Voice as a Technology of Selfhood

Voice as a Technology of Selfhood

Author: Nina Sun Eidsheim

Publisher: ProQuest

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 286

ISBN-13: 9780549539834

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In this dissertation I examine the production of race through sound in general and vocal timbre in particular, and investigate how the construction of the black voice--against the backdrop of the normative white--in opera, spirituals, and popular music reflects deeply-held American ideas about race. Which processes have contributed to the racialized perception and reification of timbre? What are some of the social and political processes embedded in the cultural capital possessed by certain vocal timbres in specific cultural contexts and various historical periods? I trace modern vocal pedagogy to its origin in colonial ideology, and the concept of a classical African-American vocal timbre from Marian Anderson to the spiritual in the abolitionist era. Investigating the vocal synthesis software Vocaloid, I uncover the macro politics of race and gender as they are materialized in the micro politics of sound: dominant race and gender relations are reproduced through electronic music products and tools. My study of the ways in which producers have framed the African-American jazz and ballad singer Jimmy Scott--as, most saliently, a woman, and as symbolizing death--offers insights into how nonconforming African-American masculinities are desired and consumed. This dissertation ultimately investigates the performative and corporeal aspects of the singing voice, considering these phenomena in terms which involve both performers and audiences. As a consequence, I have shifted the focus of inquiry from the sound of singing--which I term timbre sonic--to the physical act of forming that sound--timbre corporeal--and proposed an investigation of the choreography of vocal timbre.


Book Synopsis Voice as a Technology of Selfhood by : Nina Sun Eidsheim

Download or read book Voice as a Technology of Selfhood written by Nina Sun Eidsheim and published by ProQuest. This book was released on 2008 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this dissertation I examine the production of race through sound in general and vocal timbre in particular, and investigate how the construction of the black voice--against the backdrop of the normative white--in opera, spirituals, and popular music reflects deeply-held American ideas about race. Which processes have contributed to the racialized perception and reification of timbre? What are some of the social and political processes embedded in the cultural capital possessed by certain vocal timbres in specific cultural contexts and various historical periods? I trace modern vocal pedagogy to its origin in colonial ideology, and the concept of a classical African-American vocal timbre from Marian Anderson to the spiritual in the abolitionist era. Investigating the vocal synthesis software Vocaloid, I uncover the macro politics of race and gender as they are materialized in the micro politics of sound: dominant race and gender relations are reproduced through electronic music products and tools. My study of the ways in which producers have framed the African-American jazz and ballad singer Jimmy Scott--as, most saliently, a woman, and as symbolizing death--offers insights into how nonconforming African-American masculinities are desired and consumed. This dissertation ultimately investigates the performative and corporeal aspects of the singing voice, considering these phenomena in terms which involve both performers and audiences. As a consequence, I have shifted the focus of inquiry from the sound of singing--which I term timbre sonic--to the physical act of forming that sound--timbre corporeal--and proposed an investigation of the choreography of vocal timbre.

Ways of Voice

Ways of Voice

Author: Matthew Rahaim

Publisher: Wesleyan University Press

Published: 2022-05-15

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 0819579408

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Ways of Voice explores techniques of voice production in North India, from Bollywood to raga music to ghazal to devotional hymns and Sufi song. The voices in play here are not merely given, but achieved. Singers consciously train themselves to cultivate characteristic vocal gaits, sonorities, and poetic attunements; they adopt postures of the vocal apparatus; they build habits of listening, temporality, and social relations. The action in Ways of Voice revolves around several dozen North Indian popular, devotional, classical, and folk singers engaged in projects of vocal striving. Like most singers, they are strategically working on changing, refining, and making their own voices. The book thus highlights the ways in which singers not only "have" voice, but actively acquire, cultivate and contest particular vocal dispositions for particular kinds of listeners. In framing a "Hindustani vocal ecumene" that encompasses a diverse range of classical, popular, and spiritual-devotional musical styles and practices, it offers an expansive look at ways of voice that extend far beyond commonsense boundaries of genre and place. A rich archive of audio and video examples are provided on the online companion site, which can be found at https://www.weslpress.org/readers-companions/.


Book Synopsis Ways of Voice by : Matthew Rahaim

Download or read book Ways of Voice written by Matthew Rahaim and published by Wesleyan University Press. This book was released on 2022-05-15 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ways of Voice explores techniques of voice production in North India, from Bollywood to raga music to ghazal to devotional hymns and Sufi song. The voices in play here are not merely given, but achieved. Singers consciously train themselves to cultivate characteristic vocal gaits, sonorities, and poetic attunements; they adopt postures of the vocal apparatus; they build habits of listening, temporality, and social relations. The action in Ways of Voice revolves around several dozen North Indian popular, devotional, classical, and folk singers engaged in projects of vocal striving. Like most singers, they are strategically working on changing, refining, and making their own voices. The book thus highlights the ways in which singers not only "have" voice, but actively acquire, cultivate and contest particular vocal dispositions for particular kinds of listeners. In framing a "Hindustani vocal ecumene" that encompasses a diverse range of classical, popular, and spiritual-devotional musical styles and practices, it offers an expansive look at ways of voice that extend far beyond commonsense boundaries of genre and place. A rich archive of audio and video examples are provided on the online companion site, which can be found at https://www.weslpress.org/readers-companions/.

The Race of Sound

The Race of Sound

Author: Nina Sun Eidsheim

Publisher: Duke University Press

Published: 2018-12-06

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 0822372649

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In The Race of Sound Nina Sun Eidsheim traces the ways in which sonic attributes that might seem natural, such as the voice and its qualities, are socially produced. Eidsheim illustrates how listeners measure race through sound and locate racial subjectivities in vocal timbre—the color or tone of a voice. Eidsheim examines singers Marian Anderson, Billie Holiday, and Jimmy Scott as well as the vocal synthesis technology Vocaloid to show how listeners carry a series of assumptions about the nature of the voice and to whom it belongs. Outlining how the voice is linked to ideas of racial essentialism and authenticity, Eidsheim untangles the relationship between race, gender, vocal technique, and timbre while addressing an undertheorized space of racial and ethnic performance. In so doing, she advances our knowledge of the cultural-historical formation of the timbral politics of difference and the ways that comprehending voice remains central to understanding human experience, all the while advocating for a form of listening that would allow us to hear singers in a self-reflexive, denaturalized way.


Book Synopsis The Race of Sound by : Nina Sun Eidsheim

Download or read book The Race of Sound written by Nina Sun Eidsheim and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2018-12-06 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In The Race of Sound Nina Sun Eidsheim traces the ways in which sonic attributes that might seem natural, such as the voice and its qualities, are socially produced. Eidsheim illustrates how listeners measure race through sound and locate racial subjectivities in vocal timbre—the color or tone of a voice. Eidsheim examines singers Marian Anderson, Billie Holiday, and Jimmy Scott as well as the vocal synthesis technology Vocaloid to show how listeners carry a series of assumptions about the nature of the voice and to whom it belongs. Outlining how the voice is linked to ideas of racial essentialism and authenticity, Eidsheim untangles the relationship between race, gender, vocal technique, and timbre while addressing an undertheorized space of racial and ethnic performance. In so doing, she advances our knowledge of the cultural-historical formation of the timbral politics of difference and the ways that comprehending voice remains central to understanding human experience, all the while advocating for a form of listening that would allow us to hear singers in a self-reflexive, denaturalized way.

Horrors of a Voice (object a)

Horrors of a Voice (object a)

Author: Tristam Adams

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published:

Total Pages: 290

ISBN-13: 303162050X

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Book Synopsis Horrors of a Voice (object a) by : Tristam Adams

Download or read book Horrors of a Voice (object a) written by Tristam Adams and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Coloring Whiteness

Coloring Whiteness

Author: Faedra Chatard Carpenter

Publisher: University of Michigan Press

Published: 2014-11-10

Total Pages: 313

ISBN-13: 0472052365

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Reading representations of whiteness by contemporary African American performers and artists


Book Synopsis Coloring Whiteness by : Faedra Chatard Carpenter

Download or read book Coloring Whiteness written by Faedra Chatard Carpenter and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2014-11-10 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reading representations of whiteness by contemporary African American performers and artists

The Oxford Handbook of Voice Studies

The Oxford Handbook of Voice Studies

Author: Nina Eidsheim

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2019-05-22

Total Pages: 960

ISBN-13: 0199982317

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More than 200 years after the first speaking machine, we are accustomed to voices that speak from any- and everywhere. We interact daily with voices that emit from house alarm systems, cars, telephones, and digital assistants, such as Alexa and Google Home. However, vocal events still have the capacity to raise age-old questions about the human, the animal, the machine, and the spiritual-or in non-metaphysical terms-questions about identity and authenticity. In The Oxford Handbook of Voice Studies, contributors look to the metaphorical voice as well as the clinical understanding of the vocal apparatus to answer the seemingly innocuous question: What is voice? From a range of disciplines including the humanities, biology, culture, and technology studies, contributors draw on the unique methodologies and values each has at hand to address the uses, meanings, practices, theories, methods, and sounds of the voice. Together, they assess the ways that discipline-specific, ontological, and epistemological assumptions of voice need to shift in order to take the findings of other fields into account. This Handbook thus enables a lively discussion as multifaceted and complex as the voice itself has proven to be.


Book Synopsis The Oxford Handbook of Voice Studies by : Nina Eidsheim

Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Voice Studies written by Nina Eidsheim and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2019-05-22 with total page 960 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: More than 200 years after the first speaking machine, we are accustomed to voices that speak from any- and everywhere. We interact daily with voices that emit from house alarm systems, cars, telephones, and digital assistants, such as Alexa and Google Home. However, vocal events still have the capacity to raise age-old questions about the human, the animal, the machine, and the spiritual-or in non-metaphysical terms-questions about identity and authenticity. In The Oxford Handbook of Voice Studies, contributors look to the metaphorical voice as well as the clinical understanding of the vocal apparatus to answer the seemingly innocuous question: What is voice? From a range of disciplines including the humanities, biology, culture, and technology studies, contributors draw on the unique methodologies and values each has at hand to address the uses, meanings, practices, theories, methods, and sounds of the voice. Together, they assess the ways that discipline-specific, ontological, and epistemological assumptions of voice need to shift in order to take the findings of other fields into account. This Handbook thus enables a lively discussion as multifaceted and complex as the voice itself has proven to be.

Multivocality

Multivocality

Author: Katherine Meizel PhD

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2020-01-02

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 0190621486

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Multivocality frames vocality as a way to investigate the voice in music, as a concept encompassing all the implications with which voice is inscribed-the negotiation of sound and Self, individual and culture, medium and meaning, ontology and embodiment. Like identity, vocality is fluid and constructed continually; even the most iconic of singers do not simply exercise a static voice throughout a lifetime. As 21st century singers habitually perform across styles, genres, cultural contexts, histories, and identities, the author suggests that they are not only performing in multiple vocalities, but more critically, they are performing multivocality-creating and recreating identity through the process of singing with many voices. Multivocality constitutes an effort toward a fuller understanding of how the singing voice figures in the negotiation of identity. Author Katherine Meizel recovers the idea of multivocality from its previously abstract treatment, and re-embodies it in the lived experiences of singers who work on and across the fluid borders of identity. Highlighting singers in vocal motion, Multivocality focuses on their transitions and transgressions across genre and gender boundaries, cultural borders, the lines between body and technology, between religious contexts, between found voices and lost ones.


Book Synopsis Multivocality by : Katherine Meizel PhD

Download or read book Multivocality written by Katherine Meizel PhD and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-01-02 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Multivocality frames vocality as a way to investigate the voice in music, as a concept encompassing all the implications with which voice is inscribed-the negotiation of sound and Self, individual and culture, medium and meaning, ontology and embodiment. Like identity, vocality is fluid and constructed continually; even the most iconic of singers do not simply exercise a static voice throughout a lifetime. As 21st century singers habitually perform across styles, genres, cultural contexts, histories, and identities, the author suggests that they are not only performing in multiple vocalities, but more critically, they are performing multivocality-creating and recreating identity through the process of singing with many voices. Multivocality constitutes an effort toward a fuller understanding of how the singing voice figures in the negotiation of identity. Author Katherine Meizel recovers the idea of multivocality from its previously abstract treatment, and re-embodies it in the lived experiences of singers who work on and across the fluid borders of identity. Highlighting singers in vocal motion, Multivocality focuses on their transitions and transgressions across genre and gender boundaries, cultural borders, the lines between body and technology, between religious contexts, between found voices and lost ones.

Voicing Girlhood in Popular Music

Voicing Girlhood in Popular Music

Author: Jacqueline Warwick

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-06-10

Total Pages: 338

ISBN-13: 1317424603

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This interdisciplinary volume explores the girl’s voice and the construction of girlhood in contemporary popular music, visiting girls as musicians, activists, and performers through topics that range from female vocal development during adolescence to girls’ online media culture. While girls’ voices are more prominent than ever in popular music culture, the specific sonic character of the young female voice is routinely denied authority. Decades old clichés of girls as frivolous, silly, and deserving of contempt prevail in mainstream popular image and sound. Nevertheless, girls find ways to raise their voices and make themselves heard. This volume explores the contemporary girl’s voice to illuminate the way ideals of girlhood are historically specific, and the way adults frame and construct girlhood to both valorize and vilify girls and women. Interrogating popular music, childhood, and gender, it analyzes the history of the all-girl band from the Runaways to the present; the changing anatomy of a girl’s voice throughout adolescence; girl’s participatory culture via youtube and rock camps, and representations of the girl’s voice in other media like audiobooks, film, and television. Essays consider girl performers like Jackie Evancho and Lorde, and all-girl bands like Sleater Kinney, The Slits and Warpaint, as well as performative 'girlishness' in the voices of female vocalists like Joni Mitchell, Beyoncé, Miley Cyrus, Taylor Swift, Kathleen Hanna, and Rebecca Black. Participating in girl studies within and beyond the field of music, this book unites scholarly perspectives from disciplines such as musicology, ethnomusicology, comparative literature, women’s and gender studies, media studies, and education to investigate the importance of girls’ voices in popular music, and to help unravel the complexities bound up in music and girlhood in the contemporary contexts of North America and the United Kingdom.


Book Synopsis Voicing Girlhood in Popular Music by : Jacqueline Warwick

Download or read book Voicing Girlhood in Popular Music written by Jacqueline Warwick and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-06-10 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This interdisciplinary volume explores the girl’s voice and the construction of girlhood in contemporary popular music, visiting girls as musicians, activists, and performers through topics that range from female vocal development during adolescence to girls’ online media culture. While girls’ voices are more prominent than ever in popular music culture, the specific sonic character of the young female voice is routinely denied authority. Decades old clichés of girls as frivolous, silly, and deserving of contempt prevail in mainstream popular image and sound. Nevertheless, girls find ways to raise their voices and make themselves heard. This volume explores the contemporary girl’s voice to illuminate the way ideals of girlhood are historically specific, and the way adults frame and construct girlhood to both valorize and vilify girls and women. Interrogating popular music, childhood, and gender, it analyzes the history of the all-girl band from the Runaways to the present; the changing anatomy of a girl’s voice throughout adolescence; girl’s participatory culture via youtube and rock camps, and representations of the girl’s voice in other media like audiobooks, film, and television. Essays consider girl performers like Jackie Evancho and Lorde, and all-girl bands like Sleater Kinney, The Slits and Warpaint, as well as performative 'girlishness' in the voices of female vocalists like Joni Mitchell, Beyoncé, Miley Cyrus, Taylor Swift, Kathleen Hanna, and Rebecca Black. Participating in girl studies within and beyond the field of music, this book unites scholarly perspectives from disciplines such as musicology, ethnomusicology, comparative literature, women’s and gender studies, media studies, and education to investigate the importance of girls’ voices in popular music, and to help unravel the complexities bound up in music and girlhood in the contemporary contexts of North America and the United Kingdom.

The Relentless Pursuit of Tone

The Relentless Pursuit of Tone

Author: Robert Fink

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2018-09-18

Total Pages: 400

ISBN-13: 0199985251

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The Relentless Pursuit of Tone: Timbre in Popular Music assembles a broad spectrum of contemporary perspectives on how "sound" functions in an equally wide array of popular music. Ranging from the twang of country banjoes and the sheen of hip-hop strings to the crunch of amplified guitars and the thump of subwoofers on the dance floor, this volume bridges the gap between timbre, our name for the purely acoustic characteristics of sound waves, and tone, an emergent musical construct that straddles the borderline between the perceptual and the political. Essays engage with the entire history of popular music as recorded sound, from the 1930s to the present day, under four large categories. "Genre" asks how sonic signatures define musical identities and publics; "Voice" considers the most naturalized musical instrument, the human voice, as racial and gendered signifier, as property or likeness, and as raw material for algorithmic perfection through software; "Instrument" tells stories of the way some iconic pop music machines-guitars, strings, synthesizers-got (or lost) their distinctive sounds; "Production" then puts it all together, asking structural questions about what happens in a recording studio, what is produced (sonic cartoons? rockist authenticity? empty space?) and what it all might mean.


Book Synopsis The Relentless Pursuit of Tone by : Robert Fink

Download or read book The Relentless Pursuit of Tone written by Robert Fink and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-09-18 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Relentless Pursuit of Tone: Timbre in Popular Music assembles a broad spectrum of contemporary perspectives on how "sound" functions in an equally wide array of popular music. Ranging from the twang of country banjoes and the sheen of hip-hop strings to the crunch of amplified guitars and the thump of subwoofers on the dance floor, this volume bridges the gap between timbre, our name for the purely acoustic characteristics of sound waves, and tone, an emergent musical construct that straddles the borderline between the perceptual and the political. Essays engage with the entire history of popular music as recorded sound, from the 1930s to the present day, under four large categories. "Genre" asks how sonic signatures define musical identities and publics; "Voice" considers the most naturalized musical instrument, the human voice, as racial and gendered signifier, as property or likeness, and as raw material for algorithmic perfection through software; "Instrument" tells stories of the way some iconic pop music machines-guitars, strings, synthesizers-got (or lost) their distinctive sounds; "Production" then puts it all together, asking structural questions about what happens in a recording studio, what is produced (sonic cartoons? rockist authenticity? empty space?) and what it all might mean.

Sensing Sound

Sensing Sound

Author: Nina Sun Eidsheim

Publisher: Duke University Press

Published: 2015-11-19

Total Pages: 278

ISBN-13: 0822374692

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In Sensing Sound Nina Sun Eidsheim offers a vibrational theory of music that radically re-envisions how we think about sound, music, and listening. Eidsheim shows how sound, music, and listening are dynamic and contextually dependent, rather than being fixed, knowable, and constant. She uses twenty-first-century operas by Juliana Snapper, Meredith Monk, Christopher Cerrone, and Alba Triana as case studies to challenge common assumptions about sound—such as air being the default medium through which it travels—and to demonstrate the importance a performance's location and reception play in its contingency. By theorizing the voice as an object of knowledge and rejecting the notion of an a priori definition of sound, Eidsheim releases the voice from a constraining set of fixed concepts and meanings. In Eidsheim's theory, music consists of aural, tactile, spatial, physical, material, and vibrational sensations. This expanded definition of music as manifested through material and personal relations suggests that we are all connected to each other in and through sound. Sensing Sound will appeal to readers interested in sound studies, new musicology, contemporary opera, and performance studies.


Book Synopsis Sensing Sound by : Nina Sun Eidsheim

Download or read book Sensing Sound written by Nina Sun Eidsheim and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2015-11-19 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Sensing Sound Nina Sun Eidsheim offers a vibrational theory of music that radically re-envisions how we think about sound, music, and listening. Eidsheim shows how sound, music, and listening are dynamic and contextually dependent, rather than being fixed, knowable, and constant. She uses twenty-first-century operas by Juliana Snapper, Meredith Monk, Christopher Cerrone, and Alba Triana as case studies to challenge common assumptions about sound—such as air being the default medium through which it travels—and to demonstrate the importance a performance's location and reception play in its contingency. By theorizing the voice as an object of knowledge and rejecting the notion of an a priori definition of sound, Eidsheim releases the voice from a constraining set of fixed concepts and meanings. In Eidsheim's theory, music consists of aural, tactile, spatial, physical, material, and vibrational sensations. This expanded definition of music as manifested through material and personal relations suggests that we are all connected to each other in and through sound. Sensing Sound will appeal to readers interested in sound studies, new musicology, contemporary opera, and performance studies.