ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on four specific bodies of knowledge within the broad disciplinary boundaries. These are: theories of music and identity, with particular reference to voice; performance studies in music; the choral conducting literature itself; and theories of nonverbal communication. Critical musicology is accustomed to imagining the voice as a site where social processes and individual identity meet most intimately. The area of performance studies can be seen as part of the critical musicology project in that it developed in part as a critique of academic music's prior focus on the composer and the work. There are genealogies of practice that run through both: choral practitioners will routinely quote other conductors' points of principle or bons mots to both their choirs and their readers to lend authority to their statements. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.
