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# Sound, Music and Violence

Luis Velasco-Pufleau

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Luis Velasco-Pufleau. Sound, Music and Violence. Transposition. Musique et sciences sociales, Hors-série 2, 2020, 10.4000/transposition.3213. hal-02523294

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Hors-série 2 | 2020
# Sound, Music and Violence

Son, musique et violence

Luis Velasco-Pufleau (dir.)

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OpenEdition
Journals

**Electronic version**

URL: http://journals.openedition.org/transposition/3213

DOI: 10.4000/transposition.3213

ISSN: 2110-6134

**Publisher**

CRAL - Centre de recherche sur les arts et le langage

**Electronic reference**

Luis Velasco-Pufleau (dir.), *Transposition*, Hors-série 2 | 2020, « Sound, Music and Violence » [Online], Online since 15 March 2020, connection on 13 May 2020. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/transposition/3213 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/transposition.3213

This text was automatically generated on 13 May 2020.

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La revue *Transposition* est mise à disposition selon les termes de la Licence Creative Commons Attribution - Partage dans les Mêmes Conditions 4.0 International.
# TABLE OF CONTENTS

## Introduction

### Introduction. Son, musique et violence

Luis Velasco-Pufleau

### Introduction. Sound, Music and Violence

Luis Velasco-Pufleau

## Articles

### Affordance to Kill: Sound Agency and Auditory Experiences of a Norwegian Terrorist and American Soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan

Victor A. Stoichita

### Songs of War: The Voice of Bertran de Born

Sarah Kay

### Making Home, Making Sense: Aural Experiences of Warsaw and East Galician Jews in Subterranean Shelters during the Holocaust

Nikita Hock

## Interview and Commentaries

### De la musique à la lutte armée, de 1968 à Action directe : entretien avec Jean-Marc Rouillan

Luis Velasco-Pufleau

### From Music to Armed Struggle, from 1968 to Action Directe: An Interview with Jean-Marc Rouillan

Luis Velasco-Pufleau

### Guitars Give Way to Guns: A Commentary on an Interview with Jean-Marc Rouillan

Matthew Worley

### Going Underground: The Politics of Free Music around 1968

Timothy Scott Brown

### Reflections on a Revolutionary and Music

Jeremy Varon

## Essays

### On Music and War

Morag Josephine Grant
**Culprit or Accomplice: Observations on the Role and Perception of Music in Violent Contexts in the Sierra Leone War**

Cornelia Nuxoll

**Sound, Music, War and Violence: Listening from the Archive**

Annegret Fauser

**Nature's Sonic Order on the Western Front**

Michael Guida

**Sound Bites: Music as Violence**

John Morgan O'Connell

**On Music, Torture and Detention: Reflections on Issues of Research and Discipline**

Anna Papaeti

**On Sensationalism, Violence and Academic Knowledge**

Hettie Malcomson

**Did Music Cause the End of the World?**

J. Martin Daughtry
# Introduction

Présentation
# Introduction. Son, musique et violence

## Introduction. Sound, Music and Violence

### Luis Velasco-Pufleau

<footnote n="1">1 Lorsqu'au troisième chant de la première partie de la Divine Comédie, Virgile fait franchir à Dante la porte de l'Enfer, ce dernier est effrayé non pas par ce qu'il voit, mais par ce qu'il entend. « Pleurs, soupirs et hautes plaintes résonnaient dans l'air sans étoiles »¹. L'horreur est telle que Dante commence à pleurer. Les lamentations des suppliciés dans « diverses langues » et « horribles jargons », les « mots de douleur » et « accents de rage », font un fracas tournoyant et assourdissant. Face à l'incompréhension de ces sons d'effroi et de douleur, Dante demande à Virgile : « Maître, qu'est-ce que j'entends ? »² Il ressent la douleur portée par les sons mais il ne sait pas qui les produit, ni pour quelle raison : il n'avait jamais entendu de pareils sons. Pour pouvoir attacher un sens global à ce nouveau monde sonore, il doit désormais écouter attentivement ; car l'écoute sera essentielle pour explorer l'espace, pour comprendre les situations et pour donner sens à sa progression dans les différents cercles de l'enfer. Ceci jusqu'aux derniers vers, quand Dante et son guide trouvent la sortie du bas monde grâce à l'écoute : ils reconnaissent le chemin caché par où ils vont sortir « non par la vue mais par le son d'un petit ruisseau »³ qui creuse la roche. L'empruntant, ils reviennent au monde clair et peuvent enfin « revoir les étoiles »⁴.</footnote>

<footnote n="2">2 Le récit que fait Dante de sa traversée de l'Enfer pointe la complexité émotionnelle des phénomènes sonores et montre comment l'écoute peut devenir un outil d'exploration, d'engagement et de connaissance sensible du monde. Ce numéro hors-série de Transposition propose d'explorer ces sujets à partir de l'analyse des liens entre son, musique et violence. Il entend ainsi contribuer, six ans après le numéro 4 consacré à « Musique et conflits armés après 1945 »⁵, à l'essor considérable des recherches interdisciplinaires qui se donnent pour objectif la compréhension de la violence collective et de la guerre à partir du son et de la musique. En effet, dans les champs de la musicologie, de l'ethnomusicologie, de l'histoire, de l'anthropologie ou encore des sound studies, de nombreux travaux se sont intéressés aussi bien aux répertoires</footnote>
mobilisés en temps de guerre qu’aux expériences d’écoute de combattant.e.s et de civil.e.s en contexte de conflit ou post-conflit. Les travaux pionniers de Svanibor Pettan sur les guerres des Balkans⁶ ont été suivis par des travaux sur les liens entre musique et violence⁷, des recherches sur les pratiques sonores et musicales des soldats durant ou après l’invasion des États-Unis en Irak⁸, de même que par un intérêt renouvelé pour les deux guerres mondiales⁹ et les conflits armés des xIXe et XXe siècles¹⁰. Ces travaux constituent différentes entrées dans une « acoustémologie de la violence »¹¹. Dans tous les cas, les sujets et les méthodes sont aussi divers que le nombre des chercheur.e.s impliqué.e.s.

3

Ce vaste projet scientifique est avant tout collectif et se place sous le signe du dialogue entre chercheur.e.s basé.e.s dans différents pays qui mobilisent des concepts et des méthodologies appartenant à plusieurs disciplines des sciences humaines et sociales. Ce numéro de *Transposition* paraît dans le contexte d'un mouvement social de grande ampleur, qui témoigne de nombreuses inquiétudes à l'égard des réformes néolibérales dans l'enseignement supérieur et la recherche en France. Pour parer au culte de la performance, au mythe de la réussite individuelle et aux injonctions à la compétition, il est important d'insister sur la dimension collective de la production des connaissances. Nous marchons sur des chemins qui ont été frayés par d'autres avant nous. Nos idées, aussi originales qu'elles puissent paraître, font toujours partie de constellations plus vastes et sont redevables de l'héritage de personnes qui nous ont précédées et avec qui nous les avons développées. Comme le soulignait récemment le sociologue Gary Younge dans *The Guardian*, « seuls les privilégiés et les naïfs croient que les réalisations des gens sont purement le produit de leur propre génie »¹².

4

Ce numéro est collectif à plusieurs égards. Les trois articles du dossier thématique sont issus des journées d'étude *Sound and Music in War from the Middle Ages to the Present*, que j'ai eu l'opportunité d'organiser avec Marion Uhlig et Martin Rohde à l'Institut d'études médiévales de l'Université de Fribourg les 12 et 13 novembre 2018.¹³ La deuxième partie du numéro est composée d'un entretien et de trois commentaires critiques qui répondent et prolongent les propos énoncés. Enfin, la troisième partie est constituée de huit essais qui commentent certains textes du numéro ou développent des questions théoriques, éthiques et méthodologiques soulevées par la recherche sur la musique, le son et la guerre. Ces textes répondent à deux questionnements : de quelle façon l'étude du son et de la musique peut-elle aider à comprendre la violence collective et la guerre ? Comment l'étude de la guerre et de la violence collective peut-elle aider à comprendre l'importance des pratiques musicales et de l'écoute pour les êtres humains ?¹⁴

5

Toutefois, associer la musique à la violence, à la destruction et aux atrocités de la guerre ne va pas de soi dans la recherche en sciences humaines et sociales. Ainsi que le remarque l'ethnomusicologue Timothy Rice, les travaux dans le domaine de ce qu'il appelle « ethnomusicology in times (and places) of trouble » sont rares avant le début des années 2000¹⁵. Cela s'expliquerait selon lui, entre autres choses, par des imaginaires culturels dans lesquels la musique est forcément associée à des choses « bonnes » et par des présupposés scientifiques selon lesquels la musique ne peut être produite que dans des contextes socialement stables¹⁶. Les textes de ce numéro contribuent à la reconfiguration de ces croyances et, comme Morag J. Grant le suggère dans son essai, à l'exploration des fondements culturels de la guerre et de la violence collective.
## Expériences d'écoute de la violence armée

6 Le récit sonore de L'Enfer de Dante évoqué au début de cette introduction nous rappelle que le son peut constituer un événement qui modifie de façon durable la perception qu'un auditeur peut avoir du monde qui l'entoure. Les pleurs et les plaintes qui résonnent dans l'air sombre de l'Enfer terrifient Dante tout en lui faisant comprendre qu'il entre dans un lieu inconnu. Cependant, le son peut aussi être un processus qui se prolonge dans le temps et qui, par les interactions sensorielles avec la personne qui écoute, transforme sa perception du réel.

7 Dante apprend à écouter et à évoluer dans ce nouveau monde sonore et, par ce biais, développe de nouvelles connaissances sur son fonctionnement et les relations de pouvoir qui sont en jeu. La violence et la guerre déplacent les limites et les seuils des paysages sonores habituels, transformant durablement les repères et les capacités acoustiques des auditeurs⁶⁹ trices¹⁷. Le développement de ces habitudes et aptitudes d'écoute constitue un nouveau « régime d'audition » : l'ensemble de techniques, de technologies, de régulations, de savoirs partagés qui donnent forme aux pratiques d'écoute d'une communauté donnée¹⁸.

8 Est-il possible d'essayer de comprendre l'expérience de la guerre à travers les régimes d'audition ? Des recherches récentes ont exploré cette question, notamment à partir des récits de combattant.e.s¹⁹. L'essai signé par Michael Guida dans ce numéro met en évidence une facette peu étudiée de ces récits : l'expérience sonore de la nature que font des soldats britanniques mobilisés sur le front de l'Ouest durant la Première Guerre mondiale. À travers l'analyse de sources diverses – journaux intimes, poèmes et lettres – Guida montre comment les soldats attachent une importance particulière aux chants d'oiseaux, qui encadrent leurs expériences d'écoute des tranchées²⁰. Pour sa part, John Morgan O'Connell discute les idées développées par plusieurs auteurs.e.s du numéro en les mettant en perspective avec ses propres recherches autour de la bataille de Gallipoli (1915-1916). Il explore les liens entre musique et mémoire, notamment lorsque la musique est utilisée pour remémorer et oublier, pour célébrer la victoire ou commémorer la défaite²¹.

9 L'analyse d'expériences d'écoute et de régimes d'audition a aussi permis d'étudier l'expérience de la violence armée de non-combattant.e.s²². Ce domaine de recherche est exploré par Nikita Hock dans son article sur les expériences d'écoute de Juifs de Varsovie et de Galicie Orientale dans des abris souterrains durant la Seconde Guerre mondiale. Hock réussit à étudier, à partir d'un vaste corpus de journaux intimes, les expériences des civils – notamment des femmes et des personnes âgées – qui ont enduré la violence et la persécution durant l'Holocauste²³.

## À l'écoute des vestiges sonores de la violence

10 La question de l'accès aux sources et de leur analyse est centrale pour une acoustémologie de la violence. Comment interpréter les traces sonores de la guerre dans les sources écrites ? Ainsi que le souligne Annegret Fauser dans son essai, ces archives constituent des médiations d'expériences sonores du passé, des façons d'écouter et de mettre en récit. Prolongeant les travaux d'Ana María Ochoa Gautier, elle propose de suivre « une exploration accordée à l'acoustique [acoustically tuned] des
archives écrites »²⁴ afin d'explorer les vestiges sonores de la violence, tout en questionnant les archives en tant qu'entités historiquement construites et, de ce fait, privilégiant les voix de certains types de témoins²⁵.

11 Parce que la violence « est toujours une attaque à l'endroit de la dignité, du sens de soi, et du futur d'une personne »²⁶, elle bouleverse et opère une reconfiguration des frontières entre son, bruit et silence, entre ce qui est dicible et ce qui ne l'est pas. Ainsi que l'affirme Ana María Ochoa Gautier, « une des caractéristiques de la violence est la redéfinition de l'espace acoustique »²⁷. Anna Papaeti explore les modalités et les enjeux pour la recherche en (ethno)musicologie de cette redéfinition dans le contexte de l'utilisation de la musique à des fins de torture. Elle réfléchit dans son essai aux conséquences du traumatisme infligé par le son et la musique dans des contextes de détention et à la dimension éthique inhérente à l'écoute du témoignage des victimes.²⁸ Les modalités de ce que la voix peut exprimer, et les frontières entre son, bruit et silence, sont aussi quelques-unes des questions examinées par Sarah Kay dans son article sur les *sirventes* composés par Bertran de Born, l'un des plus célèbres troubadours de la seconde moitié du XIIe siècle – qui figure d'ailleurs dans *L'Enfer* de Dante. Mobilisant le concept lacanien d'« extimité », Kay s'intéresse à la dimension sonore de ces chansons politiques d'amour et de guerre qui révèlent une médiation entre bruit et musique, et reconfigurent la transmission poétique des sujets de l'amour et de la mort²⁹.

12 Pour sa part, Martin Daughtry appelle à rompre avec une vision anthropocentrée de l'activité musicale ; il en questionne les cadres pratiques et théoriques qui contribuent à alimenter l'un des moteurs de la violence moderne : la dichotomie entre nature et culture³⁰. Avoir séparé des êtres qui devaient demeurer ensemble, voilà justement le reproche que Dante fait au troubadour Bertran de Born, lorsque son spectre apparaît au huitième cercle de l'enfer tenant « sa tête coupée par les cheveux, suspendue à la main comme une lanterne »³¹ : divisé lui-même pour avoir semé la discorde, sa peine est d'avancer avec son cerveau séparé de son corps. La réflexion sur les liens entre musique et violence donne à Daughtry l'opportunité de penser un dépassement de l'exceptionnalisme humain et d'appeler à une autre écoute des vestiges sonores de la violence humaine.

13 L'écoute de ces vestiges peut soulever des questionnements éthiques importants quand les chercheur.e.s sont amené.e.s à s'entretenir et à travailler avec des personnes qui ont participé activement aux atrocités de la guerre. Quoique fondamentale, cette question reste relativement peu abordée de façon explicite dans les recherches sur les liens entre son, musique et violence. Hettie Malcomson développe cet enjeu, affirmant la nécessité de respecter l'humanité et la subjectivité des personnes impliquées, et d'éviter tout sensationnalisme dans le processus de production des connaissances³².

## Violence et agentivité du son et de la musique

14 L'ensemble des textes de ce numéro partagent une position scientifique qu'il est utile de rappeler : le son et la musique ne sont pas étudiés comme la *cause* de l'action violente, mais plutôt comme des *ressources symboliques* que les acteurs peuvent mobiliser dans des processus ou des dynamiques de violence. La différence est de taille et sous-entend le refus d'une ontologie du son et de la musique dans laquelle la volonté humaine serait subordonnée à leurs supposés pouvoirs. Il s'agit plutôt de comprendre
de quelle façon les personnes se saisissent de la musique et des phénomènes sonores pour donner sens à leur réalité dans des contextes de guerre ou pour justifier des actes de destruction et de violence.

15

La musique peut être un moyen de projeter, d'encadrer et de préparer l'affrontement avec l'ennemi. L'imaginaire qu'elle véhicule tout comme ses caractéristiques sonores peuvent être mobilisés par les acteur.e.s afin de s'engager dans une confrontation réelle ou imaginaire. Cette hypothèse est explorée par Victor A. Stoichita dans son article sur les expériences d'écoute des soldats étatsuniens et du terroriste norvégien Anders Breivik. Il montre de quelle façon la possibilité que le son et la musique se trouvent à l'origine d'une chaîne causale – la capacité que l'auditeur trice donne aux sons de « transformer » le monde dans lequel il ou elle habite – est étroitement liée à celle de l'ontologie de l'expérience d'écoute³³. Cornelia Nuxoll explore d'autres enjeux de l'agentivité de la musique dans son essai sur son travail de terrain en Sierra Leone avec d'anciens combattants du *Revolutionary United Front* (RUF). Ses observations pointent la complexité émotionnelle liée à la musique utilisée dans des dynamiques de violence tout comme dans des processus de désarmement³⁴.

16

L'entretien que j'ai réalisé avec Jean-Marc Rouillan, membre fondateur du groupe révolutionnaire armé Action directe (1977-1987), présente le point de vue d'un protagoniste d'une certaine violence politique. Il y raconte comment son engagement politique autour de 1968 a été précédé d'un engagement musical, dans l'attente d'un affrontement plus direct avec l'État. L'écoute de la musique rock et punk a servi de catalyseur pour fédérer des revendications de liberté et d'action politique autonome³⁵. L'entretien est suivi de trois commentaires critiques de Matthew Worley (University of Reading)³⁶, Timothy Scott Brown (Northeastern University)³⁷ et Jeremy Varon (New School)³⁸. Ces textes approfondissent, critiquent ou contextualisent des prises de position ou des faits exposés par Jean-Marc Rouillan. Qu'il s'agisse du rapport entre musique et mémoire de luttes politiques, de l'autonomie recherchée par le mouvement punk ou encore du lien entre rock et marchandisation, les commentaires apportent de précieux contrepoints pour saisir la complexité de la situation historique évoquée.

17

Comme le remarque Morag J. Grant, « bien après le cessez-le-feu, la musique continue de jouer un rôle souvent fondamental dans la célébration ou la commémoration de guerres et de guerriers, servant ainsi de boîte à outils pour la mémoire collective qui elle-même, bien trop souvent, est mobilisée au service des guerres à venir »³⁹. Ainsi, en s'intéressant aux liens entre son, musique et violence, ce numéro de *Transposition* interroge les façons dont les sociétés humaines se pensent, construisent leur mémoire collective et se projettent dans le futur.

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VELASCO PUFLEAU Luis, « De la musique à la lutte armée, de 1968 à Action directe : entretien avec Jean-Marc Rouillan », *Transposition*, n° Hors-série 2, 2020, https://doi.org/10.4000/transposition.3709.

VELASCO-PUFLEAU Luis, « Quand il ne reste que la guerre pour tuer le silence : Écouter No One Is Innocent après le 13 novembre 2015 », *Volume* !, vol. 15, n° 2, 2019, p. 91-99.

VELASCO-PUFLEAU Luis, « No sound is innocent : réflexions sur l'appropriation et la transformation de l'expérience sonore de la violence extrême », *Filigrane*, n° 23, 2018, https://revues.mshparisnord.fr/filigrane/index.php?id=888.

VELASCO-PUFLEAU Luis (dir.), « Musique et conflits armés après 1945 », *Transposition*, n° 4, 2014, https://doi.org/10.4000/transposition.407.

VOLCLER Juliette, *Le son comme arme : les usages policiers et militaires du son*, Paris, La Découverte, 2011.

WILLIAMS Gavin (dir.), *Hearing the Crimean War: Wartime Sound and the Unmaking of Sense*, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2019.

WORLEY Matthew, « Guitars Give Way to Guns: A Commentary on an Interview with Jean-Marc Rouillan », *Transposition*, n° Hors-série 2, 2020, https://doi.org/10.4000/transposition.4284.

YOUNGE Gary, « In these Bleak Times, Imagine a World where You Can Thrive », *The Guardian*, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jan/10/bleak-times-thrive-last-column-guardian, 10 January 2020, consulté le 25 février 2020.

## NOTES

1. ALIGHIERI Dante, *La Divine Comédie : l'Enfer*, RISSET Jacqueline (trad.), Paris, GF Flammarion, 2004, p. 41.

2. *Ibid.*, p. 43.

3. *Ibid.*, p. 311.

4. *Ibid.*

5. VELASCO-PUFLEAU Luis (dir.), « Musique et conflits armés après 1945 », *Transposition*, n° 4, 2014, https://doi.org/10.4000/transposition.407.

6. PETTAN Svanibor, *Music, Politics, and War: Views from Croatia*, Zagreb, Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Research, 1998.

7. FAST Susan et PEGLEY Kip, *Music, Politics, and Violence*, Middletown, Wesleyan University Press, 2012 ; JOHNSON Bruce et CLOONAN Martin, *Dark Side of the Tune: Popular Music and Violence*, Farnham, Ashgate, 2009 ; GRANT Morag Josephine, MÖLLEMANN Rebecca, MORLANDSTÖ Ingvill, MÜNZ Simone Christine et NUXOLL Cornelia, « Music and Conflict: Interdisciplinary Perspectives », *Interdisciplinary Science Reviews*, vol. 35, n° 2, 2010, p. 183-198 ; O'CONNELL John Morgan et CASTELOBRANCO Salwa el-Shawan (dir.), *Music and Conflict*, Urbana, University of Illinois Press, 2010 ; OCHOA GAUTIER Ana María, « A manera de introducción: la materialidad de lo musical y su relación con la violencia », *Trans*, n° 10, 2006, https://www.redalyc.org/articulo.oa?id=82201001 ; STOICHITA Victor A., « Musicopathies. La musique est-elle bonne pour la santé ? », *Terrain*, n° 68, 2017,
p. 4-25; VOLCLER Juliette, *Le son comme arme: les usages policiers et militaires du son*, Paris, La Découverte, 2011.

8. Voir par exemple, CUSICK Suzanne G., « "You are in a place that is out of the world. ...": Music in the Detention Camps of the "Global War on Terror" », *Journal of the Society for American Music*, vol. 2, n° 1, 2008, p. 1-26; DAUGHTRY J. Martin, *Listening to War: Sound, Music, Trauma, and Survival in Wartime Iraq*, New York, Oxford University Press, 2015; GILMAN Lisa, *My Music, my War: The Listening Habits of U.S. Troops in Iraq and Afghanistan*, Middletown, Wesleyan University Press, 2016; PIESLAK Jonathan, *Sound Targets: American Soldiers and Music in the Iraq War*, Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 2009.

9. Voir par exemple, AUDOIN-ROUZEAU Stéphane, BUCH Esteban, CHIMÈNES Myriam et DUROSOIR Georgie (dir.), *La Grande Guerre des musiciens*, Lyon, Symétrie, 2009; BIRDSALL Carolyn, *Nazi Soundscapes: Sound, Technology and Urban Space in Germany, 1933-1945*, Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press, 2012; FAUSER Annegret, *Sounds of War: Music in the United States during World War II*, New York, Oxford University Press, 2013; HARTFORD Kassandra, « Listening to the Din of the First World War », *Sound Studies*, vol. 3, n° 2, 2017, p. 98-114; KALTENECKER Martin, « Paysage endivisionné. Notes sur les frontières acoustiques de la guerre », *Transposition*, n° 6, 2016, https://doi.org/10.4000/transposition.1615; MOORE Rachel, *Performing Propaganda: Musical Life and Culture in Paris during the First World War*, Woodbridge, The Boydell Press, 2018; PETIT Élise, *Musique et politique en Allemagne: du IIIe Reich à l'aube de la guerre froide*, Paris, Presses de l'Université Paris-Sorbonne, 2018.

10. Voir par exemple, GRANT M. J. et PAPAETI Anna (dir.), « Music and Torture | Music and Punishment », *The World of Music*, vol. 2, n° 1, 2013, https://www.jstor.org/stable/i24316991; JARDIN Étienne (dir.), *Music and War in Europe from the French Revolution to WWI*, Turnhout, Brepols, 2016; OCHOA GAUTIER Ana María, « El silencio como armamento sonoro », DE GAMBOA Camila et URIBE María Victoria (dir.), *Los silencios de la guerra*, Bogotá, Editorial Universidad del Rosario, 2017, p. 117-157; SYKES Jim, « Ontologies of Acoustic Endurance: Rethinking Wartime Sound and Listening », *Sound Studies*, vol. 4, n° 1, 2018, p. 35-60; WILLIAMS Gavin (dir.), *Hearing the Crimean War: Wartime Sound and the Unmaking of Sense*, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2019.

11. OCHOA GAUTIER, « A manera de introducción ».

12. « Only the privileged and the naive believe people's achievements are purely the product of their own genius », YOUNGE Gary, « In these Bleak Times, Imagine a World where You Can Thrive », *The Guardian*, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jan/10/bleak-times-thrive-last-column-guardian, 10 January 2020, consulté le 25 février 2020.

13. Le programme complet est consultable ici https://agenda.unifr.ch/e/fr/4349

14. Je voudrais remercier les auteur.e.s qui ont participé à ce numéro spécial pour leur générosité et leur patience. Merci aussi aux relecteurs et relectrices anonymes qui ont contribué à travers leurs commentaires et leurs suggestions à améliorer les textes de ce numéro. Enfin, je voudrais exprimer ma gratitude aux membres du comité de rédaction de *Transposition* pour leur soutien dans ce projet ainsi qu'aux collègues et ami.e.s qui ont accueilli mes recherches à l'Université de Fribourg, à la Fondation Maison des sciences de l'homme (FMSH) et à l'Université de Berne.

15. RICE Timothy, « Ethnomusicology in Times of Trouble », *Yearbook for Traditional Music*, vol. 46, 2014, p. 191-209.

16. *Ibid.*, p. 192.

17. KALTENECKER Martin, « "What Scenes! – What Sounds!" Some Remarks on Soundscapes in War Times », JARDIN Étienne (dir.), *Music and War in Europe from the French Revolution to WWI*, Turnhout, Brepols, 2016, p. 3-27.

18. DAUGHTRY, *Listening to War*, p. 124.

19. DAUGHTRY, *Listening to War*; GILMAN, *My music, my War*; PIESLAK, *Sound Targets*.
20. GUIDA Michael, « Nature's Sonic Order on the Western Front », *Transposition*, n° Hors-série 2, 2020, https://doi.org/10.4000/transposition.4770.

21. O'CONNELL John Morgan, « Sound Bites: Music as Violence », *Transposition*, n° Hors-série 2, 2020, https://doi.org/10.4000/transposition.4524.

22. SYKES, « Ontologies of acoustic endurance » ; PILZER Joshua D., *Hearts of Pine: Songs in the Lives of Three Korean Survivors of the Japanese « Comfort Women »*, New York, Oxford University Press, 2012 ; VELASCO-PUFLEAU Luis, « No sound is innocent : réflexions sur l'appropriation et la transformation de l'expérience sonore de la violence extrême », *Filigrane*, n° 23, 2018, https://revues.mshparisnord.fr/filigrane/index.php?id=888 ; VELASCO-PUFLEAU Luis, « Quand il ne reste que la guerre pour tuer le silence : Écouter No One Is Innocent après le 13 novembre 2015 », *Volume !*, vol. 15, n° 2, 2019, p. 91-99.

23. HOCK Nikita, « Making Home, Making Sense: Aural Experiences of Warsaw and East Galician Jews in Subterranean Shelters during the Holocaust », *Transposition*, n° Hors-série 2, 2020, https://doi.org/10.4000/transposition.4205.

24. « An acoustically tuned exploration of the written archive », OCHOA GAUTIER Ana María, *Aurality: Listening and Knowledge in Nineteenth-Century Colombia*, Durham, Duke University Press, 2014, p. 3.

25. FAUSER Annegret, « Sound, Music, War, and Violence: Listening from the Archive », *Transposition*, n° Hors-série 2, 2020, https://doi.org/10.4000/transposition.4310.

26. « Is always an attack upon a person's dignity, sense of selfhood, and future », EVANS Brad et LENNARD Natasha, *Violence: Humans in Dark Times*, San Francisco, City Lights Books, 2018, p. 3.

27. « Una de las características de la violencia es la redefinición del espacio acústico », OCHOA GAUTIER, « A manera de introducción ».

28. PAPAETI Anna, “On Music, Torture and Detention: Reflections on Issues of Research and Discipline”, *Transposition*, no. Hors-série 2, 2020, https://doi.org/10.4000/transposition.5289.

29. KAY Sarah, « Songs of War: The Voice of Bertran de Born », *Transposition*, n° Hors-série 2, 2020, https://doi.org/10.4000/transposition.3785.

30. DAUGHTRY J. Martin, « Did Music Cause the End of the World? », *Transposition*, n° Hors-série 2, 2020, https://doi.org/10.4000/transposition.5192.

31. ALIGHIERI, *La Divine Comédie : l'Enfer*, p. 259.

32. MALCOMSON Hettie, « On Sensationalism, Violence and Academic Knowledge », *Transposition*, n° Hors-série 2, 2020, https://doi.org/10.4000/transposition.4931.

33. STOICHITA Victor A., « Affordance to Kill: Sound Agency and Auditory Experiences of a Norwegian Terrorist and American Soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan », *Transposition*, n° Hors-série 2, 2020, https://doi.org/10.4000/transposition.4065.

34. NUXOLL Cornelia, « Culprit or Accomplice: Observations on the Role and Perception of Music in Violent Contexts in the Sierra Leone War », *Transposition*, n° Hors-série 2, 2020, https://doi.org/10.4000/transposition.4382.

35. VELASCO-PUFLEAU Luis, « De la musique à la lutte armée, de 1968 à Action directe : entretien avec Jean-Marc Rouillan », *Transposition*, n° Hors-série 2, 2020, https://doi.org/10.4000/transposition.3709.

36. WORLEY Matthew, « Guitars Give Way to Guns: A Commentary on an Interview with Jean-Marc Rouillan », *Transposition*, n° Hors-série 2, 2020, https://doi.org/10.4000/transposition.4284.

37. BROWN Timothy Scott, « Going Underground: The Politics of Free Music around 1968 », *Transposition*, n° Hors-série 2, 2020, https://doi.org/10.4000/transposition.4863.

38. VARON Jeremy, « Reflections on a Revolutionary and Music », *Transposition*, n° Hors-série 2, 2020, https://doi.org/10.4000/transposition.4644.

39. « Long after ceasefire, music continues to play an oftentimes fundamental role in celebrating or commemorating wars and warriors, thus functioning as a fundamental toolkit for collective
memory which itself, all too often, becomes mobilised in the service of wars yet to come », GRANT Morag Josephine, « On Music and War », *Transposition*, n° Hors-série 2, 2020, https://doi.org/10.4000/transposition.4469.

## RÉSUMÉS

L'écoute peut devenir un outil d'exploration, d'engagement et de connaissance sensible du monde. La musique peut être un moyen de projeter, d'encadrer et de préparer l'affrontement avec l'ennemi. De quelle façon l'étude du son et de la musique peut-elle aider à comprendre la violence collective et la guerre ? Comment l'étude de la guerre et de la violence collective peut-elle aider à comprendre l'importance des pratiques musicales et de l'écoute pour les êtres humains ? Ce numéro hors-série de *Transposition* propose d'explorer ces questions à partir de l'analyse des liens entre son, musique et violence.

Listening can become a tool for exploration of, engagement with and sensorial knowledge of the world. Music can be a device for projecting, framing and preparing for confrontation with the enemy. How can the study of sound and music help us to understand collective violence and war? How can the study of war and collective violence help us to understand the importance of musical practices and listening for human beings? This special issue of *Transposition* explores these questions through an analysis of the links between sound, music and violence.

## INDEX

**Keywords** : agency, auditory regime, Dante, listening, music, sound, violence, war

**Mots-clés** : agentivité, Dante, écoute, guerre, musique, régime d'audition, son, violence

## AUTEUR

### LUIS VELASCO-PUFLEAU

Musicologue et artiste sonore, Luis Velasco-Pufleau est chercheur au Walter Benjamin Kolleg et à l'Institut de musicologie de l'Université de Berne. Son travail constitue une réflexion critique sur les liens entre musique et politique dans les sociétés contemporaines. En tant que chercheur et artiste sonore, il explore des formes d'écriture innovantes à la croisée de la création artistique et de la recherche en sciences humaines et sociales. ORCID : https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1330-974X
# Introduction. Sound, Music and Violence

## Introduction. Son, musique et violence

### Luis Velasco-Pufleau

<footnote n="1">1 When, in the third canto of the first part of *The Divine Comedy*, Virgil leads Dante through the gates of Hell, Dante is frightened not by what he sees, but by what he hears: “Sighs, weeping, loud wailing resounded through the starless air”.¹ The horror is such that Dante sheds tears. The lamentations of the tortured in “strange languages” and “horrible tongues”, the “words of pain” and “accents of anger”, make a deafening tumult. Faced with the incomprehension of these sounds of fear and pain, Dante asks Virgil, “Master, what is this I hear?”² He feels the pain of the sounds but does not know who makes them or why; he has never heard such sounds before. To be able to attach a meaning to this new world of sound, he must now listen attentively, because listening will be essential in order to know the space, to understand situations and to give meaning to his advancement into the different circles of Hell. This until the last verses, when Dante and his guide find their way out of the lower world through listening: they recognise the hidden path by which they will come out “not by sight, but by the sound of a little stream”³ which erodes the rock. By following this path, they return to the bright world and can finally “look again at the stars”.⁴</footnote>

<footnote n="2">2 Dante’s account of his journey through Hell illustrates the emotional complexity of sound phenomena and shows how listening can become a tool for exploration of, engagement with and sensorial knowledge of the world. This special issue of *Transposition* explores these subjects through an analysis of the links between sound, music and violence. Six years after the fourth issue was devoted to “Music and Armed Conflicts after 1945”,⁵ this special issue intends to contribute to the considerable growth of interdisciplinary research aimed at understanding collective violence and war through sound and music. In the fields of musicology, ethnomusicology, history, anthropology and sound studies, numerous works have focused as much on the repertoires mobilised in wartime as on the listening experiences of female combatants and civilians in conflict or post-conflict contexts. Svanibor Pettan’s pioneering work on</footnote>
the Balkan wars⁶ was followed by research on the links between music and violence,⁷ on the sound and musical practices of soldiers during or after the US invasion of Iraq,⁸ as well as a renewed interest in the two World Wars⁹ and the armed conflicts of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.¹⁰ These works constitute different entries in an “acoustemology of violence”.¹¹ In all cases, the topics and methods are as diverse as the many researchers involved.

3

This vast scientific project is above all a collective one and is based on dialogues between researchers working in different countries who mobilise concepts and methodologies belonging to various disciplines in the humanities and social sciences. This issue of *Transposition* is published in the context of a large social movement which reflects many concerns about neo-liberal reforms in higher education and research in France. To counter the cult of performance, the myth of individual success and the obligation of competition, it is important to insist on the collective dimension of knowledge production. We are treading paths paved by others before us. Our ideas, no matter how original they may seem, are always part of larger constellations and are indebted to the legacy of those who have gone before us and with whom we have developed them. As sociologist Gary Younge recently observed in *The Guardian*, “Only the privileged and the naive believe people’s achievements are purely the product of their own genius”.¹²

4

This issue is collective in many ways. The three articles in the first part come from the international workshop Sound and Music in War from the Middle Ages to the Present, which I had the opportunity to organise with Marion Uhlig and Martin Rohde at the Institute for Medieval Studies of the University of Fribourg on 12 and 13 November 2018.¹³ The second part of the issue consists of an interview and three critical commentaries that respond to and extend the statements made. Finally, the third part is comprised of eight essays that comment on certain texts in the issue or develop theoretical, ethical and methodological questions raised by research on music, sound and war. These texts answer two questions: how can the study of sound and music help us to understand collective violence and war? How can the study of war and collective violence help us to understand the importance of musical practices and listening for human beings?¹⁴

5

However, associating music with the violence, destruction and atrocities of war is not evident in research in humanities and social sciences. As ethnomusicologist Timothy Rice notes, research in the field of what he calls “ethnomusicology in times (and places) of trouble” was scarce before the early 2000s.¹⁵ This is explained, among other things, by cultural imagination in which music is necessarily associated with “good” things, and by scientific assumptions that music can only be produced in stable social settings. ¹⁶ The texts in this issue contribute to the reconfiguration of these beliefs and, as Morag J. Grant suggests in her essay, to the exploration of the cultural foundations of war and collective violence.

Listening to experiences of armed violence

6

The sound narrative of Dante’s Inferno evoked at the beginning of this introduction reminds us that sound can be an event that permanently alters a listener’s perception of the world around him. The cries and complaints that resonate in the dark air of Hell terrify Dante, while at the same time making him understand that he is entering an
unknown place. However, sound can also be a process that lasts over time and, through
sensory interactions with the listener, transforms their perception of reality.

7 Dante learns to listen and to evolve in this new world of sound and, through this process, develops new knowledge about how it works and the power dynamics at play. Violence and war shift the limits and thresholds of the usual soundscapes, permanently transforming the listeners' acoustic landmarks and capacities.¹⁷ The development of these listening habits and skills constitutes a new “auditory regime”: the set of techniques, technologies, regulations and shared knowledge that give shape to the listening practices of a given community.¹⁸

8 Is it possible to better understand the experience of war through auditory regimes? Recent research has explored this question, particularly through the testimonies of combatants.¹⁹ Michael Guida’s essay in this issue highlights a little-examined facet of these narratives: nature’s sonic experience by British soldiers mobilised on the Western Front during the First World War. Through the analysis of various sources—diaries, poems and letters—Guida shows how soldiers attach particular importance to bird songs, which frame their listening experiences of trench soundscapes.²⁰ In his essay, John Morgan O’Connell discusses the ideas developed by several of the issue’s authors, putting them into perspective with his own research on the Battle of Gallipoli (1915–1916). He explores the links between music and memory, particularly when music is used to both remember and forget, to celebrate victory or to commemorate defeat.²¹

9 The analysis of listening experiences and auditory regimes also made it possible to study non-combatants’ experience of armed violence.²² This field of research is explored by Nikita Hock in his article on the listening experiences of Warsaw and East Galician Jews in underground shelters during World War II. Through a large body of diaries, Hock succeeds in studying the experiences of civilians—especially women and the elderly—who endured violence and persecution during the Holocaust.²³

Listening to the sonic remnants of violence

10 The question of access to sources and their analysis is central to an acoustemology of violence. How to interpret the sonic traces of war in written sources? As Annegret Fauser points out in her essay, these archives constitute mediations of sound experiences from the past, ways of listening and narrating. Drawing on the work of Ana María Ochoa Gautier, she suggests following “an acoustically tuned exploration of the written archive”²⁴ in order to explore the sonic remnants of violence, while questioning archives as historically constructed entities, thus privileging the voices of certain types of witnesses.²⁵

11 Because violence “is always an attack upon a person’s dignity, sense of selfhood, and future”,²⁶ it upsets and reconfigures the boundaries between sound, noise and silence, between what is sayable and what is not. As Ana María Ochoa Gautier states, “One of the characteristics of violence is the redefinition of acoustic space”.²⁷ Anna Papaeti explores the modalities and issues for (ethno)musicological research of this redefinition in the context of the use of music for torture. In her essay, she reflects on the consequences of the trauma inflicted by sound and music in detention contexts and on the inherent ethical dimension of witnessing testimonies of victims.²⁸ The modalities of what the voice can express, and the boundaries between sound, noise and silence,
are some of the issues examined by Sarah Kay in her article on the *sirventes* composed by Bertran de Born, one of the most famous troubadours of the second half of the twelfth century, who is also featured in Dante’s Inferno. Mobilising the Lacanian concept of “extimacy”, Kay is interested in the sonic dimension of these political songs of love and war that reveal a mediation between noise and music, and reconfigure the poetic transmission of the subjects of love and death.²⁹

12 In his contribution, Martin Daughtry calls for a break with an anthropocentric vision of musical activity; he questions the practical and theoretical frameworks that contribute to fuelling one of the motors of modern violence: the human / nature dualism.³⁰ To have separated beings that should have remained together is precisely the reproach that Dante makes to the troubadour Bertran de Born when his spectre appears in the eighth circle of Hell: “His severed head he was holding up by the hair, dangling it from his hand like a lantern”;³¹ divided for sowing discord, his punishment is to proceed with his brain separated from his body. Reflecting on the links between music and violence gives Daughtry the opportunity to think beyond human exceptionalism and to call for a different kind of listening to the sonic remnants of human violence.

13 Listening to these remnants can raise important ethical questions when researchers are required to talk and work with people who actively participated in the atrocities of war. Although a fundamental topic, explicit examination of it remains largely absent in research on the links between sound, music and violence. Hettie Malcomson discusses this issue, stating the need to respect the humanity and subjectivity of those involved, while avoiding any kind of sensationalism in the process of academic knowledge production.³²

## Violence and the agency of sound and music

14 All the texts in this issue share a scientific position that is worth recalling: sound and music are not examined as the *cause* of violent action, but rather as *symbolic resources* that actors can mobilise in processes or dynamics of violence. The difference is significant and involves the rejection of an ontology of sound and music in which human will is dominated by their supposed powers. Rather, it is a question of understanding how people use music and sound phenomena to give meaning to their reality in contexts of war or to justify acts of destruction and violence.

15 Music can be a device for projecting, framing and preparing for confrontation with the enemy. The narratives it conveys as well as its sound characteristics can be mobilised by the actors in order to engage in a real or imaginary confrontation. This hypothesis is explored by Victor A. Stoichita in his article on the listening experiences of American soldiers and the Norwegian terrorist Anders Breivik. He shows how the possibility that sound and music are at the origin of a causal chain—the ability that the listener gives sounds, to “transform” the world in which they live—is closely linked to the ontology of the listening experience.³³ Cornelia Nuxoll explores other issues of musical agency in her essay on her fieldwork in Sierra Leone with former fighters of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF). Her observations point to the emotional complexity of music used in the dynamics of violence as well as in disarmament processes.³⁴

16 The interview I conducted with Jean-Marc Rouillan, a founding member of the armed revolutionary group *Action directe* (1977–1987), presents the point of view of a protagonist of a kind of political violence. In it he tells how his political engagement
around 1968 was preceded by a musical engagement, in anticipation of a more direct confrontation with the state. Listening to rock and punk music served as a catalyst for bringing together demands for freedom and autonomous political action.³⁵ The interview is followed by three critical commentaries by Matthew Worley (University of Reading),³⁶ Timothy Scott Brown (Northeastern University)³⁷ and Jeremy Varon (New School).³⁸ These texts deepen, criticise or contextualise positions or facts presented by Jean-Marc Rouillan. Whether it is the relationship between music and the collective memory of political struggles, the autonomy sought by the punk movement or the link between rock and capitalism, the commentaries provide valuable counterpoints in grasping the complexity of the historical situation evoked.

17

As Morag J. Grant asserts, “Long after ceasefire, music continues to play an oftentimes fundamental role in celebrating or commemorating wars and warriors, thus functioning as a fundamental toolkit for collective memory which itself, all too often, becomes mobilised in the service of wars yet to come”.³⁹ By exploring the links between sound, music and violence, this special issue of *Transposition* questions the ways in which human societies see themselves, build their collective memory and envisage their futures.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

ALIGHIERI Dante, *The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri*, vol. 1 Inferno, DURLING Robert M. (tran.), New York, Oxford University Press, 1997.

AUDOIN-ROUZEAU Stéphane, BUCH Esteban, CHIMÈNES Myriam and DUROSOIR Georgie (eds.), *La Grande Guerre des musiciens*, Lyon, Symétrie, 2009.

BIRDSALL Carolyn, *Nazi Soundscapes: Sound, Technology and Urban Space in Germany, 1933-1945*, Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press, 2012.

BROWN Timothy Scott, “Going Underground: The Politics of Free Music around 1968”, *Transposition*, no. Hors-série 2, 2020, https://doi.org/10.4000/transposition.4863.

CUSICK Suzanne G., “‘You are in a place that is out of the world. . .’: Music in the Detention Camps of the ‘Global War on Terror’”, *Journal of the Society for American Music*, vol. 2, no. 1, 2008, pp. 1–26.

DAUGHTRY J. Martin, “Did Music Cause the End of the World?”, *Transposition*, no. Hors-série 2, 2020, https://doi.org/10.4000/transposition.5192.

DAUGHTRY J. Martin, *Listening to War: Sound, Music, Trauma, and Survival in Wartime Iraq*, New York, Oxford University Press, 2015.

EVANS Brad and LENNARD Natasha, *Violence: Humans in Dark Times*, San Francisco, City Lights Books, 2018.

FAST Susan and PEGLEY Kip, *Music, Politics, and Violence*, Middletown, Wesleyan University Press, 2012.
FAUSER Annegret, “Sound, Music, War, and Violence: Listening from the Archive”, *Transposition*, no. Hors-série 2, 2020, https://doi.org/10.4000/transposition.4310.

FAUSER Annegret, *Sounds of War: Music in the United States during World War II*, New York, Oxford University Press, 2013.

GILMAN Lisa, *My Music, my War: The Listening Habits of U.S. Troops in Iraq and Afghanistan*, Middletown, Wesleyan University Press, 2016.

GRANT M. J. and PAPAETI Anna (eds.), “Music and Torture | Music and Punishment”, *The World of Music*, vol. 2, no. 1, 2013, https://www.jstor.org/stable/i24316991.

GRANT Morag Josephine, “On Music and War”, *Transposition*, no. Hors-série 2, 2020, https://doi.org/10.4000/transposition.4469.

GRANT Morag Josephine, MÖLLEMANN Rebecca, MORLANDSTÖ Ingvill, MÜNZ Simone Christine and NUXOLL Cornelia, “Music and Conflict: Interdisciplinary Perspectives”, *Interdisciplinary Science Reviews*, vol. 35, no. 2, 2010, pp. 183–198.

GUIDA Michael, “Nature’s Sonic Order on the Western Front”, *Transposition*, no. Hors-série 2, 2020, https://doi.org/10.4000/transposition.4770.

HARTFORD Kassandra, “Listening to the Din of the First World War”, *Sound Studies*, vol. 3, no. 2, 2017, pp. 98–114.

HOCK Nikita, “Making Home, Making Sense: Aural Experiences of Warsaw and East Galician Jews in Subterranean Shelters during the Holocaust”, *Transposition*, no. Hors-série 2, 2020, https://doi.org/10.4000/transposition.4205.

JARDIN Étienne (ed.), *Music and War in Europe from the French Revolution to WWI*, Turnhout, Brepols, 2016.

JOHNSON Bruce and CLOONAN Martin, *Dark Side of the Tune: Popular Music and Violence*, Farnham, Ashgate, 2009.

KALTENECKER Martin, “Paysage endivisionné. Notes sur les frontières acoustiques de la guerre”, *Transposition*, no. 6, 2016, https://doi.org/10.4000/transposition.1615.

KALTENECKER Martin, “‘What Scenes! – What Sounds!’ Some Remarks on Soundscapes in War Times”, *JARDIN Étienne* (ed.), *Music and War in Europe from the French Revolution to WWI*, Turnhout, Brepols, 2016, pp. 3–27.

KAY Sarah, “Songs of War: The Voice of Bertran de Born”, *Transposition*, no. Hors-série 2, 2020, https://doi.org/10.4000/transposition.3785.

MALCOMSON Hettie, “On Sensationalism, Violence and Academic Knowledge”, *Transposition*, no. Hors-série 2, 2020, https://doi.org/10.4000/transposition.4931.

MOORE Rachel, *Performing Propaganda: Musical Life and Culture in Paris during the First World War*, Woodbridge, The Boydell Press, 2018.

NUXOLL Cornelia, “Culprit or Accomplice: Observations on the Role and Perception of Music in Violent Contexts in the Sierra Leone War”, *Transposition*, no. Hors-série 2, 2020, https://doi.org/10.4000/transposition.4382.

OCHOA GAUTIER Ana María, “El silencio como armamento sonoro”, DE GAMBOA Camila and URIBE María Victoria (eds.), *Los silencios de la guerra*, Bogotá, Editorial Universidad del Rosario, 2017, pp. 117–157.
OCHOA GAUTIER Ana María, Aurality: Listening and Knowledge in Nineteenth-Century Colombia, Durham, Duke University Press, 2014.

OCHOA GAUTIER Ana María, “A manera de introducción: la materialidad de lo musical y su relación con la violencia”, *Trans*, no. 10, 2006, https://www.redalyc.org/articulo.oa?id=82201001.

O'CONNELL John Morgan, “Sound Bites: Music as Violence”, *Transposition*, no. Hors-série 2, 2020, https://doi.org/10.4000/transposition.4524.

O'CONNELL John Morgan and CASTELO-BRANCO Salwa el-Shawan (eds.), *Music and Conflict*, Urbana, University of Illinois Press, 2010.

PAPAETI Anna, “On Music, Torture and Detention: Reflections on Issues of Research and Discipline”, *Transposition*, no. Hors-série 2, 2020, https://doi.org/10.4000/transposition.5289.

PETIT Élise, *Musique et politique en Allemagne : du IIIe Reich à l'aube de la guerre froide*, Paris, Presses de l'Université Paris-Sorbonne, 2018.

PETTAN Svanibor, *Music, Politics, and War: Views from Croatia*, Zagreb, Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Research, 1998.

PIESLAK Jonathan, *Sound Targets: American Soldiers and Music in the Iraq War*, Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 2009.

PILZER Joshua D., *Hearts of Pine: Songs in the Lives of Three Korean Survivors of the Japanese “Comfort Women”*, New York, Oxford University Press, 2012.

RICE Timothy, “Ethnomusicology in Times of Trouble”, *Yearbook for Traditional Music*, vol. 46, 2014, pp. 191–209.

STOICHITA Victor A., “Affordance to Kill: Sound Agency and Auditory Experiences of a Norwegian Terrorist and American Soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan”, *Transposition*, no. Hors-série 2, 2020, https://doi.org/10.4000/transposition.4065.

STOICHITA Victor A., “Musicopathies. La musique est-elle bonne pour la santé ?”, *Terrain*, no. 68, 2017, pp. 4–25.

SYKES Jim, “Ontologies of Acoustic Endurance: Rethinking Wartime Sound and Listening”, *Sound Studies*, vol. 4, no. 1, 2018, pp. 35–60.

VARON Jeremy, “Reflections on a Revolutionary and Music”, *Transposition*, no. Hors-série 2, 2020, https://doi.org/10.4000/transposition.4644.

VELASCO PUFLEAU Luis, “From Music to Armed Struggle, from 1968 to Action Directe: An Interview with Jean-Marc Rouillan”, *Transposition*, no. Hors-série 2, 2020, https://doi.org/10.4000/transposition.3780.

VELASCO-PUFLEAU Luis, “When Only War Can Kill the Silence: Listening to No One Is Innocent after 13 November 2015”, *Volume !*, vol. 15, no. 2, 2019, pp. 91a–99a.

VELASCO-PUFLEAU Luis, “No sound is innocent : réflexions sur l’appropriation et la transformation de l’expérience sonore de la violence extrême”, *Filigrane*, no. 23, 2018, https://revues.mshparisnord.fr/filigrane/index.php?id=888.

VELASCO-PUFLEAU Luis (ed.), “Musique et conflits armés après 1945”, *Transposition*, no. 4, 2014, https://doi.org/10.4000/transposition.407.

VOLCLER Juliette, *Le son comme arme : les usages policiers et militaires du son*, Paris, La Découverte, 2011.
WILLIAMS Gavin (ed.), *Hearing the Crimean War: Wartime Sound and the Unmaking of Sense*, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2019.

WORLEY Matthew, “Guitars Give Way to Guns: A Commentary on an Interview with Jean-Marc Rouillan”, *Transposition*, no. Hors-série 2, 2020, https://doi.org/10.4000/transposition.4284.

YOUNGE Gary, “In these Bleak Times, Imagine a World where You Can Thrive”, *The Guardian*, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jan/10/bleak-times-thrive-last-column-guardian, 10 January 2020, accessed on 25 February 2020.

## NOTES

1. ALIGHIERI Dante, *The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri*, vol. 1 Inferno, DURLING Robert M. (tran.), New York, Oxford University Press, 1997, p. 55.

2. *Ibid.*, p. 57.

3. *Ibid.*, p. 541.

4. *Ibid.*

5. VELASCO-PUFLEAU Luis (ed.), “Musique et conflits armés après 1945”, *Transposition*, no. 4, 2014, https://doi.org/10.4000/transposition.407.

6. PETTAN Svanibor, *Music, Politics, and War: Views from Croatia*, Zagreb, Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Research, 1998.

7. FAST Susan and PEGLEY Kip, *Music, Politics, and Violence*, Middletown, Wesleyan University Press, 2012; JOHNSON Bruce and CLOONAN Martin, *Dark Side of the Tune: Popular Music and Violence*, Farnham, Ashgate, 2009; GRANT Morag Josephine, MÖLLEMANN Rebecca, MORLANDSTÖ Ingvill, MÜNZ Simone Christine and NUXOLL Cornelia, “Music and Conflict: Interdisciplinary Perspectives”, *Interdisciplinary Science Reviews*, vol. 35, no. 2, 2010, pp. 183–198; O’CONNELL John Morgan and CASTELO-BRANCO Salwa el-Shawan (eds.), *Music and Conflict*, Urbana, University of Illinois Press, 2010; OCHOA GAUTIER Ana María, “A manera de introducción: la materialidad de lo musical y su relación con la violencia”, *Trans*, no. 10, 2006, https://www.redalyc.org/articulo.oa?id=82201001; STOICHITA Victor A., “Musicopathies. La musique est-elle bonne pour la santé ?”, *Terrain*, no. 68, 2017, pp. 4–25; VOLCLER Juliette, *Le son comme arme : les usages policiers et militaires du son*, Paris, La Découverte, 2011.

8. See for example, CUSICK Suzanne G., “‘You are in a place that is out of the world. . .’: Music in the Detention Camps of the ‘Global War on Terror’”, *Journal of the Society for American Music*, vol. 2, no. 1, 2008, pp. 1–26; DAUGHTRY J. Martin, *Listening to War: Sound, Music, Trauma, and Survival in Wartime Iraq*, New York, Oxford University Press, 2015; GILMAN Lisa, *My Music, my War: The Listening Habits of U.S. Troops in Iraq and Afghanistan*, Middletown, Wesleyan University Press, 2016; PIESLAK Jonathan, *Sound Targets: American Soldiers and Music in the Iraq War*, Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 2009.

9. See for example, AUDIOIN-ROUZEAU Stéphane, BUCH Esteban, CHIMÈNES Myriam and DUROSOIR Georgie (eds.), *La Grande Guerre des musiciens*, Lyon, Symétrie, 2009; BIRDSALL Carolyn, *Nazi Soundscapes: Sound, Technology and Urban Space in Germany, 1933-1945*, Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press, 2012; FAUSER Annegret, *Sounds of War: Music in the United States during World War II*, New York, Oxford University Press, 2013; HARTFORD Kassandra, “Listening to the Din of the First World War”, *Sound Studies*, vol. 3, no. 2, 2017, pp. 98–114; KALTENECKER Martin, “Paysage endivisionné. Notes sur les frontières acoustiques de la guerre”, *Transposition*, no. 6, 2016, https://doi.org/10.4000/transposition.1615; MOORE Rachel, *Performing Propaganda: Musical Life and Culture in Paris during the First World War*, Woodbridge, The Boydell Press, 2018; PETIT Élise, *Musique*
et politique en Allemagne : du IIIe Reich à l'aube de la guerre froide, Paris, Presses de l'Université Paris-Sorbonne, 2018.

10. See for example, GRANT M. J. and PAPAETI Anna (eds.), "Music and Torture | Music and Punishment", *The World of Music*, vol. 2, no. 1, 2013, https://www.jstor.org/stable/i24316991; JARDIN Étienne (ed.), *Music and War in Europe from the French Revolution to WWI*, Turnhout, Brepols, 2016; OCHOA GAUTIER Ana María, "El silencio como armamento sonoro", DE GAMBOA Camila and URIBE María Victoria (eds.), *Los silencios de la guerra*, Bogotá, Editorial Universidad del Rosario, 2017, pp. 117-157; SYKES Jim, "Ontologies of Acoustic Endurance: Rethinking Wartime Sound and Listening", *Sound Studies*, vol. 4, no. 1, 2018, pp. 35-60; WILLIAMS Gavin (ed.), *Hearing the Crimean War: Wartime Sound and the Unmaking of Sense*, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2019.

11. OCHOA GAUTIER, "A manera de introducción".

12. YOUNGE Gary, "In these Bleak Times, Imagine a World where You Can Thrive", *The Guardian*, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jan/10/bleak-times-thrive-last-column-guardian, 10 January 2020, accessed on 25 February 2020.

13. Full programme available here https://agenda.unifr.ch/e/fr/4349

14. I would like to thank the authors who have contributed to this special issue for their generosity and patience. I would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers who contributed with their comments and suggestions to improve the texts of this issue. Finally, I would like to express my gratitude to the members of the *Transposition* editorial board for their participation in this project as well as to the colleagues and friends who supported my research at the University of Fribourg, the Fondation Maison des sciences de l'homme (FMSH) and the University of Bern.

15. RICE Timothy, "Ethnomusicology in Times of Trouble", *Yearbook for Traditional Music*, vol. 46, 2014, pp. 191-209.

16. Ibid., p. 192.

17. KALTENECKER Martin, ""What Scenes! – What Sounds!' Some Remarks on Soundscapes in War Times", JARDIN Étienne (ed.), *Music and War in Europe from the French Revolution to WWI*, Turnhout, Brepols, 2016, pp. 3-27.

18. DAUGHTRY, *Listening to War*, p. 124.

19. DAUGHTRY, *Listening to War*; GILMAN, *My music, my War*; PIESLAK, *Sound Targets*.

20. GUIDA Michael, "Nature's Sonic Order on the Western Front", *Transposition*, no. Hors-série 2, 2020, https://doi.org/10.4000/transposition.4770.

21. O'CONNELL John Morgan, "Sound Bites: Music as Violence", *Transposition*, no. Hors-série 2, 2020, https://doi.org/10.4000/transposition.4524.

22. See for example, SYKES, "Ontologies of acoustic endurance"; PILZER Joshua D., *Hearts of Pine: Songs in the Lives of Three Korean Survivors of the Japanese "Comfort Women"*, New York, Oxford University Press, 2012; VELASCO-PUFLEAU Luis, "No sound is innocent: réflexions sur l'appropriation et la transformation de l'expérience sonore de la violence extrême", *Filigrane*, no. 23, 2018, https://revues.mshparisnord.fr/filigrane/index.php?id=888; VELASCO-PUFLEAU Luis, "When Only War Can Kill the Silence: Listening to No One Is Innocent after 13 November 2015", *Volume!*, vol. 15, no. 2, 2019, pp. 91a-99a.

23. HOCK Nikita, "Making Home, Making Sense: Aural Experiences of Warsaw and East Galician Jews in Subterranean Shelters during the Holocaust", *Transposition*, no. Hors-série 2, 2020, https://doi.org/10.4000/transposition.4205.

24. OCHOA GAUTIER Ana María, *Aurality: Listening and Knowledge in Nineteenth-Century Colombia*, Durham, Duke University Press, 2014, p. 3.

25. FAUSER Annegret, "Sound, Music, War, and Violence: Listening from the Archive", *Transposition*, no. Hors-série 2, 2020, https://doi.org/10.4000/transposition.4310.
26. EVANS Brad and LENNARD Natasha, *Violence: Humans in Dark Times*, San Francisco, City Lights Books, 2018, p. 3.

27. "Una de las características de la violencia es la redefinición del espacio acústico", OCHOA GAUTIER, "A manera de introducción".

28. PAPAETI Anna, "On Music, Torture and Detention: Reflections on Issues of Research and Discipline", *Transposition*, no. Hors-série 2, 2020, https://doi.org/10.4000/transposition.5289.

29. KAY Sarah, "Songs of War: The Voice of Bertran de Born", *Transposition*, no. Hors-série 2, 2020, https://doi.org/10.4000/transposition.3785.

30. DAUGHTRY J. Martin, "Did Music Cause the End of the World?", *Transposition*, no. Hors-série 2, 2020, https://doi.org/10.4000/transposition.5192.

31. ALIGHIERI, *The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri*, p. 439.

32. MALCOMSON Hettie, "On Sensationalism, Violence and Academic Knowledge", *Transposition*, no. Hors-série 2, 2020, https://doi.org/10.4000/transposition.4931.

33. STOICHITA Victor A., "Affordance to Kill: Sound Agency and Auditory Experiences of a Norwegian Terrorist and American Soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan", *Transposition*, no. Hors-série 2, 2020, https://doi.org/10.4000/transposition.4065.

34. NUXOLL Cornelia, "Culprit or Accomplice: Observations on the Role and Perception of Music in Violent Contexts in the Sierra Leone War", *Transposition*, no. Hors-série 2, 2020, https://doi.org/10.4000/transposition.4382.

35. VELASCO PUFLEAU Luis, "From Music to Armed Struggle, from 1968 to Action Directe: An Interview with Jean-Marc Rouillan", *Transposition*, no. Hors-série 2, 2020, https://doi.org/10.4000/transposition.3780.

36. WORLEY Matthew, "Guitars Give Way to Guns: A Commentary on an Interview with Jean-Marc Rouillan", *Transposition*, no. Hors-série 2, 2020, https://doi.org/10.4000/transposition.4284.

37. BROWN Timothy Scott, "Going Underground: The Politics of Free Music around 1968", *Transposition*, no. Hors-série 2, 2020, https://doi.org/10.4000/transposition.4863.

38. VARON Jeremy, "Reflections on a Revolutionary and Music", *Transposition*, no. Hors-série 2, 2020, https://doi.org/10.4000/transposition.4644.

39. GRANT Morag Josephine, "On Music and War", *Transposition*, no. Hors-série 2, 2020, https://doi.org/10.4000/transposition.4469.

ABSTRACTS

Listening can become a tool for exploration of, engagement with and sensorial knowledge of the world. Music can be a device for projecting, framing and preparing for confrontation with the enemy. How can the study of sound and music help us to understand collective violence and war? How can the study of war and collective violence help us to understand the importance of musical practices and listening for human beings? This special issue of *Transposition* explores these questions through an analysis of the links between sound, music and violence.

L'écoute peut devenir un outil d'exploration, d'engagement et de connaissance sensible du monde. La musique peut être un moyen de projeter, d'encadrer et de préparer l'affrontement avec l'ennemi. De quelle façon l'étude du son et de la musique peut-elle aider à comprendre la violence collective et la guerre ? Comment l'étude de la guerre et de la violence collective peut-
elle aider à comprendre l'importance des pratiques musicales et de l'écoute pour les êtres
humains ? Ce numéro hors-série de *Transposition* propose d'explorer ces questions à partir de
l'analyse des liens entre son, musique et violence.

INDEX

**Keywords:** agency, auditory regime, Dante, listening, music, sound, violence, war

**Mots-clés:** agentivité, Dante, écoute, guerre, musique, régime d'audition, son, violence

AUTHOR

LUIS VELASCO-PUFLEAU

Luis Velasco-Pufleau is a musicologist and sound artist. He is currently a SNSF researcher at the University of Bern (Walter Benjamin Kolleg / Institute of Musicology). His work critically reflects on the relationship between music and politics in contemporary societies. As a researcher and sound artist, he is interested in exploring innovative forms of writing at the crossroads of artistic creation and research in the humanities and social sciences.

ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1330-974X
Articles
# Affordance to Kill: Sound Agency and Auditory Experiences of a Norwegian Terrorist and American Soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan

*Affordance de tuer : agentivité sonore et expériences d'écoute d'un terroriste norvégien et de soldats états-uniens en Irak et en Afghanistan*

Victor A. Stoichita

## Introduction: The loss of agency

<footnote n="1">¹ The assumption that specific sounds have special “powers” appears in all human societies (albeit not about the same sounds). Unusual agency is what makes “music” a distinct auditory phenomenon which stands apart from the normal workings of language and daily ecological semiosis.¹ The “powers” of music depend on specific ways of listening and, in this respect, arise as a result of listener agency. That is to say that music has “effects” not because of intrinsic meanings or forces, but “because it offers specific materials to which actors may turn when they engage in the work of organizing social life. Music is a resource—it provides affordances—for world building”.</footnote>

<footnote n="2">²</footnote>

<footnote>The “affordance” theory is elegant because it is, at the same time, parsimonious and powerful. With little hypotheses about music (nothing “intrinsic” in it anymore), it explains most of what people do with it. By putting the accent on listener agency, sound becomes a medium for distributed cognitive moves. Music is “a persistent environmental resource supporting the development of various experiences and embodied practices”, something like an “emotional scaffolding”, writes Krueger.³ The affordance theory of music is also interesting, in another respect, because it does not start by reproducing the “basic ontological fallacy: that music is essentially a *thing*</footnote>
which refers to another *thing*.⁴ By viewing music as a resource for action, it avoids
many pitfalls of classic semiotic approaches.

Where it falls short, however, is in also explaining why people persist in putting more
agency in sound than what it really should have. When they talk about their musical
experiences, even the most rationalist listeners report feeling an external force, a
“drive”, which affects them in various ways *from the outside*.⁵ An affordance, in Gibson’s
original terms, should be something more inert than that. The affordances of an
environment “are what it offers the animal, what it provides or furnishes, either for good
or ill”.⁶ An affordance is neither “objective” nor “subjective”. It cuts across that
dichotomy and “points both ways, to the environment and to the observer”.⁷ Yet an
affordance does not require consciousness, not even some kind of understanding. It is a
low-level feature of daily perception, shared by all sentient beings. It starts as “an
invariant combination of variables, and one might guess that it is easier to perceive
such an invariant unit”.⁸ Our world is full of affording objects, but we do not attribute
agency to all of them.

To account for this, DeNora refers in short to actors’ tendency to “erase the work they
do of configuring objects and their social implications (...) Indeed, it would seem part of
the natural attitude (...) to ‘forget’, paraphrasing Marx, that we are oppressed by the
things we have helped to produce. This ‘forgetting’ is the cognitive practice of
reification”.⁹ By this account, the “reified” musical agent is a kind of collective and
systematic mistake. It results from a cognitive bias, thus it cannot be amended through
mere knowledge (contrary to the proletarian’s mistake). I find it difficult to adhere to
this scenario, at least without a precise explanation of how—for so many people in so
many cultures—the illusion arises that music “has” powers and agency of its own.

The present paper does not provide a general solution for this. Instead, it contrasts two
ways in which listeners took advantage of musical affordances—or were they agencies?
—as a source for “motivation”. The action for which they wanted motivation was armed
violence. This might seem a strange topic; it is, indeed, a rather peculiar way to use
music in social life. But precisely because of this, it encourages listeners and
researchers alike to clearly explain how music comes in handy in the accomplishment
of the purported action.

There are at least two very different ways to listen to music as a motivator for armed
violence. One is reflected in the practices of American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.
¹⁰ A number of them had “battle playlists” to motivate them before going on a mission.
The other is reflected in the “manifesto” produced by Norwegian terrorist A. B. Breivik
during the preparation of his attacks in 2011. In this complex document, Breivik
repeatedly stated that specific music helped him to sustain his motivation.

Breivik belongs to the same generation as the American soldiers and grew up in
roughly the same type of media environment. Like them, he reported using his iPod
intensively as a tool to help him “tune in” to different kinds of cognitive activities. He
was explicit about the influence that popular movies and video games had on his
worldview. A similar influence has often been discerned in the “battle playlists” of
American soldiers,¹¹ even though the terrorist’s and the soldiers’ motivational music
sounded very different.

In a previous work, I suggested that this difference was coherent with a significant
divergence in their framing of danger and violence.¹² The terrorist acted alone, of his
own will, and placed great emphasis on notions of “martyrdom”. The soldiers were paid
as professional fighters, in a situation “where individuals were required to overcome their own opinions and emotions in order to go forth and do what was demanded of them”.¹³ Here, I propose to analyse more precisely how music actually “worked” in practice, for these two kinds of listeners. What did it “afford” to them?

I will review various proposed explanations of Breivik's and the soldiers' motivational tastes. Then, expanding on a hint from Wilson,¹⁴ I will argue that for the US troops and for the "lone wolf" terrorist, motivation was primarily an exercise in imagination. Music helped them to project an ideal kind of confrontation which, in effect, hardly ever took place. This links the current paper to broader discussions of "global war"¹⁵ and of the increased porosity between military and civilian ideals of violence. We will also see that while Breivik's music provided him with a mere scaffolding for his daydreams, soldiers' "battle playlists" instantiated an agentive force which they could confront.

## A terrorist's motivational music

Anders Behring Breivik¹⁶ has been described as a “lone wolf” killer, a person “carrying out mass violence in an individual capacity”.¹⁷ On the 22nd of July 2011, he blasted a bombed van in the centre of Oslo, killing eight people. He then proceeded to the island of Utøya where he shot 69 others, mostly teenagers. Right before embarking on what he called his “mission”, Breivik sent a document of over 1500 pages to around 100 email addresses, in which he mentioned music as an important ally in sustaining his motivation and performing what he called “self-indoctrination”:

> I simulate/meditate while I go for a walk, playing my Ipod in my neighbourhood. This consists of a daily 40 minute walk while at the same time philosophising ideologically/performing self-indoctrination and the mental simulation of the operation while listening to motivational and inspiring music. I simulate various future scenarios relating to resistance efforts, confrontations with police, future interrogation scenarios, future court appearances, future media interviews, etc. or I philosophise about certain articles in the book. This daily mental exercise or ritual keeps me fully motivated and charges my batteries.¹⁸

Breivik's compendium enabled many conjectures about what might have been the terrorist's mental evolution. It was actually by analysing this document, with special focus on its writing style, that the second team of forensic psychiatrists who assessed Breivik found him to be responsible for his actions, overturning the conclusion of a previous assessment.¹⁹ The second team concluded that Breivik had clear delusions of grandeur, but also demonstrated an “understanding of the potential emotions his reader would be feeling”.²⁰ Moreover, the team found that he did not have “false, fixed beliefs that could not be modified”.²¹

A major difficulty in assessing Breivik's mental soundness was that his world was replete with imagination and virtuality, along with self-posing and deception tricks. He presented himself as a "justiciary knight of the templar order" and for that purpose created a uniform "which looked like a fusion of the Crusades and a character out of the PC game Assassin's Creed".²² At his trial, he declared having spent an average of 7 hours a day over the previous years playing *World of Warcraft*. In the aftermath of his arrest, he made a number of counterfactual declarations about non-existing threats, including the pretence that he had swallowed a detonator meant to blow up several other locations.²³ In general, Breivik was very consciously committed to "the creation
of a fantasy world created and controlled by [his own] vision”.²⁴ For this effect, which
he called “self-indoctrination”, he used specific music.

13

The tunes which he mentions as allies in sustaining his motivation were of three kinds:

14

Music by Swedish singer Saga. Breivik understood the lyrics, transcribed some of them
in his compendium and recommends learning them by heart.

15

Music composed by Knut Avenstroup Haugen, featuring Norwegian singer Helen Bøksle. Breivik states that the lyrics are in old Norse, but gives no further indication of their relevance to him (it is uncertain whether he understood them at all). He relates the music to the video game *Age of Conan*.²⁵

16

An instrumental piece by Clint Mansell. The original composition was entitled "Lux Aeterna", which is also how Breivik refers to it. However, he recommends listening to its adaptation for the movie Lord of the Rings II.²⁶ This piece was of special importance to Breivik. He described it as the suitable soundtrack to play on repeat on his iPod during his "mission" (it is uncertain whether he actually listened to it or not). He also recommends it as a starting point for the anthem of the conservative European federation he wished for.

17

This media file cannot be displayed. Please refer to the online document http://journals.openedition.org/transposition/4065

18

Stroud suggested that music helped Breivik to feel part of a larger community despite the fact that he had to conceal his preparation and act in complete isolation.²⁷ This analysis is supported by his insistence on the inspirational potential of Saga's music (1). According to Stroud, she was already a “high-profile figure in the extreme-right music scene which promotes the ideology of white nationalism and supremacism”.²⁸ Teitelbaum argued however that Saga's lyrics were actually not coherent with Breivik's ideology, being closer to neo-Nazi and skinhead movements (which Breivik despised).²⁹ Breivik could have found interest in Saga's music because it “may have presented him a safe domain in which to experiment with ideologies he otherwise condemned”.³⁰

19

Apart from their content, the linguistic pragmatics of Saga's lyrics—at least those cited
by Breivik—are very listener-inclusive. Their use of personal pronouns is usually
limited.³¹ Many verses simply chain impersonal statements, loosely coupled with an
occasional first person in the singular (“I”) or plural (“we”), and occasionally shifting
between the two. In effect (ideological content excepted), the singer could be anyone,
and the song could be an impersonal hymn.

Life is a struggle in these changing times
Thoughts once natural now classed as hate crimes
Those now in power they fear no one but one
a man with open eyes and a sober mind so strong
It's been said before - but still we do not heed...no!
To free the enslaved minds of the sleeping mass
We must cast away the yokes ignore status and class
[Beginning of "One Nation Arise", the first lyrics quoted by Breivik under the
heading "The best vocal English tracks [from Saga]".]

20

The views expressed come with few references to Saga's autobiographical self. Nothing
in her songs resembles the highly agentive and personalized "I" of rap lyrics to be
discussed hereafter. In general, the listener can readily identify him or herself with the
position of the song's utterer.
21 If Saga's music may have helped Breivik imagine emotional connections with a larger right-wing community, it is more difficult to extend this argument to his other motivational tracks. Nothing indicates that they were important to other people sharing his political views, or that he had any grounds to think that they were. What is immediately striking in these pieces of music (2. and 3. above), is that they are "tragic" in mood, but of a relatively "ambient" musical making. They contrast in this respect with the more "aggressive" styles that motivated American soldiers (typically rap and heavy metal, as we shall see). In (2) and (3), no guitars, no distortion, no screaming voices. In (2), the main "feature" is a solo female voice. It is surrounded in reverb, giving the feeling that she sings from some distance. There are few lyrics, few consonants, mostly stretched vowels. The strings (probably synthesized) play long drone-like notes in the lower range. The harmonies are mostly stable, with few, slowly changing chords. Drums can be heard only on two of the three tracks mentioned by Breivik. They sound like large, low-pitched, double-headed drums (no snares, no cymbals). A heavy reverb effect is applied to them as well. This general description applies to the three tunes mentioned by Breivik, but not to the overall soundtrack of the video game.³² Breivik seems to have focused on those parts which were both "heroic" and relatively devoid of salient musical features. One could describe them as tunes but also as soundscapes.

22 "Lux Aeterna" (3) would seem to elicit a rather different description. Breivik wrote that it was "very inspiring and invokes a type of passionate rage within you".³³ According to musicologists Bjorøy and Hawkins:

> Something foreboding lies in the deep-layered density of textures in the music; the score is rife with passionate rage and menace (...) With full sonic force, the listener or shooter is bombarded by a flood of powerful gestures, all of which build up into a feeling of anxiety that verges on the frenetic. Combat and war are sensationalized by the musical clichés of the scoring—lush, sweeping strings, glossy production, and intense musical processes that include pompous and gradual crescendos, fast-paced rhythms, and rich harmonic devices.³⁴

23 Yet "Lux Aeterna" is also, in a sense, rather minimalistic. It is built around one nostalgic motive which in turn revolves around one tonal centre (3 degrees up, 3 degrees down). It remains in the same minor key throughout. Layers of instruments are simply added to the initial motive with occasional short variants. A choir sings one open syllable (no lyrics). Drums mostly punctuate the beat. The rhythm might seem "fast-paced" compared to (2), but it is still slower than the common tempos in the soldiers' rap and heavy metal. Overall, "Lux Aeterna" uses many cinematic effects, as Bjorøy and Hawkins point out, but it also maintains throughout a sort of "availability" typical of film soundtracks. Without the filmed images, the listener is left with considerable room to supply his own.

24 Both (2) and (3) fall within the range of "honorable duty" soundtracks to violence. The term was coined by Pieslak to capture the spirit of the main approach to creating soundtracks for war and adventure scenes prior to the 1980s.³⁵ During the 1980s, drumbeats, distorted guitars and high-energy voices started to take over, in line with a general come-back of heavy-metal in Euro-American musical tastes.³⁶ According to Pieslak, these new sonorities shifted the focus of war scenes from heroism to action and adventure. However, "honorable duty" soundtracks remained favourites for battles located in historical or mythical pasts, like those in *Lord of the Rings*, or *Age of Conan*. In addition to these fantastic legendary worlds, their values of heroism, bravery and
destiny probably appealed to Breivik. Right after providing a link to “The Dreaming Anew”, he wrote:

> Imagine the following; at the end of your mission, when you have completed your primary objectives - imagine fighting for your life against a pursuing pack of system protectors ([..]also referred to as the police). You try to avoid confrontation but they eventually manage to surround you. You hear this song as you push forward to annihilate one of their flanks, head shooting two of your foes in bloody fervor trying to survive. This angelic voice sings to you from the heavens, strengthening your resolve in a hopeless battle. Your last desperate thrust kills another two of your enemies. But it isn't enough as you are now completely surrounded; your time is now. This voice is all you hear as your light turns to darkness and you enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. This must surely be the most glorious way to claim the honour of martyrdom in battle.³⁷

25

Like many users of personal stereo devices, Breivik “soundtracked” his thoughts with music during his daily walks. The “cinematic” aspect of his experience is common.³⁸ What is interesting is that the scene above goes on post-mortem, suggesting that Breivik occupied not so much his own part, as perpetrator of the mass killing, but the part of the director, watching the whole movie from posterity.³⁹ This was possible because “The Dreaming Anew”, like all of Breivik’s motivational music, affords a move to a third-eye position. Tracks (2) and (3), in particular—being virtually devoid of lyrics and maintaining minimum melodic content, rhythmic complexity and chord progressions—end up merely creating “ambiance”. Their dominant minor key is culturally compatible with a variety of thoughts ranging from nostalgia to heroic tragedy. Their wide reverbs are ecological markers of large spaces.⁴⁰ They leave a lot of “room” for the listener’s mental projections (“room” which might initially have been left for the visual actions of the film or play).

26

Breivik used “The Dreaming Anew” along with a slide-show of still text and images to make what he called the “marketing movie trailer” of his compendium.⁴¹ When that video was projected during his trial, he was visibly moved to tears.⁴² One might guess that listening to that music while watching his image and thoughts on screen might have re-enacted his narcissist fantasies of being a martyr. For the rest of the hearings in court, his facial attitude remained remarkably emotionless.⁴³ Breivik was tragically successful at killing unarmed civilians, but never fired a single shot at an armed “system protector”.⁴⁴ During his trial, he nonetheless referred repeatedly to himself as a martyr. In 2014, he sued the penitentiary administration on the grounds that he was being “tortured” in prison. Amongst other grievances, he explained that he was only allowed to own an obsolete Play Station 2 and was denied the right to choose the games himself.⁴⁵

27

Breivik seems to have used (2), (3), and possibly (1) as well, as extensions of his mental horizon. They provided him with additional space, to step outside his mind and take a third-eye view of himself. In those musical daydreams, he managed to view himself as a martyr, and that certainty seems to have stayed with him ever since. Of course we cannot know where his “simulations” and “self-indoctrinations” would have taken him had their soundtrack been different. One might suspect, however, that heavy metal and rap, which many American soldiers found motivational, would not have worked for him. Breivik wrote that he “hated” heavy-metal for its violence and found rap (produced after the 1980s) too “brutal”.⁴⁶ It is not uncommon for perceived violence and brutality to turn some people away from these musical genres, but in the mindset of a person preparing to perpetrate mass murder, these grounds for distaste might
seem paradoxical. It is clear throughout Breivik's compendium that he had no problem with violence in general, and that he accepted brutality as an unfortunate but, in his view, necessary aspect of his project. His distaste for rap and metal might have arisen not so much from their symbolic references to violence, but from the ways in which they instantiated and brought to the present, in the here and now of listening, a kind of agentive force which opposed his own imagination. As we shall now see, confrontation seems to be precisely what some American soldiers sought in listening to rap and metal prior to their missions.

## Soldiers' motivational music

28 Various sources indicate that a number of American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan consciously used music as a motivator to “pump themselves up” before their missions:

29 A number of studies on the subject of soldiers' listening practices all mention the existence of “battle playlists”.⁴⁷ These studies were all based on first-hand interviews with the soldiers. None had direct access to the deployed troops. Some of them also included additional input from the soldiers' “military blogs” and from the other types of sources listed hereafter.

30 One documentary filmed in Iraq in 2003-04 was entirely devoted to music at war. It dealt extensively with the motivational uses of music (*Soundtrack to War*, by George Gittoes). Motivational music also appears incidentally in other documentaries filmed amongst the troops in Iraq (like *Gunner's Palace* by M. Tucker, and *Occupation Dreamland* by Ian Olds and G. Scott).

31 Audiovisual pieces with scenes of combat and motivational soundtracks were produced by the soldiers themselves and distributed over the internet. These “war videos” were discussed by Pieslak,⁴⁸ and their aesthetics was analysed in detail by Sumera.⁴⁹ Many of them are still available on the internet. It is noteworthy that some of these videos were also shown to new recruits during basic training, and that the US Navy produced images in the same musical spirit for its recruitment commercials.⁵⁰

32 These sources jointly indicate that the use of music as a motivational resource by US soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan was not an isolated individual phenomenon but indeed a technique shared by many. The accounts converge on the particular significance of two musical genres for motivating soldiers before action: gangsta rap and heavy metal.

33 These styles of music had already been a topic of controversy in civilian life for their “negative” and “violent” features. Their prominence in the “battle playlists” of American soldiers led some media to portray the latter as “brutes listening to brute music to be even more brutish”.⁵¹ Interestingly, not all soldiers resisted this qualification. The most shared and commented “war videos” posted on the internet were made of chosen combat images carefully synced to *nü metal* tracks. Then, some soldiers—especially amongst those endowed with more bureaucratic tasks—would stage images of themselves according to this aesthetic of power. “Even soldiers like to play soldiers”, concludes Sumera.⁵² One former soldier to which this aesthetics did not appeal puts it similarly to Gilman: “[For] some of them, it was like playing GI Joe everyday”.⁵³

34 The salience of “battle music” has tended to overshadow the many other ways in which American soldiers listened to many other types of music. Generally, the iPod was a
conspicuous feature of soldiers' equipment.⁵⁴ They used it to listen to a wide array of music "depending on their emotional and social needs at any given moment".⁵⁵ Soldiers were generally quite explicit about the fact that "music was a technology of the self that enabled [them] to fine-tune their mental and emotional states".⁵⁶ Collectively, they had music that helped them to relax, to sleep, to think of home, to alleviate feelings of sadness, to party and bond together, to think of their beloved, to escape a hyper-masculine environment, to live through their frustrations with the hierarchy... and to motivate them before their mission. How exactly did rap and metal come to seem particularly fitted for this latter purpose? Several answers have been proposed.

## Does "aggressive" music motivate?

Maybe gangsta rap and heavy metal are intrinsically “aggressive”. Gangsta rap is known for its “explicit” lyrics delivered in “angry”, “punchy”, “up in your face” vocal styles. Heavy metal is known for its loud, noisy distortion, its screaming voices, its high speed drumbeats. Visual icons of warfare are frequent in its iconography. Generally, “heavy metal is war” is a kind of cliché about the genre. In their testimonies, several soldiers reversed this into “war is heavy metal”. According to J. Pieslak:

> The violent expression of power associated with firing a gun becomes sonically replicated in the rhythms of the music. Because these rhythms are articulated in ways that resemble gunfire, soldiers may feel empowered by the music that, for them, evokes the sounds of combat.⁵⁷

Timbre could also work as a motivator:

> The heavy guitar distortion characteristic of metal songs “pumps up” soldiers by timbrally conveying feelings of intensity and aggression. The distortion psychologically empowers soldiers by communicating an energized aggressor’s mindset.⁵⁸

In support of the timbre hypothesis Pieslak quotes Whiteley:

> Naturally produced sound waves have only a few harmonics, but these (distorted) “clipped” waves have many, especially at a high level, and this is what gives off the piercingly painful effect.⁵⁹

Now let us suppose that Whiteley’s analysis is correct and that distortion does have the psychological properties described. How does one feel “empowered” by listening to something that has a “piercingly painful effect”? Why would a sonic replica of a firing machine gun motivate the listener for combat? One can readily understand how “aggressive” music would result in the listener feeling “aggressed” (this is indeed tautological), but certainly not all aggressions communicate to the victim “an energized aggressor’s mindset”. Another argument must be supplied to explain how “aggressive” music becomes, for some people, motivator of violent actions.

If the “affordance” view is right, music should be, generally speaking, “a medium for removal from and refurnishing of social environments so as to make existence habitable, hospitable, better”.⁶⁰ The quote might seem misplaced in the context of “battle music”, but even in DeNora’s book, it appears just a few pages after a depiction of American soldiers in Iraq motivating themselves with music in their armoured tank.⁶¹ Listening to “war” before going to war is really a good test for affordance theories because it raises the question: how did it help? How did it make things any better?
## Are metal and rap modern equivalents of historical battle music?

40 A comparison with motivational music used in previous wars only highlights the question. Historical battle music typically valued notions of heroism, God and the homeland. This is not what rap and metal are about. If anything, they would rather oppose their “negativity”⁶² to the classic values that motivated the patriot warrior. Historical battle music often adapted popular dance tunes which the soldiers would link to a sense of collective wellbeing.⁶³ It provided comfort and reassurance in contrast with the battle to come. They were precisely not “war”.

41 American soldiers also had music to remind them of their homeland and patriotism, generally falling within the range of “country music”,⁶⁴ but “country music” never appeared on their “battle playlists”. Soldiers did not seem to find it adequate when they were preparing for combat. In fact, some of them consciously chose motivational tunes that would not remind them too much of “home”.⁶⁵ This is a significant difference with previous battle music.

## Is motivation like trancing?

42 Some soldiers stated that music would take them out of their normal selves and motivate actions beyond their own personal will.

> [“Go to Sleep” by Eminem] is a very negative song, and I’m almost even embarrassed to say it was our theme song. But hey, that’s what happens in war. You’ve got to become inhuman to do inhuman things. And by that I just mean, shooting a weapon in the direction of a living person.... The worst part is that I didn’t used to use profanity, but at some point I snapped. Now that I’ve returned to normal, I can’t listen to this song.⁶⁶

43 Taken literally, Grisham’s assertion would mean that music could lead one beyond one’s “humanity”, nearly against one’s will. Trance, and its quieter corollary of “deep listening”,⁶⁷ are experiences where the subject feels that musically induced emotions “take control” of his or her actions. Pieslak then proposed a parallel:

> Metal and rap can create a deep listening experience for some soldiers in which they adopt attitudes about violence and dehumanization not typically associated with their autobiographical self. Music in this circumstance induces an aggressive mindset and operates as a pretext for the possibility of violent action.⁶⁸

44 Echoes of this idea did not always reflect Pieslak’s cautious tone as well.⁶⁹ But caution is key here, as there is a crucial difference between soldiers and trancers: soldiers do not use music as an accompaniment for action. The logics of trancing and deep listening are that music works as an immersive media which enables the listener to live another reality while it lasts.⁷⁰ On the other hand, whatever “deep listening” soldiers engaged in, it was a pretext for violence, as Pieslak precisely states.

45 Music typically accompanied actions like putting on bulletproof vests, checking backpacks and ammunition, and possibly driving and waiting for long periods in armoured vehicles. Many soldiers actually turned the music off when they went “outside the wire”.⁷¹ But by all accounts, even if music was going on and the soldiers were attacked by surprise, they stopped hearing it to concentrate on the fight:

> As soon as guns start firing and you’re fighting your way out of an ambush, or those tanks starts going off, or those RPGs start going off, you don’t fuckin’ hear that
music. It's all just instinct, man. It's all what you got inside of you that starts coming out.⁷²

46 Or to rephrase slightly: as soon as one faces an actual threat, musical motivation becomes irrelevant.

## Is motivational music a soundtrack to violence?

47 Since the 1980s, rap and heavy metal have often been used to soundtrack violence in popular American media.⁷³ This observation has been presented to explain music's later motivational uses by the soldiers.

For a generation that grew up with filmic depictions of battle and first-person-shooter video games, both of which tend toward music-heavy soundtracks, it is no surprise that the experience of live combat was at times interpreted through the prism of war movies or games.⁷⁴

48 As we have seen, people of the same generation were exposed to at least one other standard way of soundtracking violent actions. In theory, American soldiers could have turned to “honorable duty” music, as Breivik did. Another difficulty is that, also like Breivik, they could have included actual soundtracks in their playlists. Instead, the tracks the soldiers deemed motivational were full-fledged, stand-alone musical pieces. They merely *belonged* to the same musical genres as movie soundtracks. I suggested above why this could make a difference for the listener: soundtracks are often composed to be flexible and leave “room” when needed for the visual action and the occasional replicas of the script. There is no such requirement for stand-alone tracks, which can freely catch and occupy the listener’s attention with their auditory features.

49 But the most important aspect is that, in fact, contrary to what Daughtry seems to suggest, the battle playlists were *never* used as a soundtrack to an actual “experience of live combat”. Heavy metal was used as a soundtrack to *images* of conflict, on “war videos” for instance. Before a mission, rap and metal would accompany, at most, the experience of *thinking* in general terms about it. But in their testimonies, soldiers do not actually depict motivational music as a realm in which to imagine with some precision what they are about to do (nothing like the mental simulations familiar to Breivik). Rather, music offered the benefit of suspending unneeded interactions and helping one focus on one’s task:

> For some reason, when we had the music on in the truck, there was less talking and more you were paying attention to your sector. You were on your guard a little bit more, because you were able to sustain your horizon, and you didn't have to keep up with the conversation. You just focus on the music, and focus on your sector, and make sure that you weren't getting shot at.⁷⁵

50 As a soundtrack, music afforded a continuous sense of interaction, but not with one's colleagues, and not with a visible enemy either. It helped focus on an otherwise “empty” sector. When an enemy eventually surged, as we have seen, the music stopped.

## Is motivational music a substitute for violence?

51 Music was then, in significant ways, *not* a “soundtrack to war”. It was certainly a way through which the soldiers could “frame” their engagement in specific actions (like watching an empty sector, waiting in a van, or putting on a bulletproof vest). In DeNora’s terms, “[M]usical framing occurs when music’s properties are somehow
projected or mapped onto something else, when music's properties are applied to and come to organize something outside themselves".⁷⁶ The cognitive product of musical framing belongs to the wider category of metaphors. In Lakoff and Johnson's classic definition, "[T]he essence of metaphor is understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another".⁷⁷ One of their first examples is, precisely, the metaphor ARGUMENT IS WAR.⁷⁸

52 "His claims are *indefensible*", "his criticisms were *right on target*", "I've never won an argument with him"... All such utterances are, according to Lakoff and Johnson, instances of this metaphor. It structures the concept of ARGUMENT by mapping onto it the properties of WAR. The mapping is constitutive of the target concept since, in the end, an argument is little more than a discussion understood as a kind of war.⁷⁹ One interesting point for our purpose is that the cognitive usefulness of the metaphor depends on the concept of WAR being more structured and clear, to start with, than the concept of ARGUMENT. Only then can WAR serve to understand ARGUMENT. This structure does not depend on experience (people typically encounter more arguments than wars in their lives). What people map onto arguments is not their *experience* of war, but their *knowledge of the concept* of WAR.

53 As a metaphor, HEAVY METAL IS WAR parallels ARGUMENT IS WAR. It uses the concept of WAR to understand the experience of HEAVY METAL. Then when American soldiers reverse it into "war is heavy metal", they in effect bring closer to their prototypes a confuse experience of violence which is not quite WAR. Two armies clashing together would probably have been prototypical of WAR. But what about a state army of professional soldiers opposing "terrorists", "insurgents" or civilian resistance?⁸⁰ In that situation, rap and metal could have motivated the troops not as soundtracks to WAR, but as substitutes for it.

54 This hypothesis was proposed by S. Wilson:

> Heavy metal, as the musical illusion of massacre, is also the cultural compensatory repetition of the trauma that for many American combatants may have been essentially missed. In war, metal seals off Americans from the real world of their own un-making in another world of pleasurable sonic madness and pumpin' aural carnage—a world of their own.⁸¹

55 Maybe motivational music worked for the soldiers as it did for Breivik: not as a means to connect them to forthcoming dangers or violence, but quite the opposite: as a tool to *disconnect* them from the most uncomfortable aspects of their mission. Wilson's intuition might also explain why the soldiers were motivated by "aggressive" music, while a mass killer like Breivik was not.

## "It seems they don't want our help"

56 The conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan opposed highly asymmetrical powers. American soldiers could be targeted, wounded or killed, but the risks were largely higher on their opponents' side. American airplanes were virtually invulnerable and could drop highly efficient guided bombs nearly anywhere. Consequently, airborne soldiers described most of their missions as "routine".⁸² Soldiers on the ground came in closer contact with the local populations, and often expressed ethical concerns about the rationale of an operation where they seemed to be invading another country.

> We're dumping so much money into this country... For what? Just to have these people shoot at us, kill us, blow us up by whatever means they can... I don't
understand it. We're trying to help these people and it seems they don't want our help.⁸³

I can't really blame these people for not wanting us to be here. You know, I wouldn't want some other country to come in and just take over our country and... drive through our streets and... I guess we're pretty intimidating when we roll in, you know, get fucking weapons pointed out every which way, and... I'm sure it scares the shit out of these people and I guess I'd figure they have to fight back.⁸⁴

57 In line with the feeling that they could be invaders, soldiers also had trouble understanding who their enemy actually was. They were soldiers, willingly enrolled, paid to fight and to incur the corresponding risks. But after defeating the Iraqi army, and throughout the operations in Afghanistan, they faced “insurgents”. That these “hostiles” were not professional fighters, and that they had deep ties with the civilian population could not be overlooked:

> It's difficult because you're trying to sell to these people that you're here to help them out and you know... what are you doing for them ? And if you say... well I'm gonna bring in [arrest] bad guys, I'm gonna bring in terrorists, they gonna say 'yeah, that was my brother'.⁸⁵

58 Metal and gangsta rap on the other hand instantiate very clear antagonists to the listener's agency. Let us consider for instance “Go to Sleep”, which appears in Grisham's quote above as a kind of “anthem” for his unit. The voices are recorded close to the microphone with dentals and plosives (t, d, p, b) left to saturate, as if the rappers were speaking or shouting directly in the listener's ears. Voices are also thoroughly compressed, levelling out their dynamics and bringing up their softer parts. Reverbs are kept to a minimum, preserving a sense of closeness. Eminem's voice is doubled throughout, in two takes. He says that he comes alone (“Me do this one all by my only, I don't need fifteen of my homies...”), but his voice speaks double. Ambient sounds are added on the chorus to give it more “punch”. Gunshots and other weapon-related samples coincide precisely with specific syllables, building a complex polyrhythm:⁸⁶

> *So go to sleep bitch [what?] Die, motherfucker, die / Uh, time's up bitch, close your eyes*

> * Go to sleep, bitch [what?] / Why are you still alive? / How many times I gotta say, close your eyes?*

> * Go to sleep bitch [what?] / Die, motherfucker, die. Bye, bye, motherfucker, bye, bye*

> * Go to sleep, bitch [what?] / Why are you still alive? / Why? Die motherfucker, ha ha ha*

> Key: *gunshot / explosion / loading a gun / *: gunshot between words*

This media file cannot be displayed. Please refer to the online document http://journals.openedition.org/transposition/4065

59

60 “Voice as a weapon” is a recurring theme in rap. The lyrics here stage a confrontation between “I” (first person) and “you” (second person). “I” is clearly identified and personalized. It refers to the biographic self of the rapper. “You” could be anybody beyond the microphone, the headphones or the loudspeaker. If it were normal speech, it would be “you”, the listener. But songs are special linguistic artefacts. They also afford the listener's identification with the first person (the “I” in the lyrics). This is how soldiers can sing along with Eminem, like Grisham (quoted above) and his squad before going on a mission.
Compared to other genres however, gangsta rap is rather challenging in this respect. Correct delivery of rap lyrics requires specific skills. The “I” in rap lyrics is also a virtuoso speaker, a master of language.⁸⁷ The first-time listener is typically left trying to keep up, grasping to make out the meaning of the words, always a bit behind. The words come quickly and numerously, are hardly ever repeated, and the meter and rhyme patterns are always changing. Breivik could advise his potential followers to learn Saga’s lyrics by heart; the same advice for Eminem would significantly raise the level of difficulty. By default, the listener is in the position of the assaulted, dominated patient of the rapper’s flow—only gradually able to move closer to the first-person position, and then only for certain parts of the song (typically the chorus).

Heavy metal is also replete with tropes of power and madness.⁸⁸ Pieslak’s analysis is probably right: metal affords direct contact with (and possibly insight into) “an energized aggressor’s mindset”. But here again, the listener is by default in the position of the dominated patient of the aggressive force. In a discussion with B. Joseph about the use of music in torture, S. Cusick argues that any music—and in fact any environmental feature—might be “pushable across an invisible line [beyond which] ordinary experience becomes extraordinary, horrible, and capable of breaking your very subjectivity”.⁸⁹ Many types of music were used by American soldiers to “break” their captives. However, in reports on musical torture, heavy metal appears more frequently than any other genre. This could be because it was indeed used more, or it could be that it was overrepresented in the subsequent descriptions. In any event, heavy metal stood out with respect to other genres, perhaps because its ideal of “madness” came with an aesthetic tendency to push things across the “invisible line” anyway. This tendency could have increased its perceived effectiveness, while also mitigating the soldiers’ moral discomfort. With metal, there seemed to be at least some porosity between music’s recreative and punitive uses.⁹⁰

In their introduction to a book called *Virtual War and Magical Death*, Whitehead and Finnström argued that war is now always global, in the sense that “there is a seamless continuity between virtual and material war, or more properly between war online and offline”.⁹¹ In their analysis, “[T]he actual killings on the battlefields, wherever they happen to be located, are intimately linked to an emerging virtual space created by news and cinematic and gaming media as well as the mediating and mapping technologies of contemporary military violence”.⁹² In the management of this virtual space, one might find that music is, generally speaking, a useful asset. Compared to other immersion technologies, it is remarkably low-cost and portable. It has probably always been so, and mobile listening devices merely enhance the listener’s options to flexibly “furnish” his or her environment through music.⁹³ In theory, such devices have also levelled accessibility, since anyone with access to the internet can now pick from the same global pool of downloadable music. In relation to the pervasive space of “global” war, different musical choices still nevertheless point to different imaginaries of armed violence.

As a mental experiment, let us imagine a swap: Breivik listens to rap and heavy metal, and the soldiers listen to “Lux Aeterna”. How would this work? Nothing would prevent the terrorist from still plotting the massacre. But his attempts to look upon himself as a martyr would probably be at odds with the strong tropes of personified agency in the music. The virtuoso “gangster” poet, or the “mad” metal guitarist, do not quite “afford” that kind of emotional indulgence. On the other hand, if American soldiers
were to seek motivation in “honorable duty” soundtracks like “Lux Aeterna”, it would probably bring their focus onto aching considerations about the rationale of their action. C. Coker argued that the development of war technologies that mediate violence and provide asymmetric safety to the soldier resulted in a corollary decrease of the ethics of “sacrifice”. War then became ethically questionable, because “without sacrifice or the willingness to risk death oneself, war cannot be ‘sacred’, and if it cannot be that it cannot be ethical”.⁹⁴ Soundtracks like “Lux Aeterna” or “The Dreaming Anew” were suitable workspaces for simulations that would take advantage of their tragic or nostalgic moods. Accordingly, their potential to motivate disenchanted soldiers who did not quite believe in the rationale of their war would be low.

## Conclusion

The comparison proposed in this paper has limits which should be highlighted. Firstly, it relies on testimonies rather than on direct observations. Breivik’s compendium is a first-hand “ego document”, but clearly not all of it was written with factual accuracy in mind. Soldier testimonies were mediated by research and documentary projects which did not necessarily seek to address the workings of motivation through music. On the soldier’s side, the comparison is moreover at risk of unduly homogenizing listening practices that were probably diverse. Not all soldiers had “battle playlists”, and those who did used them in various ways (collectively, individually, before leaving the base camp, in the tank, etc.).

Despite these limits, I hope to have shown that the comparison reveals at least a contrast: the terrorist’s motivational music contrasts with that of the soldiers. This can hardly be attributed to generational or cultural divergences, especially as video games and films of roughly the same fabric play a significant role in both cases. My point was that the observed divergence was not just a matter of random “taste”, either. There is a kind of logic in the fact that American soldiers “pumped themselves up” with aggressive music while Breivik found inspiration in soundscapes of epic nostalgia.

One might say that different affordances in the music constituted different pathways to motivation. The terrorist’s playlist indeed afforded imaginary pathways and mental navigation. Its relative emptiness enabled the listener to project his agency in a world of fantasy. A “predator kind of music”, on the other hand, left little room for that.

Breivik was all about controlling his body, his thoughts and his mission. The soldiers, however, wanted their “battle playlists” to transform them from the outside. Music was to them an external source of energy. This was not because it was intrinsically “energetic”: at least, an American listener would probably use this label for many other types of music that American soldiers would have ruled out of their “battle playlists”.⁹⁵ If the analysis presented here is correct, the primary usefulness of “battle music” to these soldiers was its oppositional character. Gangsta rap and heavy metal instantiated highly agentive forces which engaged the listeners in direct confrontation. It was this sense of confrontation which some soldiers found energizing. Their “battle music” gave them, like no other music before, a close taste of what a prototypical battle should feel like. It contrasted with the situations that soldiers on the ground typically encountered during their missions: sporadic violence and diffuse opposition from underequipped and poorly trained “hostiles” who might even turn out to be civilians.
69

If heavy metal and gangsta rap made possible a kind of violent encounter, the next question is: with whom? Battle playlists were eclectic and sampled from a wide range of artists. There is little evidence that the artists' biographies mattered in any way to the soldiers.⁹⁶ One might also observe (with Walser, Pieslak and others), that heavy metal is particularly *not* about giving transparent access to the “humanity” of its makers. It strives more often to convey a sense of monstrous “insanity”, to which effect it employs various kinds of *distortion*: electronic distortion on the guitars, vocal distortion of the lyrics, drums that oscillate between rhythm patterns and “power blasts”. On stage and in video clips, it is not uncommon for musicians to hide or to distort their human faces by using heavy make-up or masks. While agency, in general, pervades the sounds of heavy metal, it is also set apart in various ways from the agency of “normal” human beings.

70

Then does it mean something, after all, to talk about sounds having an agency of their own? I have argued elsewhere with B. Brabec de Mori that distinct postures of listening indeed led to different understandings of auditory agency.⁹⁷ Agency, more generally, is not a property of the objects themselves but “a culturally prescribed framework for thinking about causation”.⁹⁸ From a cognitive point of view, an agent is an object which occupies a special kind of position in an observer’s understanding of a causal network. Agency in this sense is always abducted.⁹⁹ In theory, chains of cause and effect could be pursued to the infinite (every effect has a cause and so on). In practice, brains always stop short and consider that some entities just act “by themselves”. Those beings are agents (for the time they occupy that position). In Gell’s words, an agent is “the source, the origin, of causal events, independently of the state of the physical universe”.¹⁰⁰

71

This definition has some interesting consequences. Firstly, agency is not a stable property of particular kinds of objects. It merely has prototypes: kinds of beings which are more often than others considered agents. A human for instance can be an agent now and not be an agent later (the “lone wolf” terrorist and the obeying soldier are not equally agentive when they kill, a distinction that has juridical consequences, for example). Secondly, agency is not an optional “belief” but a low-level requirement of human cognition. Something is always needed at the end of the causal chain. It could be a human, a tree, a dog, a stone, a sound, or an unseen being whose existence is abducted from its effects (a spirit or a virus for instance). What is the agent affects how the observer understands the situation, but not the nature of agency: that being “acts” because the observer holds it to be an autonomous source of causation. Lastly, agency is distinct from intentionality. An agentive being appears to have the intrinsic capacity to initiate actions “by itself”. The observer abducts an autonomous force in it. It does not follow that the observer also assigns to it intentions, mindfulness or will.

72

Non-human agencies can then be conceived in sound without resorting to the “mysterious rhetoric of music-as-magic of times bygone”.¹⁰¹ Causal chains must end somewhere, and sometimes ending them in the auditory realm is just what people do. To place agency in sounds, an observer must adopt a specific posture of listening.¹⁰² Sounds then appear to cause each other through a kind of intrinsic logic, instead of just being caused (as the observer still knows) by their physical sources. Agency refers to the additional fact that some of these “enchanted” sounds do not seem to just result from each other, in a causal sense, but also appear to the observer as autonomous sources of causation. These are prototypical agents, whose effects tend to propagate into the non-auditory social world (starting usually with the listener’s own self). To
paraphrase Gell, sounds are social agents when they are the direct “other” of social interactions.¹⁰³

73

Sound agency is related to the ontology of auditory experience: what beings exist for the listener and what properties they have. To say that the terrorist and the soldiers listened to (different kinds of) “music” is therefore not enough. What they listened to was in effect as different as an emotionally charged “soundscape” can be from a “mad aggressor”. The former enables self-conscious wanderings in which a mass murderer can come to think that he is a martyr. The latter suggests a direct encounter with a social “other” in a context of considerable boredom and general mistrust.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

BECKER Judith, *Deep Listeners: Music, Emotion, and Trancing*, Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 2004.

BERWICK Andrew, “2083 - A European Declaration of Independence”, London, 2011.

BEYDOUN Khaled A, “Lone Wolf Terrorism: Types, Stripes, and Double Standards”, *Northwestern University Law Review*, vol. 112, no. 5, 2018, 2018, p. 32.

BJORØY Karl-Magnus and HAWKINS Stan, “When light turns into darkness’: Inscriptions of music and terror in Oslo 22 July 201”, KNUDSEN Jan Sverre, SKÅNLAND Marie Strand and TRONDALEN Gro (eds.), *Musikk etter 22. juli [*Music after 22 Juli*], Oslo, Norwegian Academy of Music, 2014, pp. 139-161.

BOWDEN Mark, *The Kabul-ki Dance*, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2002/11/the-kabul-ki-dance/302610, accessed on November 8, 2018.

BULL Michael, *Sounding Out the City: Personal Stereos and the Management of Everyday Life*, Oxford, Berg, 2000.

CLAYTON Martin, “Introduction: Towards a Theory of Musical Meaning (In India and Elsewhere)”, *British Journal of Ethnomusicology*, vol. 10, no. 1, 2001, pp. 1-17.

COKER Christopher, *The Future of War. The Re-Enchantment of War in the Twenty-First Century*, Malden, Oxford, Victoria, Blackwell, 2004.

CUSICK Suzanne G. and JOSEPH Branden W., “Across an Invisible Line: A Conversation about Music and Torture”, *Grey room*, no. 42, 2011, pp. 6–21.

DAUGHTRY J. Martin, *Listening to War. Sound, Music, Trauma, and Survival in Wartime Iraq*, Oxford; New York, Oxford University Press, 2015.

DENORA Tia, *Music Asylums: Wellbeing Through Music in Everyday Life*, Farnham, Surrey; Burlington, VT, Ashgate, 2013.

DENORA Tia, *Music in Everyday Life*, Cambridge; New York, Cambridge University Press, 2003.
DOKIC Jérôme, HATTEN Robert S, INGOLD Tim, KREUTZER Michel and TOLBERT Elizabeth, “Comments on ‘Postures of listening’ by Victor A. Stoichita and Bernd Brabec de Mori”, *Terrain. Anthropologie & sciences humaines*, 2018, http://journals.openedition.org/terrain/17547.

DOYLE Peter, *Echo and Reverb: Fabricating Space in Popular Music, 1900-1960, 1900-1960*, Middletown, Wesleyan University Press, 2005.

FRIEDSON Steven M., “The Music Box: Songs of Futility in a Time of Torture”, *Ethnomusicology*, vol. 63, no. 2, 2019, pp. 222-246.

GELL Alfred, *Art and Agency. An Anthropological Theory*, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1998.

GIBSON James J., *The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception*, London, Taylor & Francis, 1986.

GILMAN Lisa, “Grounding the Troops: Music, Place, and Memory in the Iraq War”, *Volume ! La revue des musiques populaires*, vol. 10, no. 1, 2013, pp. 172-190.

GILMAN Lisa, “An American Soldier’s iPod: Layers of Identity and Situated Listening in Iraq”, *Music and Politics*, vol. IV, no. 2, 2010, p. 7, https://dx.doi.org/10.3998/mp.9460447.0004.201.

GRANT Morag Josephine, “Music during Battle: Representation and Reality”, *JARDIN Étienne* (ed.), *Music and War in Europe from the French Revolution to WWI*, Turnhout, Brepols, 2016, pp. 29-44.

GRANT Morag Josephine, “Bagpipes at the Front: Pipers and Piping during Combat in the Great War”, *SCHRAMM Michael* (ed.), *Militärmusik und Erster Weltkrieg*, Bonn, Militärmusikzentrum der Bundeswehr, 2015, pp. 35-67.

KRUEGER Joel, “Musicing, Materiality, and the Emotional Niche”, *Action, Criticism, and Theory for Music Education*, vol. 14, no. 3, 2015, pp. 43-62.

LAKOFF George and JOHNSON Mark, *Metaphors We Live By*, Chicago and London, University of Chicago Press, 1980.

LEONARD Cecilia H., ANNAS George D., KNOLL James L. and TÖRRISSEN Terje, “The Case of Anders Behring Breivik - Language of a Lone Terrorist”, *Behavioral Sciences & the Law*, vol. 32, no. 3, 2014, pp. 408-422.

OLDS Ian and SCOTT Garett, *Occupation: Dreamland*, Rumur Releasing, 2005.

PIDD Helen, “Anders Behring Breivik cries during own propaganda film”, *The Guardian*, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/apr/16/anders-behring-breivik-cries-own-propaganda-film, 04/16/2012.

PIESLAK Jonathan R., *Sound Targets: American Soldiers and Music in the Iraq War*, Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 2009.

RANSTORP Magnus, ““Lone Wolf Terrorism”. The Case of Anders Breivik”, *Sicherheit & Frieden*, vol. 31, no. 2, 2013, pp. 87-92.

STOICHITA Victor A., “Musicopathies. La musique est-elle bonne pour la santé ?”, *Terrain. Anthropologie & sciences humaines*, no. 68, 2017, pp. 4-25.

STOICHITA Victor A. and BRABEC DE MORI Bernd, “Postures of listening. An ontology of sonic percepts from an anthropological perspective”, *Terrain. Anthropologie & sciences humaines*, 2017, http://journals.openedition.org/terrain/16418.

STOICHITA Victor A. and BRABEC DE MORI Bernd, “Response to comments on ‘Postures of listening’”, *Terrain. Anthropologie & sciences humaines*, 2018, http://journals.openedition.org/terrain/17579.
STROUD Joe, “The Importance of Music to Anders Behring Breivik”, *Contemporary Voices: St Andrews Journal of International Relations*, vol. 4, no. 1, 2013, https://doi.org/10.15664/jtr.620.

SUMERA Matthew, “The Soundtrack to War”, *WHITEHEAD Neil L. and FINNSTRÖM Sverker (eds.)*, *Virtual War and Magical Death: Technologies and Imaginaries for Terror and Killing*, Durham (NC), Duke University Press, 2013, pp. 214-233.

TEITELBAUM Benjamin, “‘The Path of Dreams’: Breivik, Music, and Neo-Nazi Skinheadism”, *KNUDSEN Jan Sverre, SKÅNLAND Marie Strand and TRONDALEN Gro (eds.)*, *Musikk etter 22. juli [Music after 22 Juli]*, Oslo, Norwegian Academy of Music, 2014, pp. 119-138.

VOLCLER Juliette, *Le son comme arme. Les usages policiers et militaires du son*, Paris, La Découverte, 2011.

WALSER Robert, “Rhythm, Rhyme, and Rhetoric in the Music of Public Enemy”, *Ethnomusicology*, vol. 39, no. 2, 1995, pp. 193-217.

WALSER Robert, *Running with the Devil. Power, Gender, and Madness in Heavy Metal Music*, Middletown, Wesleyan University Press, 1993.

WHITEHEAD Neil L. and FINNSTRÖM Sverker, *Virtual War and Magical Death: Technologies and Imaginaries for Terror and Killing*, Durham (NC), Duke University Press, 2013.

WHITELEY Sheila, “Progressive Rock and Psychedelic Coding in the Work of Jimi Hendrix”, *Popular Music*, vol. 9, no. 1, 1990, p. 37.

WILSON Scott, “Jonathan Pieslak, Sound Targets: American Soldiers and Music in the Iraq War”, *Volume ! La revue des musiques populaires*, vol. 9, no. 2, 2012, pp. 243-245.

WILSON Scott, *Great Satan's Rage: American Negativity and Rap/metal in the Age of Supercapitalism*, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2015

## NOTES

1. STOICHITA Victor A. and BRABEC DE MORI Bernd, “Postures of listening. An ontology of sonic percepts from an anthropological perspective”, *Terrain. Anthropologie & sciences humaines*, 2017, http://journals.openedition.org/terrain/16418.

2. DENORA Tia, *Music in Everyday Life*, Cambridge; New York, Cambridge University Press, 2003, p. 44.

3. “Musicing, Materiality, and the Emotional Niche”, *Action, Criticism, and Theory for Music Education*, vol. 14, no. 3, 2015, pp. 43-62.

4. CLAYTON Martin, “Introduction: Towards a Theory of Musical Meaning (In India and Elsewhere)”, *British Journal of Ethnomusicology*, vol. 10, no. 1, 2001, p. 4.

5. DeNora's own argument frequently resorts to shortcuts like “music's power” and syntactic structures in which music is an autonomous agent. For example, if indeed “music may take actors unaware” (DENORA, *Music in Everyday Life*, p. 162), then their agency in this process is at best disputable.

6. GIBSON James J., *The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception*, London, Taylor & Francis, 1986, p. 127, emphasis in the original.

7. *Ibid.*, p. 129.

8. *Ibid.*, p. 134.

9. DENORA, *Music in Everyday Life*, p. 40.
10. I follow Gilman in using “the term ‘soldier’ generically to refer to those in the military in any branch, understanding that ‘the soldiers’ officially refers only to those serving in the U.S. Army”, GILMAN Lisa, “Grounding the Troops: Music, Place, and Memory in the Iraq War”, *Volume ! La revue des musiques populaires*, vol. 10, no. 1, 2013, p. 174.

11. PIESLAK Jonathan R., *Sound Targets: American Soldiers and Music in the Iraq War*, Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 2009, p. 31sqq; DAUGHTRY J. Martin, *Listening to War. Sound, Music, Trauma, and Survival in Wartime Iraq*, Oxford; New York, Oxford University Press, 2015, p. 232.

12. STOICHITA Victor A., “Musicopathies. La musique est-elle bonne pour la santé ?”, *Terrain. Anthropologie & sciences humaines*, no. 68, 2017, pp. 4-25.

13. GILMAN Lisa, “An American Soldier’s iPod: Layers of Identity and Situated Listening in Iraq”, *Music and Politics*, vol. IV, no. 2, 2010, p. 7, https://dx.doi.org/10.3998/mp.9460447.0004.201.

14. WILSON Scott, “Jonathan Pieslak, Sound Targets: American Soldiers and Music in the Iraq War,” *Volume ! La revue des musiques populaires*, vol. 9, no. 2, 2012, pp. 243–245.

15. WHITEHEAD Neil L. and FINNSTRÖM Sverker, *Virtual War and Magical Death: Technologies and Imaginaries for Terror and Killing*, Durham (NC), Duke University Press, 2013.

16. Anders Behring Breivik changed his name to Fjotolf Hansen in 2017. He signed his compendium as Andrew Berwick. Here, I use Breivik throughout to refer to the man, and his pen name to cite his compendium in accordance with bibliographical conventions.

17. BEYDOUN Khaled A, “Lone Wolf Terrorism: Types, Stripes, and Double Standards”, *Northwestern University Law Review*, vol. 112, no. 5, 2018, p. 1218.

18. BERWICK Andrew, “2083 - A European Declaration of Independence”, London, 2011, p. 845.

19. LEONARD Cecilia H., ANNAS George D., KNOLL James L. and TØRRISSEN Terje, “The Case of Anders Behring Breivik - Language of a Lone Terrorist”, *Behavioral Sciences & the Law*, vol. 32, no. 3, 2014, pp. 408-422.

20. *Ibid.*, p. 416.

21. *Ibid.*, p. 417.

22. RANSTORP Magnus, “‘Lone Wolf Terrorism’. The Case of Anders Breivik”, *Sicherheit & Frieden*, vol. 31, no. 2, 2013, p. 89.

23. *Ibid.*, p. 91.

24. *Ibid.*, p. 89.

25. Breivik mentions three tracks which for him “surpass almost anything [he’s] heard before” (Berwick, “2083 - A European Declaration of Independence”, p. 849) : The Dreaming - Ere the World Crumbles / Nighttime journey through the Eiglophian mountains (Ascending Cimmeria) / The Dreaming Anew - Memories of Cimmeria.

26. This version can easily be found on YouTube. It is more difficult to find it in the film, however Breivik writes that it was “performed during the most intense fighting of one of the central battles” (*Ibid*). According to Stroud (STROUD Joe, “The Importance of Music to Anders Behring Breivik”, *Contemporary Voices: St Andrews Journal of International Relations*, vol. 4, no. 1, 2013, p. 10, https://doi.org/10.15664/jtr.620), it was used only in the trailer of *Lord of the Rings*. However, fans of the movie have used it extensively to soundtrack their home-made resamples of their favourite scenes of the film. Such resamples abound on YouTube.com. Only there can the soundtrack version be heard in full length. This soundtracking of battle scenes closely resembles the “war videos” produced by American soldiers.

27. STROUD, “The Importance of Music to Anders Behring Breivik”.

28. *Ibid.*, p. 11.

29. “‘The Path of Dreams’: Breivik, Music, and Neo-Nazi Skinheadism”, KNUDSEN Jan Sverre, SKÅNLAND Marie Strand and TRONDALEN Gro (eds.), *Musikk etter 22. juli [Music after 22 Juli]*, Oslo, Norwegian Academy of Music, 2014, pp. 119-138.

30. *Ibid.*, p. 136.
31. A thorough analysis of these lyrics would be beyond the scope of this article. It should be mentioned however that some songs cited by Breivik deviate from the general enunciative strategy described here. For instance, in Hypocrite, the second person is prominent and the tone accusative: "You complain about the politicians but still you vote them in / You've lost your soul, you coward; to sell your pride is a sin." The listener could here identify with the second person in a kind of self-bashing or, more probably, he or she will join the utterer and accuse others of hypocrisy. My general point is that the lyrics to which Breivik seems receptive easily allow the listener to move into the first-person agentive position.

32. For a detailed musicological analysis of "The dreaming anew", see *BJORØY Karl-Magnus and HAWKINS Stan*, "When light turns into darkness": Inscriptions of music and terror in Oslo 22 July 201", *KNUDSEN Jan Sverre, SKÅNLAND Marie Strand and TRONDALEN Gro* (eds.), *Musikk etter 22. juli [Music after 22 Juli]*, Oslo, Norwegian Academy of Music, 2014, pp. 139–161, p. 155.

33. BERWICK, "2083 - A European Declaration of Independence", p. 849.

34. *BJORØY Karl-Magnus and HAWKINS Stan*, "'When light turns into darkness': Inscriptions of music and terror in Oslo 22 July 201", *KNUDSEN Jan Sverre, SKÅNLAND Marie Strand and TRONDALEN Gro* (eds.), *Musikk etter 22. juli [Music after 22 Juli]*, p. 141.

35. *PIESLAK, Sound targets*, p. 26.

36. *Ibid.*, p. 47; WALSER Robert, *Running with the Devil. Power, Gender, and Madness in Heavy Metal Music*, Middletown, Wesleyan University Press, 1993, p. 11.

37. BERWICK, "2083 - A European Declaration of Independence", p. 249.

38. See BULL Michael, *Sounding Out the City: Personal Stereos and the Management of Everyday Life*, Oxford, Berg, 2000, p. 85sqq.

39. STOICHITA, "Musicopathies. La musique est-elle bonne pour la santé ?".

40. On the uses of reverb as an acoustic index of space in American popular musics, see DOYLE, *Echo and Reverb: Fabricating Space in Popular Music, 1900-1960*, Middletown, Wesleyan University Press, 2005.

41. STROUD, "The Importance of Music to Anders Behring Breivik", p. 9; *BJORØY and HAWKINS*, "'When light turns into darkness': Inscriptions of music and terror in Oslo 22 July 201", p. 155.

42. PIDD Helen, "Anders Behring Breivik cries during own propaganda film", *The Guardian*, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/apr/16/anders-behring-breivik-cries-own-propaganda-film, 04/16/2012.

43. RANSTORP, "'Lone Wolf Terrorism'. The Case of Anders Breivik", p. 90.

44. Breivik did kill an unarmed policeman upon his arrival on the island of Utøya. He later surrendered without resistance to the special forces deployed to intercept him.

45. This complaint was reported in various newspapers. See for instance SAUL Heather, "Anders Breivik: Mass murderer demands better video games and threatens hunger strike over jail 'hell,'" *The Independent*, 02/15/2014. For more context on Breivik's relation with the media after his incarceration, see DESHAYES, *La lettre de l'assassin*, https://making-of.afp.com/la-lettre-de-l-assassin, consulted on 8 July 2019.

46. BERWICK, "2083 - A European Declaration of Independence", pp. 631, 1390.

47. DAUGHTRY J. Martin, *Listening to War*; *PIESLAK, Sound targets*; GILMAN, "An American Soldier's iPod"; GILMAN, "Grounding the Troops"; VOLCLER Juliette, *Le son comme arme. Les usages policiers et militaires du son*, Paris, La Découverte, 2011.

48. *PIESLAK, Sound targets*, p. 42sqq.

49. SUMERA Matthew, "The Soundtrack to War", WHITEHEAD Neil L. and FINNSTRÖM Sverker (eds.), *Virtual War and Magical Death: Technologies and Imaginaries for Terror and Killing*, Durham (NC), Duke University Press, 2013, pp. 214–233.

50. *Ibid.*; *PIESLAK, Sound targets*, p. 27 sqq.

51. GILMAN, "An American Soldier's iPod", p. 6.
52. “The Soundtrack to War”, p. 234.

53. Eric, quoted by GILMAN, “An American Soldier’s iPod”, p. 9.

54. DAUGHTRY, *Listening to War*, pp. 220-225.

55. GILMAN, “An American Soldier’s iPod”, p. 5.

56. DAUGHTRY, *Listening to War*, p. 20.

57. PIESLAK, *Sound targets*, p. 150.

58. *Ibid.*, p. 152.

59. WHITELEY Sheila, “Progressive Rock and Psychedelic Coding in the Work of Jimi Hendrix”, *Popular Music*, vol. 9, no. 1, 1990, p. 86 quoted in Pieslak 2009 p. 169.

60. DENORA Tia, *Music Asylums: Wellbeing Through Music in Everyday Life*, Farnham, Surrey; Burlington, VT, Ashgate, 2013, p. 138.

61. *Ibid.*, p. 113.

62. WILSON Scott, *Great Satan's Rage: American Negativity and Rap/metal in the Age of Supercapitalism*, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2015.

63. For a precise historical example see GRANT Morag Josephine, “Bagpipes at the Front: Pipers and Piping during Combat in the Great War”, SCHRAMM Michael (ed.), *Militärmusik und Erster Weltkrieg*, Bonn, Militärmusikzentrum der Bundeswehr, 2015, pp. 35-67. The Scottish Highland regiments of the British Army used bagpipe music as an incentive during the battle until after World War I. Grant's analysis of historical sources shows that the role of the piper's music on the battlefield was not to promote aggression or the willingness to kill. Instead, “the piper provided reassurance and a focal point in an essentially inhumane and chaotic environment”. To that effect, he would play popular songs, dance tunes and regimental marches. These were drawn “largely from the wider repertoire of Scottish songs and tunes, supplemented with newer tunes written specifically for the pipes and often commemorating certain campaigns, events or persons.” In effect, piper's music at war stood for ideas of homeland and social bonding, rather than for the battle as a violent encounter. Other examples of pipers' military repertoire and its reception are analyzed in GRANT Morag Josephine, “Music during Battle: Representation and Reality”, JARDIN Étienne (ed.), *Music and War in Europe from the French Revolution to WWI*, Turnhout, Brepols, 2016, pp. 29-44.

64. GILMAN, “Grounding the Troops,” pp. 4-7.

65. GILMAN, “Grounding the Troops”, p. 9.

66. Sergeant 1st Class Grisham, quoted by PIESLAK, *Sound targets*, p. 69.

67. A “secular” kind of trancing according to BECKER Judith, *Deep Listeners: Music, Emotion, and Trancing*, Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 2004, p. 2.

68. PIESLAK, *Sound targets*, p. 165.

69. For instance in SUMERA, “The Soundtrack to War,” p. 218: “Trancing is exactly what these warriors engage in during practices of collective listening prior to going out on patrol”.

70. See for instance the Balinese Rangda/Barong ritual in Becker, *Deep Listeners. Music, Emotion and Trancing*, p. 84, to which Pieslak also refers.

71. This was also the official regulation, see DAUGHTRY, *Listening to War*, p. 234.

72. Sgt N. Saunders, quoted by PIESLAK, *Sound targets*, p. 56.

73. *Ibid.*, pp. 31-44.

74. DAUGHTRY, *Listening to War*, p. 232.

75. The same Grisham, quoted by PIESLAK, *Sound targets*, p. 55.

76. DENORA, *Music in Everyday Life*, p. 27.

77. LAKOFF George and JOHNSON Mark, *Metaphors We Live By*, Chicago and London, University of Chicago Press, 1980, p. 5.

78. I follow Lakoff and Johnson's typographical convention in capitalizing references to concepts and metaphors (as opposed to the actual things to which they refer in the world).
79. LAKOFF and JOHNSON, *Metaphors We Live By*, p. 5.

80. There is, in this respect, a difference between the war against the regular Iraqi army (March to May 2003) and the rest of the American intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan.

81. WILSON, "Jonathan Pieslak, Sound Targets".

82. BOWDEN Mark, *The Kabul-ki Dance*, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2002/11/the-kabul-ki-dance/302610/, accessed on November 8, 2018.

83. One soldier in a tank, in *GITTOES George, *Soundtrack to War*, ABC Video, 2005 at 8:23.

84. Pfc Thomas Turner, in OLDS Ian and SCOTT Garett, *Occupation: Dreamland*, Rumur Releasing, 2005 at 25:02.

85. 1st Lieutnant Matt Bacik, *Ibid*. at 26:46.

86. The instrumental track is available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DePcSUopqSw

87. WALSER Robert, "Rhythm, Rhyme, and Rhetoric in the Music of Public Enemy", *Ethnomusicology*, vol. 39, no. 2, 1995, pp. 193-217.

88. WALSER, *Running with the Devil. Power, Gender, and Madness in Heavy Metal Music*.

89. CUSICK Suzanne G. and JOSEPH Branden W., "Across an Invisible Line: A Conversation about Music and Torture", *Grey room*, no. 42, 2011, p. 11.

90. There were of course important differences too. Perhaps the most significant, for a discussion of music's effects, is that, by all detainee accounts, music stopped sounding like music during sessions of loud and prolonged exposure to the same repeated track. It became just "banging", "hammering" on the head, and the unfortunate listeners lost any other sense of rhythm, harmony or melodic structure. In a recent investigation on the divergence between musical torture and musical possession (both of which would seem to dismantle an individual's normal self), Friedson pointed to another important difference related to the management of time. "The temporality of musical experience, its durée, has the uncanny ability, in both no-touch torture and shrine rituals, to bite into the very realm of existence not in order to dissolve it but in order to become it" (FRIEDSON Steven M., "The Music Box: Songs of Futility in a Time of Torture," *Ethnomusicology*, vol. 63, no. 2, 2019, pp. 222-246, p. 236). Friedson goes on to say that in musical torture, entrainment is totally asymmetrical, imposed from above and unpredictable in both its occurrence and its duration. Its psychological purpose is "learned helplessness". At shrine rituals on the contrary, music's stable and prolonged repetition provides a predictable structure onto which the listener can latch in order to enter a "musical plane of multiplicity".

91. WHITEHEAD and FINNSTRÖM, *Virtual war and magical death*, p. 8.

92. *Ibid.*, p. 1.

93. DENORA, *Music Asylums*, p. 63.

94. COKER Christopher, *The Future of War. The Re-Enchantment of War in the Twenty-First Century*, Malden; Oxford; Victoria, Blackwell, 2004, p. 130.

95. One might think for instance of "aerobic" music to which Western listeners also lend many energizing properties, see DENORA, *Music in Everyday Life*, p. 89sqq.

96. According to Gilman, the social position of the (often underprivileged) artists could have mattered to some soldiers who considered themselves as also subaltern and were "engaging similar negotiations of power and powerlessness" (GILMAN, "An American Soldier's iPod", p. 7). However, the same author elsewhere indicates that "many soldiers described selecting music because they considered the artists and genres to be far removed from their current realities" (GILMAN, "Grounding the Troops," p. 10). The types of music to which each of these comments refers is unclear.

97. STOICHITA and BRABEC DE MORI, "Postures of listening. An ontology of sonic percepts from an anthropological perspective". For a detailed discussion see DOKIC Jérôme, HATTEN Robert S, INGOLD Tim, KREUTZER Michel and TOLBERT Elizabeth, "Comments on 'Postures of listening' by Victor A. Stoichita and Bernd Brabec de Mori", *Terrain. Anthropologie & sciences humaines*, 2018, http://
journals.openedition.org/terrain/17547 and STOICHITA Victor A. and BRABEC DE MORI Bernd, “Response to comments on ‘Postures of listening’”, *Terrain. Anthropologie & sciences humaines*, 2018, http://journals.openedition.org/terrain/17579.

98. GELL Alfred, *Art and Agency. An Anthropological Theory*, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1998, p. 17.

99. *Ibid.*, p. 15. Abduction is a kind of reasoning whereby causes are inferred from observing their (alleged) consequences. It is, strictly speaking, a syllogism because a consequence could have several different causes. Its validity therefore remains hypothetical, but it is nevertheless commonly used and usually efficient in orienting one's actions in practice. Gell made the point that whenever people consider that a being acts autonomously, “by itself”, they abduct its agency from observed disturbances in its vicinity.

100. GELL, *Art and Agency*, p. 16.

101. DENORA, *Music Asylums*, p. 141. DeNora herself wants “a revised notion of music as magic, in particular what might be termed a 'magic realist' theory of how music helps, a focus on how music can convert us from one state of being or mode of consciousness to another, in ways that are produced through concrete and practical actions and on craft, a focus expressly devoted to what people do with and attribute to music in specific settings” (*Ibid*). What remains to be addressed in this program is what happens when people find in music not just affordances, but also autonomous causation and agency.

102. STOICHITA and BRABEC DE MORI, “Postures of listening. An ontology of sonic percepts from an anthropological perspective”.

103. GELL, *Art and Agency*, p. 17.

ABSTRACTS

During the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, some American soldiers commonly listened to music in order to “motivate” themselves before action. Previous studies have shown that their most frequent choices to this effect pertained to two genres: “gangsta” rap and heavy metal. At another extreme of armed violence, Norwegian terrorist Anders Behring Breivik reported listening to a selection of tunes in the preparation of his 2011 massacre and possibly also during its perpetration. His musical choices sounded radically different from metal and rap. Yet, all of these styles of music had previously been associated with graphic violence throughout popular movies and video games. This paper asks how each type of music “worked” in motivating its listener for armed confrontation. The comparison requires going beyond the fact that mainstream media interact with common imaginaries of violence. The hypothesis here is that the differences between the terrorist’s and the soldier’s playlists reflect deeper contrasts in their engagements with the opponent. This case study of musical “motivation” leads to a broader discussion of the interplay between the agency of the listener, as opposed to the agency which he or she sometimes locates in the music itself.

Durant les guerres en Irak et Afghanistan, certains soldats états-uniens écoutaient régulièrement de la musique pour « se motiver » avant de partir en mission. Les études existantes montrent que leurs choix s'orientaient principalement vers deux genres : le « gangsta » rap et le heavy metal. À un autre extrême de la violence armée, le terroriste norvégien Anders Behring Breivik affirmait avoir fréquemment écouté de la musique pour préparer son massacre de 2011. Ses choix musicaux étaient radicalement différents de ceux des soldats états-uniens. Néanmoins, ses
musiques comme celles des soldats avaient été fréquemment associées à des scènes de violence
dans l'industrie des films et des jeux vidéo. Cet article interroge la manière dont ces musiques
purent s'avérer « fonctionnelles » pour motiver leurs auditeurs en vue de la confrontation. La
comparaison proposée requiert de dépasser le constat que les médias grand public interagissent
avec les imaginaires individuels de la violence. L'hypothèse envisagée ici est que les différences
entre les choix musicaux du terroriste et ceux des soldats reflètent un contraste plus profond
dans leurs manières d'envisager la confrontation. Les cas de « motivation » ici étudiés conduisent
aussi à une discussion plus large de la qualité d'agent dont certains auditeurs investissent
certaines des musiques qu'ils écoutent.

INDEX

**Keywords:** affordance, agency, soundtrack, war, terrorism

**Mots-clés:** affordance, agentivité, cinéma, guerre, terrorisme

AUTHOR

VICTOR A. STOICHITA

Victor A. Stoichita investigates musical interactions at the crossroads of anthropology, ethnomusicology and cognitive science. He worked with Roma professional musicians in Romania to understand why they relate the effects of their music to concepts like “cunning” and “slyness”. This led him to broader investigations of virtuosity, musical irony, and techniques of enchantment through sound. Victor A. Stoichita is a fellow of the Centre for Ethnology and Comparative Sociology at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (LESC/CNRS).
# Songs of War: The Voice of Bertran de Born

## Chansons de guerre : la voix de Bertran de Born

Sarah Kay

## Introduction

## Voice, silence and extimacy

<footnote n="1">¹ The theme of this volume, *Sound, Music and Violence*, is an excellent opportunity—an incitement even—to reflect on what the relation might be between sounds we think of as “music” and sounds we think of as “noise”. I do not expect to resolve the longstanding debates as to whether these terms are opposed, alternative or overlapping, or whether one becomes perceived as the other according to person, time or circumstance.¹ Nor, even, do I aspire to define either term in a satisfactory way. Appropriately to the theme of war, my paper is not so much a campaign on this topic, nor even a skirmish—more perhaps a kind of ambush, one led by an obscure detachment from Philology. That ambush takes place in a landscape that might be represented like the one Edvard Munch painted in a series of canvasses titled *The Scream*. Is the sound that we do not hear in this landscape music, or is it noise? Jacques Lacan, who commented several times on this image, stresses instead the interrelation in it of voice and silence. Or rather, he suggests that silence and the scream are the initial reality against which other sounds, whether music or noise, are subsequently produced and perceived.</footnote>

<footnote n="2">² In one of these commentaries, perhaps in response to the embryo-like appearance of the central figure, Lacan proposes, as the origin of the silent sound that reverberates across the painting, the very first cry of a newborn baby. The infant cries out at birth, he says, when its body is invaded for the first time by an entirely new and alien element, one for which its mother's womb had in no way prepared it, that is, air. This</footnote>
shocking invasion of the inside of its body by its outside gives rise to what Lacan calls the “extimacy” of the voice: it is “extimate” by virtue of being at once intimate and external. Henceforth for Lacan “voice” is the earliest psychic object, tinged at once with familiarity and menace, since it is both deep within ourselves and diametrically other:

> Pause, then, to think how unbelievable this is—this strange leap by which living creatures leave their original environment and pass into that of the air ... this has been called the trauma ... the trauma of birth understood not as separation from the mother but as inhaling deeply into oneself an environment that is fundamentally alien.²

3 All subsequent vocalization carries the forgotten memory of this inaugural inhalation, this traumatic invasion of and by the air.

4 The scream, as a result, is voiced not against a background of silence, Lacan contends, but as its counterpart. This first cry is literally a life or death moment: it shouts out the entry into life in the world; it inscribes voice as the correlate of death. Even at its most physiological, the cry is the voiced exhalation of a silent inhalation, an exhalation that, once exhausted, would be deadly were there not another inhalation, and so on. The silent mortality of the body, Lacan says, is as much the outcome of the scream as it is its cause, and it is this silent counterpart of the scream, according to Lacan, that the painting depicts:

> What is this scream? Who might hear this scream that we do not hear except, precisely, in the way it imposes a regime of silence... This silence appears in some sense as the correlative whose presence distinguishes this particular scream from all other imaginable sounds. And yet what is palpable is that the silence is no mere background to the scream ... rather the scream is what seems literally to provoke the silence. As its sound dissolves in that silence, we feel that the scream is its cause. It makes the silence rise up, enables it to hold its pitch. It is the scream that sustains the silence, and not the other way around.³

5 Not just the vocal cry, but also perceived sound in general, participates—though less acutely—in this equivocal status of extimacy, and for a similar reason: that it penetrates from the outside while resonating deep inside us. Music, historically the art of the Muses, has its origin in their quasi-divine agency. Similarly, the English word *noise*, Old French *noise*, which designates a disagreeable sound, a disturbance, or disorder, an insurgency even, captures the association between sound and external harm, *nuisance* in French and *nuisance* in English. The kinship between noise and anything that might appear noxious or noisesome is here conveyed by the kinship between the words themselves. Yet we hear these external sounds when they ring, or din, inside our heads; it is here that they hurt, that their harm is done.

6 This paper will turn about these notions of music and noise, their relation to silence or the scream, and the role of the voice in this relationship. It will speculate that song, as potential vocal performance, has the capacity to mediate between the primal terms of silence and cry. On its way to this conclusion, it will also analyze how song may mediate between the more symbolically identifiable terms of music and noise. It will do so with reference to the songs composed by one of the better-known troubadours of medieval Occitania, Bertran de Born, a nobleman-poet of the second half of the twelfth century known for singing in a way that both celebrates and foments strife. Almost all his songs belong in the genre known as the sirventes, which takes politics or ethics as its theme rather than the erotic love more frequently associated with troubadour lyric. The texts
of two of Bertran’s sirventes, which I take as exemplary and on which I ground my argument, are included in an appendix at the end of this paper.

Love, war and intimate revolt

7 One of Bertran’s editors, the French scholar Gérard Gouiran, titles his edition *L’Amour et la guerre*, “Love and War”.⁴ The title is apt not because these are two distinct themes found side by side in the troubadour’s songs, but because, on the contrary, they are so intimately connected as to be fused together. Compared with other troubadours, Bertran treats love with a swagger of aggression, using abrupt and even violent language in his songs about women; at the same time he eroticizes war as a true source of manly excitement. A particularly successful study, in my view, of this blurring together of the aggressive and the libidinal is an article by Luke Sunderland, “The Art of Revolt: Rebellion in the Works of Bertran de Born and Julia Kristeva”.⁵ Sutherland sees a parallel between the contents of Bertran’s songs and what Kristeva calls “la révolte intime”, or intimate revolt, which consists not in confrontation between two external entities but in the constant putting into question of one’s own inner being through risk and change, and crucially, through constant openness to new objects. Pushing forward from the Oedipal bind of the home, intimate revolt enables the subject constantly to find new objects of violence (other than the father) and new objects of love (other than the mother), thereby gaining some measure of independent thought and action:

> Facing failure, holding one's head high once more, opening up new ways forward—
> ever renewed displacements, healthy metonymies—and all the while keeping one's
> family origins at a distance, repeating with innumerable new objects and unfamiliar
> signs this wager of loving and/as killing that makes us autonomous, guilty and
> capable of thought.⁶

8 Kristeva proposes to work with potential patients undertaking a psychoanalysis with her on deepening what Sunderland calls “a logic of protest” in which this freedom can be achieved.

9 The formula “love and war” could lead us to look at Bertran’s poetry from the perspective of the external world, that of kings, knights, ladies, courts, castles, jongleurs and horses, a world that is indeed repeatedly evoked in his songs. Sunderland instead draws attention to the internal drama of his songs as a scene of intimate revolt. Love and war are not so much external events as they are caught up in the extimacy of what Kristeva calls “le pari d’aimer-tuer”, the wager of loving and/as killing: an inner, symbolic dice board in which murderous and amorous desires are hurtled together to form our psychic objects. The energy of Bertran’s poetry, Sunderland shows, can be read as expressing a Kristevan “logic of protest” in that it constantly pushes past setbacks to find new objects of love and violence as the means to a constantly rediscovered sense of self. He reads Bertran’s embrace of personal risk, peril and change as a sign of this logic. That the logic is internal is what colors sexual desires with warlike action, and vice versa, that suffuses warlike action with sexual desires. That the logic is symbolic is what leads to Bertran composing poetry rather than committing acts of actual butchery, whether of warriors or women. That it is intimate explains the constant interplay, or interpenetration, between the troubadour’s evocation of the external world and his expression of restless desire.
The soundtrack of intimate revolt

10 What is, however, absent from Sunderland’s account, and from that of most critics of the themes of love and war in Bertran de Born, is their sonic dimension. Conversely, Sunderland’s portrayal of intimate revolt unfolding through a logic of protest helps us see that voice, music and noise are treated by Bertran in their *symbolic* perspective. This means not only that Bertran adopts the form of performable song, but also that he listens, often in imagination, to his own and other songs, and to the sounds of conflict, which equally may often similarly be fictional representations rather than actual sounds.⁷

11 This essay focuses on two songs (see appendix) that illustrate how Bertran handles sound in song in order to steer a symbolic course through noise, music and performance. The first contains the most references to sound. Probably composed in 1183, it is one of two songs that violently criticize King Alphonso II of Aragon for his role in the siege of Bertran’s castle, Hautefort.⁸ This assault resulted in Bertran’s being expelled from it for a period. (Count Richard—the later Richard Lionheart—who is also mentioned similarly took part in the besieging force, but Bertran is more conciliating to him and, indeed, eventually recovers his fief with Richard’s concurrence.)⁹ The second song, whose date of composition is much less certain, but which editors agree may date from 1190, probably involves Alphonso of Castille and Richard, who by then would just have assumed the throne after the death of Henry II Plantagenet in 1189.¹⁰

12 One way in which Bertran situates his compositions as sonorous performed song is by repeated and self-conscious reminiscences of the epic poems, better known as *chansons de geste* ("songs of action", "songs of lineage" or "songs of history") of medieval France.

¹¹ Singers of these epic *chansons* invite their listeners not only to see, in imagination, the violent events which they narrate (*lors veïssiez*, they say to their audience, "then you would have seen") but also to hear them (*lors oïssiez*, "then you would have heard"); they insist, too, that their own singing should be listened to (*oyez chanson*, "hear the song"). Bertran copies these features of the *chansons de geste* to make his own songs be about listening, to the sound of battle, or to the songs themselves; he also retains from them the sense that these acts of listening involve imaginary or fictional sounds as much as actual or historical ones. In this way, Bertran both gives intimate revolt an aural dimension and anchors it in the voice, especially the singing voice.¹² Stanza 1 of the first of these songs in the appendix, and stanzas 2 and 3 of the second, are good examples of this "epic" dimension to his singing.

13 Also reminiscent of the *chansons de geste* is the hectic to and fro between the thrill of battle and various tense political dealings. Both these aspects of conflict are present in both of my two exemplary songs, which situate themselves in the context of dealings between Richard Lionheart and Iberian kings named Alphonso. The first opens with the soundscape of a military camp before or after a battle, and thereafter consists mainly of calumnious assertions against Alphonso, sarcastically positioned as an ostensible attempt to negotiate a truce with him. By means of these calumnies, which Bertran attributes to everyone around Alphonso, the poet lays symbolic siege to the Catalan king, in retaliation for the actual siege Alphonso had laid to him. In the second, "Mieirsirventes", the political situation between the kings—and their identity—are more lightly sketched, although, as I have said, both recent editors agree in dating this song
ca. 1190. There are also indications of a broader, diplomatic backdrop, which may have involved quarrels over marriage and inheritance.¹³

## “Cant vei pels vergiers desplegar”

14 It would be helpful to begin by quickly identifying the sounds evoked in the earlier of the two *sirventes*, “Cant vei pels vergiers desplegar”. Stanza I enumerates a range of musical and non-musical sounds associated with a military camp, including horses neighing and trumpets blowing. In stanza II, we get the discreet murmurings of negotiations with Alphonso of Aragon followed by those, less discreet, of reproaches; stanzas III, IV, V and VI concern the various slanders circulating all around the king; stanza VII has us imagine him yawning when people speak to him of battle; in the last full stanza, VIII, the song implies Richard issuing commands.

15 The war-like setting of the opening stanza may be meant to evoke Bertran’s victory and his jubilation at winning back his castle, but they also describe any camp at any time: the scenario evoked is the experience of being encamped during a campaign, an experience that is indefinitely repeatable. The potentially innumerable vituperations add savor to Bertran’s successful reinstatement by vilifying the man who contributed to his expulsion (Alphonso), while praises elevate the man who, although a party to the siege, will eventually approve his recovering it (Richard). Alphonso’s violent siege and destitution of Bertran are countered, as I have said, by the troubadour in turn surrounding the king with a shockwave of calumnies that isolate him and strip him of his status. Failure and success, and their accompaniments of praise and censure, combine in an intimate revolt that resounds along the *sirventes’s* varied diegetic soundtrack.

16 The *sirventes* in turn designates itself as something to be listened to, in stanza I when it is destined to be sung before count Richard; and again, at the end, when it is imagined as being sung in the presence of Alphonso, heard by him and then (improbably, given its slanderous content) broadcast by him to his neighbors throughout the region. Repeated references to jongleurs’ songs and narratives seal the mediation between events and song, and between song and its performance. The vehemence of Bertran’s attack on Alphonso recalls that of the Catalan troubadour Guillem de Berguedà, presumed to be the unnamed vassal alluded to in stanza III. Guillem de Berguedà is known for the violence and obscenity of his satirical songs. Although Bertran does not come close to emulating the virulence of his fellow poet, it nevertheless provides a horizon of offensiveness for his own attacks on Alphonso.

17 Through these references to the song itself, to jongleur performances and to a fellow troubadour, Bertran draws attention to the transformation into song of the sounds that accompany war and of the rumblings of negotiation and scandal. More accurately, Bertran uses the sounds of his song to represent some sounds that we might not think of as musical (horses neighing, rumors circulating); but the very fact that he does so draws these non-musical sounds back into the domain of music, both as represented within the song and as realized by its performance. At the same time, the song works to generate further potential noise in the renewable military encampments of stanza 1 and the provocation to further conflict with Alphonso thereafter. Almost all these sounds are in some sense vocal, whether they are the voices of horses, trumpets, jongleurs, other poets or slanderers. The troubadour’s singing voice, I propose, is what
enables the *sirventes* to move back and forth between different kinds of (musical or non-musical) sound, mediating the passage between them. The *sirventes* represents vocal performance across a variety of registers, some of which, along with the *sirventes* itself, may be thought of as at once “musical” and “noisesome”.

## “Miei-sirventes vueilh far”

18 This two-way mediation of song—in which the singing voice references non-musical sound, turns it into musical performance, and then uses the song to project further noise and strife, confounding the distinction between them—is also found in the later so-called “half *sirventes*”, where song once more expresses violent noise in the double form of battle and vituperation. From an opening stanza recording animosity between the kings, the second stanza imagines the fighting that will result from it, conjuring it as future spectacle. In stanza III, the scene of struggle can be heard as well as seen; Bertran goes on from there to predict the general state of uncertainty and risk that will engulf all travelers who are not themselves knights, and welcomes, in the concluding *tornadas*, the mortal danger that this poses to himself. The whole scenario, conditional on the actions of the kings, is hypothetical and thus, for now, fictive, that is to say a symbolic construction. Sunderland cites this song as a good example of “the logic of protest”.¹⁴ This is perhaps especially true of the second *tornada*: “E si sui vius, er mi grans benanansa,/ E se ieu mueir, er mi grans deliuriers” (And if I am alive it will be, for me, great happiness, / and if I die it will be great deliverance). These lines clinch Bertran’s thought, both in this song and as manifested elsewhere. The alternatives of extreme happiness and extreme freedom lie on either side of the extreme violence of a life-or-death struggle that is understood as grounding them both—and this struggle has a sonorous dimension that combines both “music” and “noise”.

## “This wager of loving and/as killing”

19 There are different routes to happiness, of course, and the restless quest for new objects of (symbolically elaborated and often imagined) aggression is more obvious in both the songs I have chosen as examples than the restless quest for love objects. Nevertheless, critics agree that Bertran’s songs of war are also all in some ways love songs.¹⁵ Not only do they eroticize violence, but they are themselves poetic reworkings, or even distortions, of love songs, and some are subsequently recast as love songs by other poets.

20 This coexistence of songs of war with erotic songs was often inscribed in how they sounded. *Sirventes* are said to be so called because they are modeled on a pre-existing song, most commonly a courtly *canso*. “Cant vei pels vergiers desplegar” is not transmitted with music, but it may once have had a model with a melody that we do not know. In fact, its form is tantalizingly close to that of two songs by women troubadours.¹⁶ (The only example where Bertran explicitly identifies one of his songs as contrafacted is, intriguingly, also modeled on a song involving a woman troubadour, a gender reversal that chimes with other reversals and distortions considered below.¹⁷)

21 Even if “Cant vei pels vergiers desplegar” is not an exact formal imitation of existing songs, the song places the love of war in a spring opening that all too obviously recalls
love songs. It is reminiscent, for example, of Peire d'Alvernhe's *Bela m'es la flors d'aguilen* (323.5), 1-6 or Arnaut Daniel's *Ar vei vermeills, vertz, blaus, blancs, grocs* (29.4), 1-7.¹⁸ More interestingly in some ways, its opening stanza insinuates an amorous model that does not exist except as the pre-text to its own deformation into the text we now have. Its existence, however, is sufficiently implied for us to go in search of it and, with only a few, simple tweaks, to bring it back into view. Here is the text as we have it:

<table><tr><td>5</td><td>Cant vei pels vergiers desplegar<br>Los cendatz grocs, indis e blaus,<br>M'adousa la votz dels cavaus<br>E·l sonet que fan li joglar<br>Que viulon de trap en tenda,<br>Trombas e corn e graile clar.<br>Adoncs voill un sirventes far<br>Tal que·l coms Richartz l'entenda.</td></tr></table>

When I see banners yellow, violet and blue unfurled among the orchards, the voice of horses soothes me, and the melodies the minstrels make as they go fiddling from tent to tent, and the trumpets and horns and clarions clear; then I want to compose a sirventes for Count Richard to hear.

22 We can easily read this as conjuring up a more conventional amorous exordium:

<table><tr><td>5</td><td>Cant vei pels vergiers botonar<br>Los glaios grocs, indis e blaus,<br>M'adousa la votz dels oisiaus<br>E·l sonet que fan li joglar<br>Que viulan per bell' entenda<br>e chantan vers hautet et clar.<br>Adoncs voill una chanson far<br>Tal que ma dompna l'entenda.</td></tr></table>

When I see lilies yellow, violet and blue coming into bud throughout the orchards, the voice of the birds soothes me, and the melodies the minstrels sing as they go agreeably playing their fiddles and singing their verses high and clear; then I want to compose a song for my lady to hear.

23 With a few relatively easy substitutions a military scene can be transformed into one of courtship, a song of war can be turned into a love song. That this can be done is possible, I think, because Bertran had already imagined the converse operation, creating his song of war *from* a love song. The fusion of the themes of love and war is complete: knighthood *is* sexy, courtship *is* violent, and the sounds of the one merge seamlessly into those of the other.

24 The “half *sirventes*” may similarly disclose an erotic lining, beginning with the question: where is the other half? It is striking that in the only major *chansonnier* manuscript to transmit this text, known to scholars as *chansonnier M*, it is copied on a page which otherwise contains only just over a line of the preceding song, and most of which is left blank, as if to frame the absent, other half (see Fig. 1). Perhaps we should regard the song as the *sirventes* half of a *sirventes-canso*, a widely practiced hybrid genre combining
moral-political with amorous themes, from which Bertran simply suppressed the erotic
half. Is it possible the compilers of *chansonnier M* left a space specifically to enable its
restoration? As regards actually existing love songs, “Miei-sirventes” does not have the
same form—and therefore cannot be thought to have the same melody—as any known
instance, although as with “Cant vei pels vergiers desplegar” its meter presents clear
parallels with other songs, and thus with other tunes.¹⁹ Its form resembles that of
Bertran’s own “Can la novella flors par el vergan” (80.34) which, it has been suggested,
imitates a love song by Guillem de Sant Leidier.²⁰

<figure><img src="image_5.png" /><figcaption>Figure 1. Paris, BnF f. fr. 12474, fol. 233r., Bertran de Born, “Miei-sirventes vueilh far dels reis amdos” (80.25).²¹</figcaption></figure>

25 Drawing together this part of my argument, then, I would say that in the case of both the examples discussed in this article, the text of Bertran’s song insinuates a spectral double whose theme was erotic. This phantom other can most obviously be thought of as arising from the extant song. From another point of view, however, it could be understood as that song’s original form. Each of the two versions, martial or courtly, is derivable from the other and morphs disquietingly back into it; and each version is silenced when the other is voiced.

Intimate revolt, voice and silence

26 Its resonance with the amorous *canso* makes the intimacy of revolt in Bertran’s *sirventes* all the more audible. The songs, we have seen, evoke the simultaneity of love and mayhem, of desire and death, and distort one into the other. Sometimes their insistently male voice plays off, through formal imitation, against a female-voiced model, adding another layer of distortion. His songs are formally intricate, in meter and presumably also in melody, and thus symbolically contained. Yet because they are
conceived for the voice, there may be ways in which they nonetheless fray the edges of
this symbolic containment. In their content, they share common ground with Kristeva's
wager of loving and/as killing (“pari d'aimer-tuer”) and evoke the fragility of the
separation of life from death. When sung in a solo voice, they might further echo,
beyond this symbolically contained logic, the inaugural life-or-death invasion by the air
at the start of life, and the primal scream on the threshold of deathly silence.

27

We are accustomed to decorous performances of troubadour song. Imagine, however, a
rock performance of Bertran’s *sirventes*. The rough, angry pulse would suit their shift
from love songs into songs of war or enmity, from female to male, while at the same
time it would continue to press the erotic alongside violence and conflict. It would
emphasize the oscillation of music and noise performed in his texts. It would still be
codified and territorialized, but it might come closer to repeating a more visceral cry
and its counterpart, the invasive silence of mortality, of the body in its life or death
first breath.

28

Bertran de Born's songs are almost all transmitted without their melodies, the only one
copied with notation being "Rassa, tan creis" (80.37, Gouiran, ed. cit., song 1). Several
more can plausibly be attributed music thanks to the survival of contrafacta, or
potential contrafacta, that are notated. The sound of their vocal performance is thus
very difficult to reconstruct, even before we can speculate about its relation to the
scream. But paradoxically, it is even harder to sense the counterpart of that cry, the
deathly silence of the body, across the centuries that separate us from Bertran.
Perhaps, rather than looking for it in imagined performances of the songs, we should
focus instead on what we have to hand: the manuscript copies of Bertran's songs.

29

"Miei-sirventes" as copied in M can serve as an example (Fig. 1). Despite the absence of musical notation, the text appears on this page as both lively—jaunty even, with its bright rubrics and initials—and as patently contoured by the voice. Each stanza is demarcated from its fellows, and every line separated at the rhyme by a *punctus* or full stop. In these indications of the overall limits of the melody and the units of breathing that enable it to be sung, we can make out the potential sound of the singing voice, highlighted for us on the page. At the same time, fully half of the page is blank. Beyond and underneath the handwritten text and the grid of rulings that demarcate the page into zones, the parchment extends to the edges of the margins, through the intercolumn, and for much of the second column. Its surface is marked not only by the voiced song, but also, here and there, by the slender veins and the slight bruising that trace their way through the skin of the animal from which the parchment was made. Once part of a creature with a voice of its own, it is now dead and mute, passively ranged in its new environment of the book. This skin of the page acts, I would say, as the silent condition of the song's voicing in much the same way as silence provides the mute condition for the initial voice, the scream. If the Lacan passage quoted above is recast with the word "song" in the place of "scream" and "page" instead of "silence", we get the following:

And yet what is palpable is that the *page* is no mere background to the *song*: rather
the *song* is what seems literally to provoke the *page*. As its sound dissolves in that
*page*, we feel that the *song* is its cause. It makes the *page* rise up, enables it to hold its
pitch. It is the *song* that sustains the *page*, and not the other way around.²²
Reformulation and wider implications

30

As the argument of this paper is somewhat dense and theoretical, I shall now briefly
reformulate it as a single arc before looking at its wider implications.

1. Voice, which is the earliest psychic object, is “extimate” because it results from a traumatic invasion by an alien element, air, as the newborn struggles on the threshold of life.

2. Silence and the scream define this primitive object “voice” against which subsequent sounds will define themselves; they too are extimate, if to a less striking degree.

3. Hypothesis: qua vocal performance, song has the potential to mediate between this primitive, visceral voice (with its counterweight of deathly silence) and the more socially codified notions of music and noise.

4. In working the themes of love and war as a “wager of loving and/as killing”, Bertran de Born can be seen to be pursuing an “intimate revolt”, whose “logic of protest” is symbolic.

5. This intimate revolt in Bertran’s songs has an important sonic dimension.

6. His songs resemble medieval chansons de geste where the audience has to imagine hearing both the sounds of strife (whether of battle or political wrangling) and the music of the song.

7. His songs also represent a variety of musical and nonmusical noises; they assimilate noise to music but also imagine, foment or celebrate conflict and thereby translate from music back to noise.

8. This noise/music coincides, in the songs, with the evocation of life-or-death situations.

9. Bertran’s songs disguise, deform or supplant love songs.

10. We can imagine violently parodic or distorting performances of them that lead from music toward noise and, if not to the scream, at least towards it.

11. (cf. 3) The centrality of the voice to song has the potential to connect the song's sound to the primal traumatic voice of the scream.

12. The transmission of medieval songs in parchment codices may offer a way to figure silence as the condition and counterpart of this scream.

31

I hope that reformulating the outline of my argument in this way shows that its import is not limited to the case of Bertran de Born. In general, songs of war offer an opportunity to reflect on the relationship between musical sounds and those other sounds that might be thought of as noise, and to hear them interact and even merge. This is in large part because these songs, however musically and metrically codified they may be, are nonetheless framed by life-and-death struggles which, in the case of Bertran de Born, fuse together erotic love and lethal violence. Eros and aggression, music and noise, are alike mediated by a solo, first-person voice. Thanks to the voice, these sounds which meet in song can exceed these symbolic categories of music and noise to evoke the scream and its counterpart of silence. I happen to work on the troubadours, but songs of war from any period could lend themselves to being analyzed in similar terms.

Appendix

32

Bertran de Born, “Cant vei pels vergiers desplegar” (PC 80.35), ed. Gouiran, song 24²³
<table><tr><td>I</td><td>5</td><td>Cant vei pels vergiers desplegar<br>Los cendatz grocs, indis e blaus,<br>M'adousa la votz dels cavaus<br>E'l sonet que fan li joglar<br>Que viulon de trap en tenda,<br>Trombas e corn e graile clar.<br>Adoncs voill un sirventes far<br>Tal quel coms Richartz l'entenda.</td></tr><tr><td>II</td><td>10</td><td>Ab lo rei mi voill acordar<br>D'Aragon, e tornar en paus.<br>Mas trop fon descausitz e braus<br>can venc sai sus per osteiar;<br>Per q'es dregs qu'eu lo.l reprenda.<br>Eu o dic per lui castiar<br>E pezam si.l vei folleiar,<br>E voill qe de mi aprenda.</td></tr><tr><td>III</td><td>20</td><td>A mi.l volon tuich encusar,<br>C'us me comdet de sos vassaus<br>Qe de Castellot ac mal laus<br>Qan ne fes n'Espangnol gitar.<br>E nom par que ai defenda<br>Ves el, si el n'auza proar;<br>E quant intret per covidar,<br>Conquerri lai pauc de renda.</td></tr><tr><td>IV</td><td>25</td><td>Oi mais no li puosc ren celar,<br>Anz li serai amics coraus:<br>Gastons, cui es Bearns e Paus,<br>Mi trames sai novas comdar,<br>Que de sos pres pres esmenda<br>Del rei, qe ls i degra liurar,<br>E volc en mais l'aver portar<br>Que hom totz sos pres li renda.</td></tr><tr><td>V</td><td>35</td><td>Que so m'an dich de lui joglar,<br>Q'en perdon an fags totz lur laus ;<br>S'anc lur det vestirs vertz ni blaus<br>Ni lor fetz nuill denier donar,<br>Lag l'es c'om l'en sobreprenda<br>Que d'un sol s'en saup ben pagar,<br>D'Artuzet, don fai a blasmar,<br>Q'en mes als Juzieus en venda.</td></tr><tr><td>VI</td><td>45</td><td>Peire Joglar saup mal pagar<br>Qe.l prestet deniers e cavaus,<br>Que la vella, que Fons-Ebraus<br>Atent lo fetz tot pesseiar;<br>c'anc l'entreseings fags ab benda<br>De la jupa del rei d'armar<br>Que.l baillet, no li puoc guizar<br>C'om ab coutels tot no.l fenda.</td></tr></table>

Transposition: Horas série 2, 2020

<table><tr><td>VI</td><td>50</td><td>Al prim quel vi joves reiaus,<br>Que no seria arditz ni maus;<br>E conoc o al badaillar:<br>Reis que badaill ni s'estenda</td></tr></table>
33 **Translation**

I. When I see banners yellow, violet and blue unfurled among the orchards, the voice of horses soothes me, and the melodies the minstrels make as they go fiddling from tent to tent, and the trumpets and horns and clarions clear; then I want to compose a *sirventes* for Count Richard to hear.

II. I would like to make a truce with the King of Aragon, and return to peace, but he was too coarse and rude when he came up here to make war, and so it is fair that I should scold him. I say so to admonish him, for I do not like to see him making a fool of himself, and I hope he will learn from me.

III. Everyone is accusing him to me, for one of his vassals told me that he used bad judgment about Chastellot, when he had Sir Spaniard tossed out. It seems to me that he cannot defend himself if Sir Spaniard dares to challenge him for it, and when he entered there by invitation he did not get much.

IV. From now on I'll be a loyal friend to him; I can hide nothing: Gaston of Béarn and Pau sent to tell me the news that he got money from the king to ransom his men who had been taken prisoner; yet he preferred to make off with the loot rather than get them all back.

V. And the minstrels told me they composed all his praises in vain; if ever he gave them clothes, green and blue, or had them awarded a single penny, he hated to get caught at it. He managed to get paid back well by one minstrel alone, namely Artuset, and he deserves to be blamed for it, for he put him up for sale to the Jews.

VI. He knew how to shortchange Peire the minstrel, who lent him money and horses, since the old woman who runs Fontevrault had him cut all to pieces - even the badge that the king of arms gave him, made with a band from his jerkin, couldn't keep him from getting hacked up with knives.

VII. When Pedro Ruiz was a young prince, he could guess, as soon as he saw Alphonso, that he would not be courageous or bold - and he knew it by his yawn; a king who yawns and stretches when he hears talk of battle probably does so either from cowardice or because he is not interested in arms.

VIII. I forgive him if he caused the Catalans and the men of Lara to do me wrong. Since the lord of Poitou forced hum, he did not dare to do otherwise, and a king who expects par from a lord must earn it the hard way. He came here for the sake of gain, and for no other purpose.

IX. I want the king to know and learn my *sirventes* at his pleasure, and have it sung to the king of Navarre, and spread throughout Castile.

34 "Miei-sirventes" (PC 80.25), ed. Gouiran, song 32²⁴
<table><tr><td>I</td><td>Miei-sirventes vueilh far dels reis amdos,<br/>Q'en brieu veirem q'aura mais cavailhiers<br/>Del valen rei de Castella, n'Anfos,<br/>C'aug dir qe ven e volra sodadiers ;<br/>Richarz metra a mueis e a sestiers<br/>Aur e argen, e ten s'a benanansa<br/>Metr' e donar, e non vol s'afiansa,<br/>Anz vol gerra mais qe qailla esparviers.</td></tr><tr><td>II</td><td>S'amdui li rei son prou ni corajos,<br/>En brieu veirem camps joncatz de qartiers<br/>D'elms e d'escutz e de branz e d'arços<br/>E de fendutz per bustz tro als braiers;<br/>Es arage veirem anar destriers,<br/>E per costatz e per peichz manta lanza,<br/>E gaug e plor e dol e alegrança.<br/>Le perdr'er granz e'l gasainhz er sobriers.</td></tr><tr><td>III</td><td>Trompas, tabors, seinheras e penos<br/>E entreseinhs e cavals blancs e niers<br/>Veirem en brieu, qe'l segles sera bos,<br/>Qes hom tolra l'aver als usuriers,<br/>E per camis non anara saumiers<br/>Jorn afiçatz ni borjes ses duptansa,<br/>Ni mercadiers qi venga deves França;<br/>Anz sera rics qi tolra volontiers.</td></tr><tr><td>IV</td><td>Mas se'l reis ven, ieu ai en Dieu fiansa<br/>Q'ieu serai vius o serai per qartiers.</td></tr><tr><td>V</td><td>E si sui vius, er mi grans benanansa,<br/>E se ieu mueir, er mi grans deliuriers.</td></tr></table>

35 Translation

I. I think I'll make just a half sirventes about the two kings - for soon we shall see that there will be more knights of the valiant king of Castile, Sir Alphonso, who is coming, I hear, and will want mercenaries; Richard will spend gold and silver by hogsheads and bushels, thinking it happiness to spend and give, and he doesn't Alphonso's treaty. He wants war more than a hawk wants quail.

II. If both kings are noble and courageous, we shall soon see fields strewn with pieces of helmet and shield and swords and saddlebows and men split through their trunks down to their breech; we shall see horses running wild, and many a lance through sides and chests, and joy and tears and grief and rejoicing.

III. Trumpets, drums, standards, and pennons and ensigns and horses white and black we soon shall see, and the world will be good. We'll take the usurers' money, and never a mule-driver will travel the roads in safety, nor a burgher without fear, nor a merchant coming from France, he who gladly takes will be rich.

IV. But if the king comes, I trust in God I'll be alive or else in pieces;

V. And if I am alive it will be, for me, great happiness, and if I die it will be great deliverance.
BIBLIOGRAPHY

ASPERTI Stefano, “L’eredità lirica di Bertran de Born”, *Cultura neolatina*, vol. 64, 2004, pp. 475-525.

ASPERTI Stefano, “Miei-sirventes vueilh far dels reis amdos (BdT 80,25)”, *Cultura neolatina*, vol. 58, 1998, pp. 165-323.

ATTALI Jacques, *Buits, Essai sur l'économie politique de la musique*, 2nd ed., Paris, Fayard/Puf, 2001.

*Chansonnier M* = Paris, BnF f. fr. 12474, consulted online at https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b6000427q/f1.image.

FRANK István, *Répertoire métrique de la poésie des troubadours*, Paris, Champion, 1957.

FRITZ Jean-Marie, *La Cloche et la lyre. Pour une poétique médiévale du paysage sonore*, Geneva, Droz, 2011.

GOUIRAN Gérard, *L'Amour et la guerre. L'Œuvre poétique de Bertrand de Born*, Aix and Marseille, Université de Provence and Lafitte, 1985.

KRISTEVA Julia, *Sens et non-sens de la révolte*, Paris, Fayard, 1996.

LACAN Jacques, *Le Séminaire livre X, L'Angoisse* [1962-1963], ed. Jacques-Alain Miller, Paris, Seuil, 2004.

LACAN Jacques, *Le Séminaire livre XII* [1964-1965], *Problèmes cruiaux pour la psychanalyse*, séance of 7 March, unedited; consulted in transcript online at http://gaogoa.free.fr/SeminaireS.htm.

PADEN William D., “De l’identité historique de Bertran de Born”, *Romania*, 101, 1980, pp. 192-224.

PADEN William D., SANKOVITCH, Tilde, and STÄBLEIN, Patricia, *The poems of the troubadour Bertran de Born*, Berkeley CA, University of California Press, 1986.

RIEGER Angelica, *Trobairitz: Der Beitrag der Frau in der altokzitanischen höfischen Lyrik. Edition des Gesamtkorpus, Beihefte zur Zeitschrift für romanische Philologie* 233, Tübingen, M. Niemeyer, 1991.

RUIZ-DOMÈNEC José Enrique, “El sonido de la batalla en Bertran de Born”, *Medievalia*, vol. 2, 1981, pp. 77-109.

SUNDERLAND Luke, “The Art of Revolt: Rebellion in the Works of Bertran de Born and Julia Kristeva”, *Comparative Literature*, 2010, vol. 62, no. 1, pp. 22-40

WILSON Scott, “Amusia, noise and the drive. Towards a theory of the audio unconscious”, GODDARD Michael, HALLIGAN Benjamin, and HEGARTY Paul (eds.), *Reverberations. The Philosophy, Aesthetics and Politics of Noise*, London, Continuum, 2012, pp. 26-39.

WILSON Scott, *Stop Making Sense: Music from the Perspective of the Real*, London, CRC Press, 2015.

NOTES

1. ATTALI Jacques, *Buits, Essai sur l'économie politique de la musique*, 2nd ed., Paris, Fayard/Puf, 2001, is the foundational study here. I have been especially helped by WILSON Scott, “Amusia, noise and the drive. Towards a theory of the audio unconscious”, GODDARD Michael, HALLIGAN Benjamin, and HEGARTY Paul (eds.), *Reverberations. The Philosophy, Aesthetics and Politics of Noise*, London, Continuum, 2012, pp. 26-39. This chapter is reprinted with minor changes in WILSON Scott, *Stop Making Sense: Music from the Perspective of the Real*, London, CRC Press, 2015.
2. LACAN Jacques, *Le Séminaire livre X, L'Angoisse* [1962-1963], ed. Jacques-Alain Miller, Paris, Seuil, 2004, p. 378: « Arrêtez-vous alors à considérer cette chose incroyable – l'étrangeté de ce saut par quoi des êtres vivants sont sortis de leur milieu primitif, et sont passés à l'air... C'est ce qu'on a appelé le trauma ... le trauma de la naissance, qui n'est pas séparation d'avec la mère, mais aspiration en soi d'un milieu foncièrement Autre » (my translation).

3. LACAN Jacques, *Le Séminaire livre XII* [1964-1965], *Problèmes cruiaux pour la psychanalyse*, séance of 7 March, unedited; consulted in transcript online at http://gaogoa.free.fr/SeminaireS.htm: « Qu'est-ce que c'est que ce cri ? Qui l'entendrait, ce cri que nous n'entendons pas, sinon justement qu'il impose ce règne du silence ... Il semble là que ce silence soit en quelque sorte le corrélatif qui distingue dans sa présence ce cri de tout autre modulation imaginable, et pourtant, ce qui est sensible, c'est que le silence n'est pas le fond du cri ... littéralement le cri semble provoquer le silence et, s'y abolissant, il est sensible qu'il le cause. Il le fait surgir, il lui permet de tenir la note. C'est le cri qui le soutient et non le silence le cri » (my translation).

4. GOUIRAN Gérard, *L'Amour et la guere. L'Œuvre poétique de Bertrand de Born*, Aix and Marseille, Université de Provence and Lafitte, 1985. I have also consulted PADEN William D., SANKOVITCH, Tilde, and STÄBLEIN, Patricia, *The poems of the troubadour Bertran de Born*, Berkeley CA, University of California Press, 1986.

5. SUNDERLAND Luke, “The Art of Revolt: Rebellion in the Works of Bertran de Born and Julia Kristeva”, *Comparative Literature*, 2010, vol. 62, no. 1, pp. 22-40.

6. KRISTEVA Julia, *Sens et non-sens de la révolte*, Paris, Fayard, 1996, p. 78: « Assumer l'échec, relever la tête, ouvrir de nouvelles voies—éternel déplacement, salubre métonymie: et toujours en s'écartant du foyer natal, indéfiniment refaire avec de nouveaux objets et des signes insolites ce pari d'aimer-tuer qui nous rend autonomes, coupables et pensants » (my translation, which differs in some respects from the one provided by SUNDERLAND, art. cit., p. 26).

7. The sonorousness of Bertran's songs has to my knowledge only been explored (in French) in a few pages of FRITZ Jean-Marie, *La Cloche et la lyre. Pour une poétique médiévale du paysage sonore*, Geneva, Droz, 2011, pp. 125-130, and (in Spanish) in a long and densely argued essay by RUIZ-DOMÈNEC José Enrique, “El sonido de la batalla en Bertran de Born”, *Medievalia*, vol. 2, 1981, pp. 77-109.

8. GOUIRAN, ed. cit., I, pp. 447-449; PADEN et al., ed. cit., pp. 266-267.

9. See PADEN William D., “De l’identité historique de Bertran de Born”, *Romania*, 101, 1980, pp. 192-224.

10. GOUIRAN, ed. cit., II, 650; PADEN et al., 396. ASPERTI Stefano, “Miei-sirventes vueilh far dels reis amdos (BdT 80,25)”, *Cultura neolatina*, vol. 58, 1998, pp. 165-323, thinks that this song is not Bertran de Born’s but dates from a whole century later. Its date and authorship are not crucial to my argument here. The “Miei-sirventes” is important to the arguments of the articles cited by SUNDERLAND, pp. 32-33 and RUIZ-DOMÈNEC, pp. 89-92).

11. Bertran himself refers to the *geste* in one of his songs, “Non puosc mudar mon chantar non esparga” (80.29): “Enz encontrem a millers e a cen / si c’apres nos en chant hom puois la gesta” (Now let us assemble by the hundreds and the thousands, so that afterwards people will sing of our deeds/sing a chanson de geste about us; GOUIRAN, ed. cit., song 28, lines 7-8). Bertran also compares the situations he encounters with those featuring various well-known heroes of these chansons de geste, including Aigar, Guerri le Sor, Ogier le Danois and Roland. For details, see the list of proper names in GOUIRAN, ed. cit., II, pp. 857-871 and PADEN et al., ed. cit., pp. 37-42.

12. The poetic self-consciousness that results from these reminiscences of other genres is another means by which this logic is located in the symbolic. In the same vein, RUIZ-DOMÈNEC, art. cit., evokes the troubadour’s capacity to sacralize and ritualize the violence of battle in his songs.

13. PADEN et al. in their edition write, “Conflict between Richard and Alfonso takes a downward turn in 1190 when Richard gives Gascony—which Henry II had given his daughter Eleanor when