G.   FINN   »   THE   TRUTH   -   IN   MUSIC   THE   SOUND   OF   DIFFÉRANCE
UDK 821.11K7D-1
Géraldine Finn
Univerza Carleton, Kanada Carleton University, Canada
The Truth - In Music The Sound Of Différance
Resnica - v glasbi Zvok différance
Kljucne Besede: resnica, glasba, zvok, différance, destinnerance, résonance, paracitat, igra, cepic, pesem, medprostor, poslušanje, slišanje
POVZETEK
Clanek (poskus, prizadevanje, preizkus, prizadevanje) skozi (na: poti, za katero pravimo, da na njej poteka dolocen vir energije) resnico v glasbi je napisan, da bi se bral in poslušal. Da bi se pri-kli-cala izkušnja ireduktibilne zvocnosti resnice (iz) glasbe (prek) besed, ki govorijo o njej, in igra différance - niti tišine, ki se pletejo med zvoki, s katerimi je jezik/glasba/resnica prepletena -, ki prinaša smisel (cutnega). Komponiran kot niz »cepicev« (paracitatov) pisanj Jacquesa Derridaja, clanek uporablja to, kar predlaga, ponazarja to, o cemer govori: dekonstrukijo, ki je vselej prisotna v delu (v njegovem delu, v tem delu, v katerem koli delu): dvoumen destinerrance resnice (iz) glasbe (prek) besed.
Ce qui reste à force de musique. Niti poezija niti proza. Niti filozofija niti pesem. Nekaj iz prostora vmes.
Keywords:   Truth,   Music,   Sound,   Différance, Destinnerance, Résonance, Para-cite, Play, Graft, Song, Space-Between, Listen, Hear
ABSTRACT
This essay (trial, effort, test, attempt) through (on: the way we say that something runs on such and such an energy source) the truth in music has been written to be read as heard. To re-call the experience of the irreducible sonority of truth (in) music (in) words of which it speaks, and the play of différance - the threads of silence that run between (the) sounds that language/music/truth is mixed together with - that makes sensCe). Composed as a series of grafts (para-cites) on to the writing of Jacques Derrida, the paper engages what it proposes, enacts what it tells: the deconstruction always already at work in a work (his work, this work, any work): the equivocal destinerrance of truth (in) music (in) words.
Ce qui reste à force de musique. Neither poetry nor prose. Neither philosophy nor song. But something in between.
117
MUZIKOLOŠKI   ZBORNIK   •   MUSICOLOGICAL   ANNUAL   XXXXI   /   2
I
I owe you the truth
In painting
And I will tell it to you
Cézanne wrote
In a letter
To Emile Bernard
Strange utterance
Derrida writes
I recite
(Para-cite)
The speaker is a painter
He is speaking
Or rather
Writing
For this is a letter
He is writing
In a language Which shows nothing
Causes
Nothing
To be seen
Describes Nothing
Represents Even less 1
What must truth be
To be owed
(Due)
Even rendered (Rendue)
118
G.   FINN   «   THE   TRUTH   -   IN   MUSIC   THE   SOUND   OF   DIFFERANCE
In
Painting
That is
What interests me
This interest When I am interested
In the idiom Of truth
In Painting
Which promises A truth
Which is (not) Always already there
In Painting
This revenue
Of Surplus value
Irreducible
To the semantic
Content
Of its representation
Indeed To the representable
Untranslatable In its economic performance
Undecidable In Its equivocal destinerrance
(Derrida writes) I recite
This idiom Of truth
119
MUZIKOLOŠKI   ZBORNIK   «   MUSICOLOGICAL   ANNUAL   XXXXI   /   2
In Painting 2
But That's what An idiom is
It does not
Merely
Fix
The economic
Propriety of a focus
But
Regulates
The possibility
Of Play
Of Divergencies
Of The equivocal
A whole economy Precisely
Of The trait
This economy
Parasitizes
Itself
Hear
Here on
Off the page
What must truth be
To be owed
Due
Even Rendered
120
G.   FINN   «   THE   TRUTH   -   IN   MUSIC   THE   SOUND   OF   DIFFERANCE
Rendue
In Music
In Painting 3
In Words
On Off the page
That is
What interests
Me
This revenue Of surplus value
This Interest
When I am interested
In The idiom of truth
In Music
Which promises A truth
In Writing
In Words
Which is (not)
Always already
There
In Music
121
MUZIKOLOŠKI   ZBORNIK   *   M U S I C O LO G I C AL   ANNUAL   XXXXI   /   2
Ce qui reste
À force De musique 4
What Must
Truth
Be
In order
To be owed
Due
Even
Rendered
Rendue
In Music
I cannot
Precisely
Have it
At my Disposal
Or In my Control
I listen to it
It is
The experience
Itself
Of Impossible appropriation
The most joyous
And The most tragic5
(Derrida writes) I recite
122
G.   FINN   •   THE   TRUTH   -   IN   MUSIC   THE   SOUND   OF   DIFFERANCE
It may give rise
To
Calculation
Representation
Tabulation
Imitation
Regulation
Notation
Con-scription Pre-scription In-scription
De-scription
But
In the final analysis
It ceases to be
Calculable 6
Ce qui reste
À force De musique
Beyond
The order of the calculus
Itself
Beyond
The incalculable
As a still possible calculus 7
Forever
Unable to saturate
A context
What reading writing
Speaking citing
Re-citing
Will ever make it heard 8
This idiom Of truth
123
MUZIKOLOŠKI   ZBORNIK   »   MUSICOLOGICAL   ANNUAL   XXXXI   /   2
In music In a word
The reader too
Must Improvise 9
Take breath And read with the ears 10
hör dich ein mit dem Mund
Hear deep in With the mouth n
Listen
With limbs and lips
And throat and tongue
Absorb Its movement With larynx and lungs 12
What underlying scansion
Of the world
Does it embody 13
This idiom
Of
Truth
Which is (not) Always already there
In music
In words
Irreducible
To the semantic content
Of its representation
Indeed To the representable
124
G.   FINN   •   THE   TRUTH   -   IN   MUSIC   THE   SOUND   OF   DIFFERANCE
Untranslatable In its economic performance 14
Undecidable In its equivocal Destinerrance
The stereographic activity Of an entirely other ear 15
An entirely other echo
Echo echo echo
Sphere
Ce qui reste à force de musique
Hear
Here on
Off the page
Only the song remains It is reborn Each time
Nothing Can be done against it
Never
Will any letter
Ever
Make it heard In a word l6
Here
Hear on
Off the page
Nevertheless
At this very moment In this work Here I am 17
Me Voici
125
MUZIKOLOŠKI   ZBORNIK   •   MUSICOLOGICAL   ANNUAL   XXXXÎ   /   2
I follow Je suis
Under assignation
To make It heard
To tell the truth
In music
In words
/ owe you the truth in music
And I will tell it to you
As it is tol(le)d In music
Le son Résonant
Quelle Chanson
Like the sound of the sea Deep within a shell 18
The essential thing
Is to set the song in motion
As a graft
[Shoot or scion Inserted in a slit of another stock
From which it receives sap
[Piece of transplanted living tissue]
Process of grafting
Place where the graft is inserted
Hard work] 19
And not
As a meaning
A 'work
Or a spectacle 20
126
G.   FINN   «   THE   TRUTH   -   IN   MUSIC   THE   SOUND   OF   DIFFERANCE
This economy parasitizes itself
Each grafted text
[Piece of transplanted living tissue]
Continues to radiate back
Toward the site of its removal
Transforming that too As it affects the new territory 21
We must begin
Wherever
We are
Wherever We are in a text
Wherever
We already believe ourselves
To be 22
Fidelity Requires that one quote
In the desire To let the other speak
And
Fidelity
Requires that
One not just quote 23
To grasp a meaning That does not come through understanding 24
But through
Rhythm resonance
Repetition rhyme
Timing timbre
Tone
Ce qui reste
À force De musique
Undecidable
127
MUZIKOLOŠKI   ZBORNIK   «   MUS I C O LO G I C AL   ANNUAL   XXXXI   /   2
In its equivocal destinerrance
What reading
Writing speaking
Reciting citing
In-citing
Will ever
Make it
Heard
In a word
The silent play of Différance
The s-p-1-a-c-e of Résonance
Undecidable
Between
The sedimented sens
Of
Sound
The sedimented sound Of
Sens
Singing
Ringing
Off on the page
The most difficult thing
Is the invention Of the tone
And with the tone
Of the scene
That can be staged 25
The pose that adopts you As much as you adopt it 2<s
128
G.   FINN   •   THE   TRUTH   -   IN   MUSIC   THE   SOUND   OF   DIFFERANCE
Hear
Here on
Off the page
The tone being precisely
That which establishes
The relation
It isn't the content It's the tone 27
Everything is summoned From an intonation
And even earlier still
In what gives its tone
To the tone
A rhythm
I think That all in all
(Derrida writes) I paracite
It is upon Rhythm
That I stake Everything
It therefore begins Before beginning
That is The incalculable origin
Of
A rhythm 28
n
I owe you the truth In music
129
MUZIKOLOŠKI   ZBORNIK   «   M US I C O LO G I C AL   ANNUAL   XXXXI   /   2
And I will tell it to you
As it is tol(le)d In music
En passant Résonant
In the space between
One thing and another
Speech
(And)
Writing
Poetry (And) Song
Sens (et) Sons
Undecidable
Between
Le nom/non du père The discourse of the father
And the lalalangue Of the mother tongue
The truth
in music
Comes To Pass
As music Comes
To Pass
130
G.   FINN   »   THE   TRUTH   -   IN   MUSIC   THE   SOUND   OF   DIFFERANCE
Always already Past
Passed Through
The desire of the (m)Other
Trace effect(s)
Of
The in(ter)vention
Of The Other
Which must be re-enacted
Repetitioned Repeated
And Rehearsed
To be Enjoyed enjoined
Or Real-ized
At all
As Music
As Truth
In Music
Event
Of the space
Between 29
One and Other
Of the space
Between
Things
131
MUZIKOLOŠKI   ZBORNIK   •   MUSICOLOGICAL   ANNUAL   XXXXI   /   2
That
Sound
Re-sound
Only when they move
A-part
Together
When they are moved
Together
A-part
Event
Of the space
Between
Sounds
The threads Of silence
That run
Between
The sounds
That music is
Mixed
Together with 30
The silent
Play
Of différance
That sustains
Maintains Retains Sound
As Music
The truth
Of Différance
In
Music
132
G.   FINN   •   THE   TRUTH   -   IN   MUSIC   THE   SOUND   OF   DIFFERANCE
All round From outside
All round From a centre
Somewhere
Near
Here And there
Music tells
The truth
About
Truth
Which comes And goes
Which comes To pass
Which comes
Always
Already pas(t)sed
Through
The play
Of Différance
Undecidable In its equivocal destinerrance
Between
A passion That moves
And
The mobilizing action Of one body on another
Between
Choice chance And
Necessity
133
MUZIKOLOŠKI   ZBORNIK   *   M U S I C O L O G I C AL   ANNUAL   XXXXI   /   2
What reading
Writing speaking
Singing citing
Reciting
Inciting
Will ever Make it Heard
The truth
That music tells
The truth
About
In a word
Repeated
And Rehearsed
Repetitioned
And
Recalled
To be Enjoined
Enjoyed
Or Real-ized
At all
Only the song Remains
It is reborn Each time
Nothing
Can be done
Against it
Ce qui reste
À force
De musique
134
G.   FINN   «   THE   TRUTH   -   IN   MUSIC   THE   SOUND   OF   DIFFERANCE
Between
Speech
And Writing
And
Beyond
The tranquil familiarity
Which links us To one and the other
Occasionally reassuring us
In our illusion
That they are two 31
Music Takes its toll
Engages The play of différance
The truth of truth
In The space between
And Turns it
Into Sound
Phenomena
Experience
Event
Something We hear
Something We apprehend
Something
To which
We can attend 32
135
MUZIKOLOŠKI   ZBORNIK   •   M U S I C O LO G I C AL   ANNUAL   XXXXI   /   2
Le son Du sens
Les sens
Du son
Resonant
With in as our bodies Our selves
Ce
Qui reste
À force de musique
Making space
Giving place To (a) truth
To which
We cannot not
Respond
One way or another
Like the sound of the sea deep within a shell
That is not Any sort of present being
That has neither Essence nor existence
That does not exist 33
The truth Of
Music
The truth
Of
Truth
The truth
Of Différance
What 136
G.   FINN   »   THE   TRUTH   -   IN   MUSIC   THE   SOUND   OF   DIFFERANCE
Reading writing
Singing speaking citing
Inciting
Reciting
Will ever Make it Heard
Ce qui reste
À force De musique
In a word
This is not a game
In which Mastery is acquired 34
Though some do strive To make it so
And this we can hear
In (the) music
Even where it strives to deny it
The truth Of différance
The différance Of truth
And where true the effort to deny it
In (the) music
As A work
Which comes And goes
Which comes To pass
137
MUZIKOLOŠKI   ZBORNIK   «   MUSICOLOGICAL   ANNUAL   XXXXI   /   2
Which comes To be
Always already Pas(t)sed
Which has to be Repeated
And Rehearsed
Repetitioned
And
Recalled
In order to be (Music) At all 35
The truth
In Music
The truth Of différance
Cannot be Fixed
In a permanent present Or
Confined To a single moment
Meaning
Origin
Articulation
Event
Agent
End
Though some contrive To make it so
And this too can be heard In (the) music
138
G.   FINN   »   THE   TRUTH   -   IN   MUSIC   THE   SOUND   OF   DIFFERANCE
The différance
Of
Truth
The truth
Of Différance
And
Where true
The effort to conceal it
To reveal it
As
The essence
Or
Existence
Of Some fixed and present being
Soul
Spirit
Satan
Nature
God
Truth
Of
The Human Condition
Toujours déjà
Il y a là
Déconstruction À l'oeuvre
And this can be heard in (the) music
In the space
Between
One and Other
That sounds Re-sounds
139
MUZIKOLOŠKI   ZBORNIK   •   MUSICOLOGICAL   ANNUAL   XXXXI   /   2
With in as our bodies our selves
Bending our bodies Lending our bodies
To the truth Of its becoming
As Music
Rhythm resonance
Repetition rhyme
Timing timbre
Tone
The tone being precisely that
Which establishes
The relation
I am complicit
Implicated
Imbricated
In the ethics Of this musical engagement
Strategic and adventurous 36
Of the play Of différance
In one direction
(Sens)
Or another
An ethical appeal
To which
I cannot not respond
One way or another
By resistance
Denial Or consent
140
G.   FINN   »   THE   TRUTH   -   IN   MUSIC   THE   SOUND   OF   DIFFERANCE
I am solicited by (the) music 37
Whether I acknowledge it Or not
I am
Embrangled
In response-ability
In (as) my body
(Myself)
In the politics
Of its very possibility
As music
To which I cannot not respond
The institutions
Which name frame
Contain restrain maintain
And tame
What is To be
The sound(s)
(Of truth)
In music
When I consent To the music
I consent
To the politics
Of the institutions
That let it be
Music
One way or another
Whether I acknowledge it or not
AU this Can be heard
141
MUZIKOLOŠKI   ZBORNIK   «   MU S I C O LO G I C AL   ANNUAL   XXXXI   /   2
In (the) music
Even where it strives to deny it
To celebrate a universal singular
Necessary objective
And final
Truth
(For example)
One
That does not
Come
To pass
But is (Posited as)
Here To stay
Named and contained
Within the silence
Of its musical frame
For The work
Of producing truth In music
Remains Ce qui reste
As the work Itself
Which cannot not be heard
The (hypostasized) One
Universal Final Truth
In Music
Cannot be
142
G.   FINN   «   THE   TRUTH   -   IN   MUSIC   THE   SOUND   OF   DIFFERANCE
Without This work
Of producing Truth
In Music
This work Of music
The work of truth
Cannot not be heard In music
Which is always already Experienced
Irreducibly
As Work
By those Who make it happen
Everything Is at stake In music
Epistemology
Ontology
Politics
Ethics
Aesthetics
Kinaesthetics
The truth of truth The truth of différance The différance of truth
We should not be surprised Therefore
At the passion With which
143
MUZIKOLOŠKI   ZBORNIK   »   M U S I C O LO G I C AL   ANNUAL   XXXXI   /   2
It is
Contested
Resisted
Defended
Denounced
Practiced
Pursued Performed
For music
Is always more
Than what it signifies
Giving place to a truth which it does not because it cannot master (Name tame frame or contain)
The truth Of truth
The truth Of différance
Ce qui reste
À force De musique
Never will any letter ever make it heard
Only the song remains
It is reborn each time
Like the sound of the sea deep within a shell
I listen to it
I cannot precisely have it at my disposal
Or in my control
It is the experience itself of impossible appropriation
The most joyous
And the most tragic
144
G.   FINN   •   THE   TRUTH   -   IN   MUSIC   THE   SOUND   OF   DIFFÉRANCE
So let's listen
Yes
Let's listen
Notes
1     Para-cited from (upon) Derrida 1987: 2-3-
2    Para-cited from Derrida 1987: 4-5.
3     Para-cited from Derrida 1987: 6.
4     Derrida 1987a: 95 - 103-
5     "I cannot ... tragic." Para-cited from Derrida 1995: 372-395, 394-395.
6     Cf. Derrida 1994: 52.
7     "Beyond ... calculus." Derrida 1989: 52.
8     Cf. Derrida 1979: 76-77: "Forever unable to saturate a context, what reading will ever master this 'on' of living on?"
9     Lee 1998: 206.
10   Hopkins 1966, cited from Pick 1966: 26.
11    "Hear deep in with the mouth". Concluding lines of Paul Celan, 'The shofar place' {Die Posaunenstelle) in Celan 2000: 360-361.
12   Para-cited from Lee 1998: 212.
13   Lee 1998: 206.
14   "Irreducible ... performance". Para-cited from Derrida 1987a: 5-9-
15   Cf. Derrida 1982: xxiii. "Where has the body of the text gone when the margin is no longer a secondary virginity but an inexhaustible reserve, the stereographic activity of an entirely other ear?"
16   "Only the song ... heard". Para-cited from Derrida 1987c: 43.
17   Derrida 1990: 11-48.
18   Derrida 1989a: 155 - 163.
19    Oxford English Dictionary 1971: 1186.
20   "The essential thing ... spectacle". From Philippe Sollers, cited by Derrida 1981: 355.
21    "Each grafted ... territory". Para-cited from Derrida 1981: 355.
22   "We must begin ... to be". Derrida 1976: 162.
23   "Fidelity ... not just quote". Derrrida 1989a: 50.
24   Derrida 1989a : 88.
25   "The most ... the tone". Derrida 1995: 188.
26   "The most ... the tone". Derrida 1995: 188.
27   "The tone ... the tone". Derrida 1994: 21.
28   "Everything ... rhythm". Para-cited from Derrida 1998: 48.
29   For a more detailed elaboration of the spirituality, politics, and ethics of the space-between see my Finn 1996.
30   Para-cited from Merleau-Ponty 1964: 46.
31   "Between ... two". Derrida 1982a: 5.
32   For a more detailed elaboration of music as the sound of différance see Finn 2002.
33   "That is ... exist". Para-cited from   1982a: 6.
34   Cf. Hobson 1998: 166: "Freud causes the child to create a track for himself - Freud's grandchild keeps the self going through the repetition of throwing the cotton reel out to an extreme and hauling it back. This is not a game in which mastery is acquired."
35   For a more detailed elaboration of these ideas see Finn 2001.
36   Cf. Derrida 1982: 7: "In the delineation of différance everything is strategic and adventurous. Strategic because no transcendent truth present outside the field of writing can govern theologically the totality of the field. Adventurous because this strategy is not a simple strategy in the sense that strategy orients tactics according to a final goal, a telos, or theme of domination, a mastery and ultimate reappropriation of the development of the field."
37   "The French solliciter, as the English solicit, derives from an Old Latin expression meaning to shake the whole, to make something tremble in its entirety." Translator's note (# 18) in Derrida 1982a: 16.
38   "Let's listen" are the final words of Jacques Derrida (Derrida 1995): 395.
Literature
Celan, Paul (2000).   Selected Poems and Prose of Paul Celan. New York and London: W. W.
Norton. Derrida, Jacques (1976). Of Grammatology. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press. Derrida, Jacques (1979). 'Living On/Borderlines'. In: Bloom, Harold at al. (ed). Deconstruction
and Criticism. New York: Seabury Press:75 - 176. Derrida, Jacques (1981). Dissemination. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Derrida, Jacques (1982). 'Tympan'. In: Margins of Philosophy. Chicago: Chicago University
Press: ix - xxix.
145
MUZIKOLOŠKI   ZBORNIK   •   M U S I C O L O G I C AL   ANNUAL   XXXXI   /   2
Derrida, Jacques (1982a). 'Différance'. In: Margins of Philosophy. Chicago: Chicago University
Press: 1 - 27. Derrida, Jacques (1987a). The Truth in Painting. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Derrida, Jacques (1987b). Psyche. Paris: Editions Galilée. Derrida, Jacques (1987c). The Post Card. From Socrates to Freud and Beyond. Chicago: Chicago
University Press. Derrida, Jacques (1989). 'Psyche: Invention of the Other'. In: Waters, Lindsay (ed.). Reading de
Man Reading. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 25-65. Derrida, Jacques (1989a). 'Like the Sound of the Sea Deep Within A Shell. Paul de Man's War'. In:
Mémoires for Paul de Man. Revised Edition. New York: Columbia University Press, 155-263. Derrida, Jacques (1990). 'At This Very Moment in This Work Here I Am'. In: Bernasconi, Robert
(ed.). Re-Reading Lévinas. London: Routledge, 11-48. Derrida, Jacques (1994).   'The Spatial Arts: An Interview with Jacques Derrida'. In: Brunette,
Peter / Wills David (eds.). Deconstruction and the Visual Arts. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 9-32. Derrida, Jacques (1994). 'Shibboleth. For Paul Celan'. In: Fioretos, Aris (ed.)  Word Traces:
Readings of Paul Celan. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 3-72. Derrida, Jacques (1995).   'Passages - from Traumatism to Promise'. In: Weber, Elisabeth. Points
... Interviews, 1974- 1994. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 372-395. Derrida, Jacques (1995). 'Heidegger, the Philosophers' Hell'. In: Weber, Elisabeth (ed.). Points
... Interviews, 1974- 1994. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 181-190. Derrida, Jacques (1998). Monolingualism of the Other: Or, The Prosthesis of Origin. Stanford:
Stanford University Press. Finn, Géraldine (1996). 'The Space-Between Ethics and Politics. Or, More of the Same?'. In: Why
Althusser Killed His Wife. Essays on Discourse and Violence.  Atlantic  Highlands,  N.J.:
Humanities Press, 166-177. Finn, Géraldine (2001). 'Music, Identity and Différance. In the case of Charles Ives'. In New
Sound. International Magazine for Music # 18, 2001, 49-62. Finn,  Géraldine (2002).  'To Speculate:  On Music - and/as the Sound of Différance.  In
Tijdschrift voorMuziektheorie, Jaargang 7,   Nummer 3, November 2002, 189- 195. Hobson, Marion (1998). facques Derrida. Opening Lines. London: Routledge. Hopkins, Gerard Manley (1966). A Hopkins Reader. New York: Doubleday. Lee, Dennis (1998). Body Music. Toronto: Anansi. Merleau-Ponty, Maurice (1964).   'Indirect Language and the Voices of Silence'.  In:   Signs.
Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 39-83. Oxford English Dictionary (1971).   The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary.
Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pick, John (1966). A Hopkins Reader. New York: Doubleday.
146