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Naomi Cumming. 2000. The Sonic Self: Musical Subjectivity and Signification. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. 370 pp. ISBN 0-253-33754-2 (hardcover). It is rare to find a book which is both sweepingly ambitious and disarmingly elegant. The Sonic Self is such a book. The work could justifiably be placed in several different lineages: it is a study of musical narrative and persona; it is a book of reflective, personal new musicology; it engages central questions of musical aesthetics; it expands the metatheory of music analysis; and it has contributions to make in the study of pedagogy and violin performance practice. This richness derives from Cumming's choice of topic. The Sonic Self asks how musical sound and the rituals of pedagogy and performance form musical subjects on several different levels. Cumming considers the self-constitution of performers, the construction of performer as persona in reception and criticism, and the nature of subjectivity on the part of musical sound itself. The primary theoretical lens through which this program is developed is Peircian musical semiotics, with a special focus on its philosophical aspects. Cumming's own broad background prepared her especially well for the production of such an interdisciplinary study. From an early age she trained as a classical violinist, and remained a dedicated performer throughout her life. She also pursued advanced training in music theory, pedagogy, and western philosophy. In 1998 she was granted the International Society for Music Theory Outstanding Publication award for her article on Bach's "Erbarme Dich." It is to be expected, then, that her work would weave together issues and methods from a range of sources. The pleasant surprise is her deft syntheses of the material. Also worth noting, the book always feels strongly motivated without ever lapsing into dogmatism. Considering the highly technical and sometimes partisan nature of the literature on musical meaning and subjectivity, this is a welcome achievement. In the years preceding and including the writing of this book, Cumming had dedicated herself to the formal study of western philosophy, and it shows in the style of her writing. There is no barrage of technical arguments, but instead, a smaller number of examples and comments which, while remaining approachable almost to the point of transparency, manage to raise an extraordinary number of questions. Similarly, Cumming states her own positions in a manner which should be entirely clear for readers not familiar with the technical literature, but which for specialist readers (or at least for this specialist reader) is often impressive in range and concision. Especially welcome is the Appendix, entitled "Theorizing Generals," in which Cumming broaches the already familiar debate about essentialism versus constructivism, but does so from a philosopher's perspective. This short passage alone could provide an important opening to new possibilities in that still-central debate. The book opens with reminiscence. Cumming tells us what it was like for her, as a child and young adult, learning to play the violin. These passages are engaging and even moving, delineating both the human stakes of the study and also her technical and theoretical concerns. When she moves on to the core of her argument, echoes of this personal opening continue to linger, although they are nuanced and extended by her theoretical view of subjectivity. Cumming emphasizes the manner in which subjectivity and expressivity are constructs read into sonic and other texts. She emphasizes the fact that these qualities may in some cases be entirely virtual. There are two senses of virtuality here: (1) the attribution of an emotional or intellectual state to a performer who does not actually inhabit such a state (even though some listeners may hear it "expressed" in the music); (2) the many cases in which the music itself seems to exhibit subjective states (i. …

canadian university music review

Naomi Cumming. 2000. The Sonic Self: Musical Subjectivity and Signification. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. 370 pp. ISBN 0-253-33754-2 (hardcover)