Drawing upon the recent scholarship on sound studies, particularly cultural musicology and art historical inquiries into sound, I propose a hermeneutic approach to late-Ming singing refracted through the history of auditory experience. What were the sonic features—what the theorist R. Murray Schafer terms “keynote”—of the basic performance models of the time? How did they carry specific gendered implications? With these questions in mind, I probe the dichotomy between the courtesans’ vocal chamber music and the vigorous singing of elite men. The typical late-Ming courtesan’s solo performance took place under relatively quiet acoustic conditions and featured pleasing-sounding soft voice and hyperfeminine vocal production described metaphorically in contemporary criticism as “the midnight oriole.” In contrast, mountain hikers, mostly male, performed solo songs marked by significant sonority and high physical effort in natural landscapes with rich ambient noise, especially the sound of rapid streams and waterfalls

Feb. 14 (Thursday) 4:00-6:00 p.m.

Location: Judd 313