Matthew Rahaim

Professor: Global Creative Studies / Ethnomusicology

Recordings and Scholarly Publications here: https://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~mrahaim/index.htm

Matthew Rahaim is a scholar and creative musician working in the fertile borderlands of raga, musical philosophy, and the American experimental tradition. He is a Hindustani vocalist (Gwalior gayaki), an ethnomusicologist (voice, ethnography, participation, phenomenology), an improviser (analog synthesizers, voice, improvised conduction) and a composer (new instruments, event scores, drone/dronebreaking, experimental counterpoint.) Matthew's recent creative work has appeared at the Goldstein Museum of Design, the Wakpa Triennial, Drone Not Drones, and The Great Beyond Festival. 

Matthew's ethnomusicological research focuses on Hindustani music, practices of listening, and the mysteries of voice. His book Ways of Voice: Vocal Striving and Moral Contestation in North India and Beyond (2021) is an ethnographic investigation of various traditions of voice cultivation and ethical self-work in the Hindustani vocal ecumene, from Bollywood to Qawwali to Sufi Pop. His first book, Musicking Bodies: Gesture and Voice in Hindustani Music, (2012) dealt with the tacit bodily disciplines passed down through generations of Hindustani vocalists. Both are grounded in the ethnography of performance. Recent philosophical essays include "Not Just One, Not Just Now: Voices in Relation" in the Oxford Handbook of Phenomenological Ethnomusicology and "Object, Person, Machine, or What: Practical Ontologies of Voice," in the Oxford Handbook of Voice Studies. His research and review articles have appeared in the Journal of Asian Studies, Theory in Ethnomusicology Today, World of Music, Asian Music, Yearbook for Traditional Music, Gesture, The Oxford Handbook of Voice Studies, Music and Empathy, and New Perspectives on Music and Gesture. He also is the author of the article "Music" in the Brill Encyclopedia of Hinduism.

Matthew is currently working on several projects that bridge creative music and scholarly inquiry. Between a Barrel and a Heart is a suite of pieces for new instruments built out of decommissioned police rifles by sculptor Pedram Baldari, drawing on the poetry of Faiz Ahmed Faiz and the Orphic science fiction of American novelist Samuel R. Delaney. In Neumatic Migrations, Matthew apprentices himself to a single migratory American Robin who returns to his backyard year after year, improvising on an expansive repertoire of melodic gestures. Nine Ragas is both a method book and a grounded speculative exploration of the phenomenology of raga. What Drone Consciousnesses Is Is Is explores the temporality and speculative politics of the American drone tradition through archival research and interactive analog synthesisis. Matthew is also working on a book of event scores and poetry, Improvising Relationality, experimenting with practical ways of performing togetherness and distance, in empathic intimacy and vulnerable alterity, exploring the relational play of mutual dependence and mutual freedom. 

Other interests include voice studies, bhakti and Sufi poetry, the anthropology of ethics, practical ontology, Keplerian music theory, the interface of raga and maqam, practices of listening, birdsong, and speculative harmonics.

Matthew's teaching spans improvisation, scholarly research, composition, and contemplative practice. Courses include Improvising Relationality; Raga; Sonic Ecology; Hindustani Musics; What do Voices Do?; and Practices of Listening. He trained in the Gwalior lineage of raga music under his guru, Laxman Krishnarao Pandit. Other influential teachers include Jon K. Barlow, Alvin Lucier, Molly Sturges, Anthony Braxton, Veena Sahasrabuddhe, Myra Melford, Bonnie Wade, and Vasudha Dalmia. Matthew believes in the liberal arts, and he believes in going slowly.