalculable value – the trust of the subject as such. He is not God for his patient, so what does this trust signify? Around what does it turn? For him who places the trust, and receives its reward, the question can no doubt be ignored. It cannot be for the psycho-analyst. He should know, in the process through which he guides his patient, what it is around which the movement turns. He must know, to him it must be transmitted, through actual experience, what it is all about. This pivotal point is what I designate under the term the desire of the psycho-analyst. (Lacan 1986: 230-1)
In this passage Lacan describes his assertion that the analyst has a responsibility in his relationship with his patient, that the patient may not be aware of and that is not a focus of traditional psychoanalytic practices. This is the trust that the patient places in the analyst. The patient’s reward for placing trust in the analyst is a positive outcome for the patient. But Lacan is asking what does the psychoanalyst gain from the trust being placed in him and how does the psychoanalyst know that he can fulfil the expectation that the patient’s trust places upon him?
When Lacan says that the ‘analyst must know, to him it must be transmitted’ he is implying that the analyst’s job is to get the patient to be honest with him. In placing trust in the analyst, the patient is demanding the analyst must know ‘what it is about.’ The analyst can only do this if the patient is honest with them. The patient must do the work of healing. (Iyer 2008:13)
A parallel with teaching and learning can be drawn. It is the student who must do the learning. The teacher is the person who the student trusts to guide them through to achieving the stated learning objectives. The student may assume that teaching will be done to them, the teacher will give them knowledge and then they will have learned what they need to know. However, the teacher knows that it is the student who must do the learning, despite the trust placed in the teacher the student must be guided to recognise the skills they possess, or have developed whilst working towards achieving the stated learning objectives.
For example, a current student of the researcher is very serious about becoming a professional musician. He is focused on developing his technique as a drummer, gaining experience of performing live and organising musical events. This is good, he is concentrating on the right activities to develop his musicianship, but he is not yet confident that he has the skills that he needs to be a professional musician. The researcher as his teacher is happy with his progress in developing his musical skills, they will work together on rhythm, on style, on harmony, arranging, composition, critical analysis, planning, budgeting, logistics etc. His teacher believes with application and experience he will be able to build a career as a professional musician.
For him though there is still something fundamental missing, some part to being a musician that he feels he hasn’t yet acquired. As he describes it: “I wanna be a heavy player!” The researcher is his teacher, the teacher is supposed to know what he needs to achieve the goals he has set himself. He is expecting his teacher to teach him how to be a better musician, which his teacher can do by encouraging him to continue in the musical activities he currently engages in. To be a “heavy” musician, however, is a term that has
a specific meaning for the researcher’s student, one that could be very different from the researcher’s understanding of the term.
In this chapter it will be demonstrated how being a teacher is a role to be played for the student and although teachers have a great deal of knowledge to give, if they don’t fulfil this role their students may not value or understand what they are learning.
The two stages of musicianship
If the researcher takes from his practice as a further education lecturer teaching music to students aged 16 and over, he is able to draw parallels in the journey he expects his students to be engaged in and the psychoanalytic process. The concern in this context is increasing the students’ ability to work independently and synthesise knowledge and skills through practical application. The further education context could be considered a bridge between the initial development of musical skills and the vocational practices of professional musicians.
These musical learners are engaged in a journey from having some experience of performing music to wanting to increase their musicianship with the goal of becoming a working musician. This is not only a journey of increasing technical dexterity, widening repertoire and depth of understanding, it is also a journey of emotion and identification with themselves as musicians. This process of developing musicianship can be read through a psychoanalytic lens to provide useful ways of thinking about musical learning.
In this way we can also articulate two stages of the psychoanalytic process: interpretation of symptoms — going through fantasy. When we are confronted with the patient’s symptoms, we must first interpret them and penetrate through them to the fundamental fantasy as the kernel of enjoyment which is blocking the further movement of interpretation; then we must accomplish the crucial step of going through the fantasy, of obtaining distance from it, of experiencing how the fantasy-formation just masks, fills out a certain void, lack, empty place in the Other. (Žižek 1989: 74)
In psychoanalysis there are two stages to the process before the analyst can say that the patient’s treatment is successful. The first is to identify the patient’s symptoms and the underlying fantasies that support them. The second part of the process is helping the patient realise that their fantasies are fundamental to how they express their humanity – the instinctive drives that motivate us through both pleasure and fear – their symptoms play an important part in how they understand the world. With this new understanding of the role that fantasy plays in their life the patient can come to control their symptoms using them to draw pleasure from life rather than being dominated by the force of their symptoms.
This understanding can also help musical learners take ownership over their musicianship. They must first identify what they feel it is to be a good musician, in what way they want to improve their musicianship – this in itself is not easy if the musical learner believes that there is a correct way to improve as a musician, that it is simply a matter of being taught this. Then there is the development of technique, knowledge and understanding – these vary widely between different musicians depending on their goals and the contexts they are working in. Professional musicians need to analyse each musical situation and respond appropriately. Confidence in one’s own skills and knowledge is an important part of the musicianship of a professional performer, confidence that can only be gained through a process of taking ownership over musical learning.
Having a clear sense of how personal goals and musical experience is evaluated is the first part of taking ownership of musical learning. The second is to come to terms with why musicians enjoy performing, where does the pleasure in performing music come from and why does it cause anxiety in many musicians. Understanding how these feelings inform the musical goals each musician uses to guide their activities solidifies musicianship into a powerful tool for a working musician.
Musical goals as symptoms
A psychoanalytic reading of musicianship would put musical goals in the place of the symptom. The musical goals musicians work towards help them measure the quality of the music they make; it is how they decide whether a piece of music is good or bad. Musical evaluation is a crucial skill for a musician, being able to make creative decisions about the sounds they are making and how to communicate their ideas to other musicians requires an understanding of how the quality of music is decided. Interpreting the ideas of other musicians requires an understanding of how these others decide on the quality of music, as this may be different from the way the musician makes these decisions his or her self. A musician who assumes that the quality of music is decided by a set of rules that exist outside the musicians that use them does not fully comprehend the expressive power that musicians performing together have.
It is in the interaction between musicians where meaningful relationships are created and sonically voiced to an audience. Each musician needs to have an understanding, or schema, that they can refer to when engaging in musical interactions. This helps them draw on the knowledge and skills they have in responding to the situation they are in and the people they are working with. Guided by their musical goals musicians make decisions about how they perform, which personal resources they will use and what they intend to communicate with their actions.
A musician can construct their goals in many different musical, personal and professional ways. The motivation to make music is based both implicitly and explicitly on these goals. Musical goals are like symptoms in that symptoms provide an explanation for inconsistencies in the fantasy that the patient has constructed, whereas musical goals provide potential solutions to deficiencies in a musician’s perception of the ideal that they aspire to. Most importantly we can learn from this comparison that it is a musician’s goals that provide meaning to their musical activity, a meaning
that helps them make sense of what they do and provides them with the motivation to make music.
What we must bear in mind here is the radical ontological status of symptom: symptom, conceived as sinthome, is literally our only substance, the only positive support of our being, the only point that gives consistency to the subject. In other words, symptom is the way we — the subjects — ‘avoid madness’, the way we ‘choose something (the symptom-formation) instead of nothing (radical psychotic autism, the destruction of the symbolic universe)’ through the binding of our enjoyment to a certain signifying, symbolic formation which assures a minimum of consistency to our being-in- the-world. (ibid: 75)
Musical goals define what a musician wants to achieve – which then constitutes their understanding of musical quality – rather than music possessing an essential set of qualities that are not controlled by the musician. Žižek argues that Lacan’s interpretation of the symptom represents a critical shift in the ontology of the subject (musician). Symptoms cannot be eradicated, musicians will never achieve perfection, rather they create meaningful understandings of the self. Musical goals provide purpose to a musician’s activity, no matter what that activity is. Identity, Identification and Beyond
‘Symptom’ is a psychoanalytic concept that is difficult to define precisely as it exists as a manifestation of difference in the psyche of the subject. In the ‘Sublime Object of Ideology’ Žižek suggests that the question “Che Vuoi?” – “What is it in me that you desire?” – can help us read through the relationship of the symptom to the subject in Lacan’s ‘Graph of Desire’. What follows is an attempt to partially summarise Žižek’s argument and draw parallels with the identity formation of musicians, whether they are playing the roles of teacher, learner or professional.
There are three stages to the argument put forward by Žižek in Che Vuoi that helps us think through how we as subjects identify with the world around us and what we can learn from the psychoanalytic process. The psychoanalytic language that Žižek uses has specific meanings given by Lacan
that can differ from other psychoanalytic schools and understandings of words in common use. In Lacan the words symbolic, imaginary, real, reality, desire, demand, drive, subject, other and fantasy are used in precise and specific ways. The implications for psychoanalytic practice and philosophical interrogation constitute a significant area of scholarly research (such as Butler et al. 2000 Leader 2014, Evans 2006, Fink 1997) the purpose here is to explain the argument set out by Žižek in his reading of Lacan in as simple terms as possible in order to be able to operationalise them resulting in a conception of musicianship that can be used as a methodological basis for the analysis of music education research.
Žižek makes clear that his reading is an unorthodox one that contradicts Lacan’s express intentions of only talking about the clinical practice of psychoanalysis. Taking the work of Lacan and Freud he reads into it a range of other material that contextualises Lacanian ideas into a complex web of European philosophy, particularly Hegel and Marx, and his argument in The Sublime Object of Ideology is placed into a discussion that is dominated by post-structural writers including the deconstructionism of Derrida. Žižek is keen to differentiate aspects of Lacanian thought from these other thinkers as there is a change of perspective and a constancy in approach to ontology not evident elsewhere.
The first part of the Che Vuoi? chapter looks at identity and clarifies the relationship between subjectivity and signification. The question here is how do we give meaning to things and how does the language we use impact on the way we see ourselves? This is not merely a question of reflecting, even though the mirror is an important analogy used by Lacan, it is about