Singing queer : archiving and constructing a lineage through song.

• Main Author: Cherry-Reid, Katharine A.
• Language: English
• Published: University of British Columbia 2016
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/2429/56285

Using an arts-based approach, this research examines how songs written by queer and lesbian musicians can account for and archive queer lived existence while constructing a musical genealogy for listeners and artists alike. By examining my own experience of listening to and attending performances of certain queer and lesbian identified musicians, and then composing and performing my own songs in public spaces, I make a case for the corporeal mobility of songs, and a process I have termed “queer musical lineaging.” Much of the research around music to date has centred on how it impacts and influences brain activity, and how it brings together subcultures and publics. The significance of this project lies in the research around musical processes and practices (listening, composing, performing) as corporeal acts that connect bodies to one another, and build kinships. This research draws mainly upon primary sources of autoethnographic, written accounts in the form of journal entries, stories, poems and song lyrics, and conducts an interpretive analysis of six “queer” songs, five composed by the author of this thesis, and one composed in collaboration with a trans* youth. This project will contribute to research on arts-based practices as archival work, as well as the impact that songs have on people’s lives by broadening our understanding of music’s corporeal effects and genealogical role in lived experience. === Arts, Faculty of === Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice, Institute for === Graduate