Sound Bites: Music as Violence

Dans cet essai, je discute les idées concernant la musique et la violence présentées par les contribut·eurs·rices de ce numéro hors-série de Transposition . Bien que les articles soient très différents les uns des autres, des thèmes communs émergent. Je les croise avec ma propre recherche sur les sons musicaux de la campagne de Gallipoli (1915-1916). En suivant Nikita Hock, j’examine la notion de métaphore en ce qui concerne les cachettes souterraines en zone de guerre. En suivant Victor A. Stoichita, je regarde comment la musique offre différents chemins dans l’accomplissement ou le désengagement d’actes de violence. En suivant Sarah Kay, j’examine les façons dont le contrafactum aide à clarifier la positionnalité ambivalente des recrues alliées dans le cadre d’une campagne étrangère. Je me réfère également à la notion d’« extimité » proposée par Sarah Kay au moment d’interpréter les représentations expressionnistes de la guerre dans les Dardanelles.


Sound Bites: Music as Violence
Morsures sonores : la musique comme violence John Morgan O'Connell War as Peace 1 "C'est la musique qui parle, pas les paroles". 1 So observes Jean-Marc Rouillan with reference to the Irish band called the Them (among others). For him, music can simultaneously speak about trivial sentiments while at the same time express visceral emotions. Where a text talks about love a melody might simultaneously scream rage. Here, the voice operates as an instrument of confrontation. Rouillan seems to confirm the paradoxical character of music in violent contexts, music at once being employed to incite war and at the same time being used to promote peace. 2 Interestingly, Rouillan reminiscences about the musical preferences of his activist colleagues he notes in particular the importance of punk bands such as The Clash and the Sex Pistols for articulating collectively a dissonant register. For him, music-making reinforced a social bond among comrades and music listening quenched the terrifying heat after an affray. In contrast to other commentators, 3 Rouillan confirms that he never listened to music before or during armed confrontations. Rather, music afforded peace after war. 2 For Rouillan, music operated as a resource to enable de-escalation. It is interesting to note the repertoire chosen by Rouillan after action. He includes "classical" composers such as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Gabriel Fauré in his selection. This is a very different playlist from the ones chosen by militants in other conflicts. As Lisa Gilman among others note, metal was widely listened to by American soldiers in Iraq before engaging the enemy. 4 For Rouillan and Gilman different styles of music afforded distinctive pathways in their reaction to and their preparation for violent episodes. 5 For Rouillan and Gilman respectively a Walkman and an iPod were the auditory weapons of choice. Like other scholars observe with reference to different conflicts, 6 Rouillan was attracted first to a musical subculture before adopting a radical ideology. Interestingly, Rouillan equates music with politics just as Jonathan Pieslak equates metal with war. Of course, music is not politics and metal is not war. Music is a metaphor for both. That is, music provides a distinctive conduit for either fulfilling or transcending acts of violence. 3 With these issues in mind, I interrogate in this essay the ideas that concern music and violence which are presented by scholars in this Transposition special issue. Although each article is very different, common themes emerge. I interpolate these with reference to my own research into the sounds of music in the Gallipoli Campaign (1915)(1916). 7 Following Nikita Hock, 8 I examine the notion of metaphor as it relates to underground hideouts in a war zone. Here, a grave is employed in song and poetry to signify a living tomb. Following Victor A. Stoichita, 9 I look at the sounds that perforate a "sound bubble" on the front line. In this context, I document the informal manifestation of sound and the formal organization of music that appear in the diaries and memoires of combatants. Following Sarah Kay, 10 I examine the ways in which contrafactum helps clarify the ambivalent positionality of Irish recruits in the Gallipoli Campaign. Not ignoring the visualization of violence, I find Kay's exploration of "extimacy" especially useful when interpreting expressionist representations of a naval assault in the Dardanelles. 11

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In my monograph entitled Commemorating Gallipol through Music, 12 I examine the relationship between music and memory as it relates to a military expedition. In it, I explore the multiple ways in which music is employed to remember or forget, to celebrate and commemorate a victory (on the part of the Central Powers) and a defeat (on the part of the Allied forces) in the Dardanelles during the First World War (1914)(1915)(1916)(1917)(1918). In particular, I interrogate the ambivalent position of sound in a warzone, music at once being used to unify allies (by way of motivation) or to scatter foes (by means of terrorization). Further, I show how song can serve to articulate a nationalist defiance and an imperialist consensus among ethnic minorities. Through musical analysis, I demonstrate how the colonized could become the colonizer (in the case of the Irish) and a how minority might conform to a majority (in the case of the Armenians). In short, I argue that commemoration is itself an act of war clothed in the mantle of peace.
Beyond the Grave 5 In his contribution, Nikita Hock looks at the acoustic ecology of Jewish survivors who were hiding underground to escape their Nazi persecutors in Poland and East Galicia during the Second World War (1939)(1940)(1941)(1942)(1943)(1944)(1945). Based on the testimony to be found in diaries and notebooks, Hock reconstructs the sound world of relevant bunkers and hideouts both in urban and rural contexts. Here, he focuses on the sound strategies employed by Jews to survive, such as the strategic enforcement of silence or the selective engagement with sound. Of particular interest, Hock shows how Jews employed sound to make sense of their entombment, from the sound of the human world above ground to the silence of the inhuman world below. It is noteworthy that Jews used metaphoric language to write about their precarious condition. In particular, they often employed the grave as a metaphor to represent their seclusion from death and their exclusion from life. As such, Jews frequently expressed that they were suspended between life and death in an apparent grave where they were buried alive. 6 The grave is a common topos in the Turkish songs of the Gallipoli Campaign. For example, in the iconic number entitled "Çanakkale Türküsü" (en. "Song of the Dardanelles"), the text speaks of "rows of willows" (tr. "sıra [sıra] söğütler") and "a long [row] of cypress [trees]" (tr. "uzun bir selvi") both of which represent extended graveyards "under which brave lions lie" (tr. "altında yatıyor aslan yiğitler"). Especially poignant at the opening of the song is as follows: the main protagonist laments being buried alive thusly: "In Gallipoli they shot me / They interred me in a grave while still alive" (tr. "Çanakkale içinde vurdular beni / Ölmeden mezara koydular beni"). In another line, he mourns the passing of his boyhood using the formulaic language of a lament (tr. ağıt): "Alas, such was my youth!" (tr. "Of gençliğim eyvah!"). Throughout the song the familiar is set against the unfamiliar. For example, the principal hero goes away from his mother (tr. ana) to the enemy (tr. duşman'a). Inevitably, "her hope is smashed" (tr."ümidi kesti") when he is killed. 7 The grave is also a familiar theme in the English poems of the Gallipoli Campaign. For example, the poem entitled "The Diggers" (1915) concerns soldiers who are digging a grave for a comrade. Composed by the Australian poet Leon Gellert (1892-1977), the piece tells the story of a man who unknowingly is witnessing his own burial. The diggers sing and swing, sigh and cry while completing the task. The poem concludes: "The brown earth clatters and covers my head / Then I laugh and I laugh, for they think I'm dead". The poem is a wonderful example of music in words. There is an exquisite counterpoint between the active states of digging and swinging and the dormant states of lead and dead. Indeed, depth and death are conveyed through the essential elongation of some words to maintain prosodic symmetry. For example, deep must be read as de-ep and asleep must be recited as asle-ep. Gellert employs other techniques. For example, he uses consonantal alliteration and rhyme pattern respectively to emphasize the connection between digging and de-ep, between bed and dead.

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Referring back to Hock, the song and the poem represented here show soldiers suspended between life and death in a living grave. In the song, the grave signifies the futility of war where friends are needlessly slaughtered and families are unnecessarily destroyed. Futility is juxtaposed against inevitability, the soldier being resigned to his fate on the war front. In the poem, the grave represents a dance with death. As a principal actor in this own "arcadia of sacrifice", the poet employs parody and irony to make sense of the hero's demise. Using risible juxtapositions, he laughs at death while the diggers cry. 13 As Hock reminds us, the issue of directionality is also important. In the song, the soldier goes away from home to fight against the enemy. Like his comrades, he is buried underground in a cemetery framed by willows and cypresses. In the poem, the soldier looks up from his bed while the diggers look down on his grave. The soldier hears prayers intoned from below and feels earth falling from above.
Over the Parapet 9 Victor A. Stoichita, like Hock, conceives of sound in terms of metaphor: Stoichita viewing music as war and Hock seeing sound as architecture. However, both authors explore the acoustic ecology of violent situations differently, Stoichita with reference to an imaginary landscape but Hock with reference to a claustrophobic underworld. Where Hock represents affordance as a limitation (sound being dependent upon location), Stoichita conceives of affordance as a resource (music being available for action). Here, I think that Hock's notion of perforation is especially valuable for understanding the meaning of sound in trench warfare. But, I think Stoichita's conception of affordance is extremely useful for understanding music-making in a warzone. In the Gallipoli Campaign, soldiers in the front trenches interpreted sound in what Gilman calls "a sound bubble", 14 by selectively listening to the enemy "over the parapet". In the Gallipoli Campaign combatants afforded music with different agencies either by endowing music with an aggressive intent during active confrontation or by granting music a reflective ambience during passive disengagement. 10 The sounds of battle on the front line ranged from noise to music. From the petrifying screams of the dying to the thunderous cacophony of artillery, the soundscape of a frontal assault was as terrifying as it was confusing. However, some sounds were predictable: from the sacred chant of the Turks: "God is great!" (tr. "Allahuekber!") to the war cry of the French: "Long live France!" (fr. "Vive la France!"). In certain instances Allied recruits sang popular numbers while charging into battle. There are accounts of Irish soldiers singing "It's a long way to Tipperary" when going "over the top". Of course, bugles and whistles were the preferred instruments of assault on both sides, although the musical formations of bugles and drums were considered by then to be anachronistic. 15 In Scottish regiments, pipers led the attack in notable battles. During Turkish attacks, a brass band played patriotic marches in the forward trenches. A common observation was as follows: "The Turks blew bugles, sounded martial music, shouted 'Allah Allah' and died". 16 11 The music-making in a war zone ranged from the informal to the formal. Soldiers on both sides entertained each other by singing and playing. In such instances, the harmonica was frequently mentioned in English and Turkish sources. On both sides, gramophones played an important part in the soundscape, the sounds of the latest hits wafting across no-man's land. Notably, gramophones were also used as booby traps. Concert parties were organized informally in the front line trenches. These could be surprisingly cosmopolitan affairs featuring Arab and Turkish repertoire on the part of the Central Powers and Māori and "Senegalese" repertoire on the part of the Allied forces. Written recollections of such events were not always complimentary. At a formal level, religious services were convened to boost morale. However, hymn singing in Christian worship sometimes attracted the unwelcome attention of enemy fire. Musical performances were also arranged behind the lines by both sides to foster motivation. One Australian cornet player, Ted McMahon (b.1895), is especially celebrated in the memoires of friend and foe alike. 17 12 As Hock might contend, music perforated the "sound bubble" of the trenches, be it in the form of the music created by enemy socialization or the music emanating from enemy media. However, sound could smash the acoustic ecology of such spaces during bombardments. As Stoichita might assert, music afforded distinctive pathways, one being to activate towards, the other being to disengage from aggression. There are a number of anecdotes to this effect. When the Allied commander of the Gallipoli Campaign, Sir Ian Hamilton (1853-1947), attempted to understand the self-sacrifice of Ottoman soldiers during frontal assaults, he noted the "influence of a military band concealed in a forward position [playing] martial music throughout the action". 18 In Hamilton's view, music afforded soldiers with a pathway to engage in a charge with suicidal courage. When McMahon serenaded at dusk on the front line with his rendition of "Silent Night", he was universally applauded by both sides, gunfire Love and War 13 "All is fair in love and war" so goes the saying. That is, the rules of war are applicable to the rules of love. Such is the case in Kay's study of love and war in the songs of Bertran de Born. For Kay, war is erotic and love is violent. For her, knighthood is sexy and courtship is combat. Like Stoichita, Kay is interested in simultaneity, for the former scholar affordance is ambiguously suspended between the objective and the subjective, for the latter scholar song evokes yet distorts the interrelationship between desire and death. There are other examples of similitude such as Hock's concern for the living dead and my interest in war as peace (see above). Kay also examines the significance of contrafactum for reconfiguring meanings and subverting identities. Importantly, she argues that the sounds in song are important for understanding the soundscape of a military camp and the sonic thrill of a military exchange. She relates all of this to the life and death moment of the scream, an "extimacy" of the voice which is at once intimate and external.
14 In the Gallipoli Campaign, there is one song that employs contrafactum and reveals extimacy. It is entitled: "Old Gallipoli's a Wonderful Place". It is one of the few songs from the Gallipoli Campaign that survived in the oral tradition among Irish veterans. Composed anonymously in two stanzas, the song considers, first, the strategic aims of the Gallipoli Campaign (that is, the capture of Constantinople or Istanbul) and, second, the deplorable conditions on the Gallipoli peninsula (especially with respect to food and drink). There is a cynical edge to the piece: soldiers are ordered to capture the elevated outpost called "Achi Baba" (tr. "Alçı Tepe") in expectation of an Ottoman defeat. However, that is what is anticipated and not what is achieved. The song indicates the ground-level recognition of a military stalemate among the Irish recruits "that lasts till Doomsday I think". Resigned to their fate, the soldiers "never grumble, they smile through it all", while thinking with empty stomachs about "where the old Gallipoli sweeps down to the sea". There is an eschatological register to the piece. The ballad foresees a spring when Ireland is freed from the winter of English oppression. Finally, all three pieces are set to the melody of an orientalist verse called "Bendemeer's Stream" (1817). Written by Thomas Moore (1779-1852), the sonnet is part of an allegorical romance entitled "Lalla Rookh". 16 "Old Gallipoli" reveals multiple registers of Irish identity through contrafactum. By using the same melodic frame, "Old Gallipoli" references the social subversion of an Irish emigrant (in "The Mountains of Mourne") and the political sedition of an Irish rebel (in "Carrigdhoun"). It talks about the realities of war (in "Old Gallipoli") and the fantasies of love (in "Bendemeer's Stream"). It speaks about Irish soldiers who are forced to flee home (in "Carrigdhoun") and about Irish volunteers who are required to invade abroad (in "Old Gallipoli"). In many respects, "Old Gallipoli" is a fitting song for Irish soldiers to sing on a Turkish campaign as it juxtaposes the local with the global and it melds the "occident" with the "orient". It shows through parody how the Irish could simultaneously be colonized (in Ireland) and colonizers (in Turkey). As an example of extimacy, "Old Gallipoli" renders the unfamiliar familiar in that it compares favorably through intertextuality a hostile landscape in Turkey with a beloved vista in Ireland, "where the Mountains of Mourne sweep down to the sea".
Sound the Silence 17 "Old Gallipoli" represents another level of extimacy. My father sang the song. He must have learned it from his father, a veteran of the Gallipoli Campaign. Wounded and gassed in the conflict, my grandfather never spoke of his wartime experiences. Like many of his contemporaries, he remained silent throughout his life about the terrors of war. Only "Old Gallipoli" testifies to the sound of his silence, an intimate moment made external across the generations through the voice of my father. Here, singing renders the past real in the present. And, my grandfather's version of "Old Gallipoli" was distinctive in underlying the authenticity of its transmission. Interestingly, song was often employed as a metaphor for the sound of battle in the Gallipoli Campaign. As I show elsewhere, song was often used to describe salvos and barrages. 20 Song was employed euphemistically in poems and memoires alike to make sense of the terrifying sounds of trench warfare. That is, song allowed for the intimate control of an exterior sound world that could not be contained. 18 "Old Gallipoli" speaks to an archive of family memory. As Rouillan might assert, it is the tune rather than the text that speaks in this regard. "Old Gallipoli" embodies within itself multiple levels of family identity that range from militarism abroad (during the eighteenth century) to constitutionalism at home (during the nineteenth century). It speaks to a family engagement with the Ottoman Empire (as officials in peacetime) to a family detachment from the Ottoman Empire (as soldiers in wartime). That my grandfather, as an Irish catholic and a British officer, was involved in the Gallipoli Campaign is especially ironic since he believed he was fighting for peace at home (in the form of Irish independence) while participating in a war away from home (in the service of British imperialism). For some, he was a hero and for others he was a traitor. "Old Gallipoli" provides an insight into this conundrum as it revels through music the complex positionality of an Irishman who was both conquered and conquerer. In this way, "Old Gallipoli" helps remember a past that is almost forgotten. 19 That being said, "Old Gallipoli" does not convey the life and death extimacy of "

ABSTRACTS
In this essay, I interrogate the ideas that concern music and violence which are presented by scholars in this Transposition special issue. Although each article is very different, common themes emerge. I interpolate these with reference to my own research into the sounds of music in the Gallipoli Campaign (1915)(1916). Following Nikita Hock, I examine the notion of metaphor as it relates to underground hideouts in a war zone. Following Victor A. Stoichita, I look at how music affords distinctive pathways in the fulfilment of or disengagement from acts of violence. Following Sarah Kay, I examine the ways in which contrafactum helps clarify the ambivalent positionality of Allied recruits in a foreign campaign. I also refer to Kay's notion of "extimacy" when interpreting expressionist representations of warfare in the Dardanelles. Dans cet essai, je discute les idées concernant la musique et la violence présentées par les contribut·eurs·rices de ce numéro hors-série de Transposition. Bien que les articles soient très différents les uns des autres, des thèmes communs émergent. Je les croise avec ma propre recherche sur les sons musicaux de la campagne de Gallipoli (1915Gallipoli ( -1916