Matthew Rahaim | A Mahfil Drenched in Tears: Relationality in the Hindustani Vocal Ecumene

Matthew Rahaim, Professor of Ethnomusicology, University of Minnesota

A voice may seem to be the most direct expression of individual selfhood—an emanation of
one’s very being. We recognize the call of a dear friend across the room; we intuitively catch
vibes from a stranger’s greeting; we routinely ascribe ethical character to voices: free or
constricted, authentic or fake, arrogant or compassionate. Likewise, in the age of nationalism, it is common to read public voices as natural expressions of a timeless national essence. And yet, voices do not simply spill out into the world fully formed. A voice is shaped over many years of practice, pedagogy, and techniques of listening in relation to others. Scholarly vocal analysis often begins from a prior voice-text which is only later placed “in context” among others. But this talk suggests the inverse: voicing is normatively and foundationally relational. Our paradigmatic case for relationality is not a voice on a stage or a recording, but an intimate mahfil, where singers and connoisseurs gather for sung poetry, where affective circuits are marked by tears and spontaneous praise, where a cultivated heart is the paradigmatic organ of hearing. From this vantage, vocal irrelationality (soliloquy, self-identity, expression) stands out as a remarkable special effect, produced by microphones, stages, individualist pedagogies, and other technologies of selfhood. Ethnographic and historical examples are drawn from raga music, Sufi song, Hindi film, and other vocal worlds in the Hindustani vocal ecumene.

This event is co-sponsored with the Department of Music