Listening Positionality

Question 1

Critical listening positionality

Answer 1

An orientation toward listening that takes into account our own position in relation to the sounds/ music we are hearing

An orientation toward listening that takes into account our own position in relation to the sounds/ music we are hearing

Question 2

Normative listening

Answer 2

Listening which reinforces normative listening habits and biases
o A person is listening ‘well’ or ‘correctly’ if they are able to perceive the ‘content’ of what is heard

Question 3

The “tin ear”

Answer 3

This term is used to refer to non-Indigenous Canadians being unable and/or unwilling to hear Indigenous music

Question 4

Listening as palimpsest

Answer 4

a palimpsest is an ancient manuscript which has been washed off and written over

In music, the palimpsest is a metaphor for listening to “layered histories and agencies in soundscapes,” including long-forgotten sounds (Daughtry, 2013)

Question 5

Listening with three ears

Answer 5

we should listen with both our ears and our heart; we have three ears, “two on the sides of our head and the one that is in our heart

Question 6

Sovereign listening

Answer 6

Listening which “does not reduce what is heard to the knowable, that resists a multicultural categorization of one sound among many, that understands sound in its irreducible alterity, and that moves beyond our recognition of normative musical or performance protocols”

o A way of listening that doesn’t simplify or categorize sounds into easily understood groups. It resists labeling music or sounds based on common, mainstream ideas, and instead appreciates their unique, unchangeable qualities. This type of listening goes beyond the usual ways we recognize music and performance.