Conference Agenda

In their introduction to the Oxford Handbook of Timbre, Emily Dolan and Alexander Rehding recognize that "timbre's slippery existence is lodged in the 'in-between'" (Dolan and Rehding 2021: 8). Later chapters of that collection acknowledge that analyses of the "paradox of timbre" (Fales 2002) traditionally approach that "in-between"-ness from either side of a perceived binary: the nominative (Villegas Vélez 2021) and materialist (van Elferen 2021) approach originates in organology and prioritizes sound-source recognition, while empirical and idealist perspectives attend to timbre first as a perceptual phenomenon. Both are necessary—sound both is (ontology) and is heard (epistemology)—leaving timbre studies locked in an ideological embrace.

I propose a third approach to the timbral paradox: sound is made. Specifically, in this paper I (re)frame Adolphe Sax's instrumental improvements and inventions as resulting from an iterative practice that centered timbre. By doing so, I foreground the role of the instrumentalist—anyone whose practice involves instruments—as mediator between composer and listener; if timbre is a medium, as Dolan and Rehding propose (2021: 8), those who serve as conduits for sound must be heard.

I trace three correlated paths through Sax's life in order to understand his work as inherently timbral. First, I consider Sax’s own writings as they appeared in his patents as well as for the public. I then situate Sax among his timbrally-minded contemporaries; Jean-Georges Kastner and Hector Berlioz, for instance, were close friends of Sax and champions of his instruments. Finally, drawing on methodologies from the history of science (Rheinberger 1997; Baird 2004) and critical organology (Tresch and Dolan 2013), I read Sax's oeuvre of musical instruments as reflective of his ideologies about music and sound.

This reading of Sax as a practitioner of timbre affords a new perspective on how understandings of timbre emerge out of iterative practices. Here, I suggest a variation on timbre as techne (see Rehding 2021) akin to "knowing-through," building on Daphne Leong's ways of knowing (2019). By recognizing that sound is made by instrumentalists and curated through their practice(s), I bring timbre studies into contact with both instrument manufacturing and performance and analysis.

This paper examines how instruments can be both of and against nature, using Paubrasilia echininata (a.k.a. brazilwood or pernambuco) — the primary wood used in professional-quality musical bows — as a case study. I trace five centuries’ pernambuco extraction from material, ecological, and labor perspectives, invoking sixteenth-century eyewitness accounts from the “discovery” of the so-called “New World,” exploring pernambuco’s central role in forming Brazil’s colonial economy and global identity, as well as investigating early unsuccessful conservation efforts. Brief forays into eighteenth- and nineteenth-century organology illustrate pernambuco’s ascendancy to wood-of-choice among bowmakers throughout Europe.

I then turn to recent media coverage surrounding the 2025 Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). Brazil’s attempt to reclassify pernambuco wood from Appendix II (regulated trade) to Appendix I (complete prohibition), the highest level of environmental protection, provoked global outcry from musicians and music organizations who argued reclassification would render international travel and trade impossible. Subsequently, widespread media attention and coordinated political pressure prompted Brazil to abandon its recommendation (for now).

Drawing on Pierre Bourdieu and Jean-Claude Passeron, I examine how opponents of reclassification evoke musical aesthetics to both “naturalize” and “eternize” the supposedly unparalleled sonic characteristics of pernambuco bows, contributing to a “genesis amnesia” that devalues material alternatives while obscuring longer histories of colonial exploitation and environmental degradation. Building upon the new organology of John Tresch, Emily I. Dolan, and Eliot Bates, I explore the ethical and social agencies of musical instruments, arguing that as semi-autonomous agents which are both products and originators of social relations, instruments may also be capable of doing harm. Following decolonial and postcolonial writers such as Oscar Ekkelboom and David Vazquéz, I suggest that remembering and reconstituting forgotten histories remains a vital task—for, in the case of musical bows, the matter seems far from settled.

Pianos are perhaps one of the most recognizable and ubiquitous musical instruments worldwide: from humble spinets to concert grands, pianos have been played on all continents and incorporated into musical cultures around the globe. Yet piano technicians – the craftspeople who keep these instruments in tune and in working order – are notably absent from ethno/musicological literature. My research brings piano technicians into the spotlight to show their central role in the lives of pianos and the people who own and play them, from the moment the instrument rolls off the factory floor to the final evaluation of its ability to hold a tune.

In this paper, I present an ethnography of this understudied group of workers to investigate the complex relationships that piano technicians form with the instruments they work with on a daily basis. I argue that piano technicians – particularly those who service pianos in domestic settings – develop a practice of “desensitization,” as one technician described it, which helps them better objectively evaluate an instrument’s repair needs. Terms such as “Piano Shaped Object” (or PSO), which refers to a piano that is beyond repair and slated for disposal, as well as medical terminology that describes piano technicians as doctors or surgeons operating on their piano “patients” reflect the need for technicians to emotionally distance themselves from the piano. I reveal how technicians operate as mediators between instrument, owner, and player, negotiating conversations about piano maintenance, regulation, and even, at the end of an instrument’s life, disposal. This research draws from my fieldwork as a participant in a North Bennet Street School class, interviews with piano technicians around Rhode Island and Massachusetts, piano tuning manuals, and a Facebook group for licensed piano technicians. I connect these ideas to theories of repair in Science and Technology Studies (Gregson, et. al. 2009), as well as research on piano “personhood” (Loughridge 2023). Investigating how people form and intentionally break emotional connections to instruments can help us better understand the meaning of musical instruments in our personal lives, and the presence (or lack) of emotion in how we treat and care for instruments.