Hungry Listening: Resonant Theory for Indigenous Sound Studies by Dylan Robinson

Reviewed by: Hungry Listening: Resonant Theory for Indigenous Sound Studies by Dylan Robinson Beverley Diamond (bio) Hungry Listening: Resonant Theory for Indigenous Sound Studies by Dylan Robinson University of Minnesota Press, 2020 HUNGRY LISTENING examines intercultural performances by or with Indigenous musicians. Robinson discusses how classical concerts, where music is presented for aesthetic contemplation, contrast with Indigenous practices that speak back to colonial institutions and values. The format and content of the book are equally innovative. Both chapters and creative interventions (poetry, event scores) between chapters speak to the themes of intersubjectivity, performative writing, encounters between Indigenous and early music, ethnographic redress, and reconciliation. Questioning entitlement and reconfiguring “structures of inclusion” (6), Robinson asks settler readers not to read a short chapter entitled “Writing Indigenous Space.” Robinson describes two examples that demonstrate the central themes. Euro-American assumptions that music is aesthetic enrichment contrast with Indigenous uses of song as law, medicine, or primary historical documentation. To illustrate, the author examines the transcript of the British Columbia land claims case Delgamuukw v. the Queen, when Judge McEachern, claiming a “tin ear,” refused to allow song in his courtroom, denying song as oral history and legal order that brings memory back into a territory. Another settler refusal emerged in the moving story of a visit to Saint Olave’s Church (London, UK) where Peter Morin asked to sing to the spirit of an Indigenous child captured by Frobisher and buried in St. Olave’s. Told he could not sing or speak, Morin undertook a silent ceremony mimicking drum beating to honor the child. The following “Event Score for Guest Listening” contemplates Kingston, Ontario, a city known for limestone buildings that symbolize the weight of settler permanence. “Writing about Musical Intersubjectivity,” turns to intellectuals who “seek forms of writing otherwise” (103). Indigenous models—for example, Leanne Simpson’s multigenre publications (academic writing, storytelling, or music recording); Lee Maracle’s “Conversations . . .”; and narratives of Residential School survivors—are curiously not referenced. A section on “spatial intersubjectivity” contrasts the land as sentient with museum spaces (96). Robinson makes no mention of more enlightened museum practices, as stewards not owners, and enablers of Indigenous care [End Page 81] and use of artifacts on museum or community premises. Related, though in stark contrast, is the interlude on Raven Chacon’s Report, a composition for gunshot ensemble. Chapter 3 considers concert works that imagine sound worlds of first contact between Indigenous custodians of the land and settler arrivals. Inuit throat singing—concert music’s frequent “go to” genre for Indigenous sound—may resonate with classical musicians’ interest in experimental vocal techniques but more likely because it is marked as “exotic.” Composers’ approaches vary from integration, to trading, to sonic displays of starkly juxtaposed styles that emphasize sharp differences. An “Event Score for Those Who Hold Our Songs” follows, urging collectors to give the songs back. Although some museum/community collaborations have helped bring songs to life again—for example, the Haida Nation publication of boxed sets of Songs of Haida Gwai, Mi’kmaq CDs of the recordings of Mechling—there is much more to be done. Appropriation by settler composers is addressed further in “Ethno-graphic Redress, Compositional Responsibility.” Alongside are Indigenous initiatives: Mike Dangeli’s “Temporary Longhouse for Ethnographic Redress,” where the gifting of song gives hope and serves as witness to truth; Peter Morin’s singing “to sites of colonial power”; and Cheryl l’Hirondelle’s “Why the Caged Bird Sings” informed by visits with incarcerated Indigenous women. Alexina Louie’s “Take the Dog Sled,” for throat singers and chamber ensemble, on the other hand, is described as “sound tourism” that ignores the killing of sled dogs to discourage travel on the land, a history unfolded during the Qikiqtani Truth Commission. That troubled history emerges in the postchapter interlude where Robinson suggests a recasting of Louie’s work with projected images of statements about the enforced killing of dogs filmed by Indigenous youth. Robinson also suggests a restaging: having the audience walk through an open space (not on stage) where throat singers are performing. The final chapter, “Feeling Reconciliation,” makes clear that recognition is not enough. The orientation of multiculturalism toward “friendly coming together” and...

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