The corporeality of musical expression: the grain of the voice and the actor-musician

2007 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 167-181 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dominic Symonds
Keyword(s):  
Source Material ◽  
Symbolic Order ◽  
Musical Expression ◽  
Physical Presence ◽  
The Voice

This article considers the essential engagement of a physical corporeality in making music, a presence that is rewardingly encountered in music theatre, where it is not merely implied but visually, kinaesthetically and corporeally witnessed. Through a detailed discussion of Barthes's The Grain of the Voice and its Kristevan source material, the author understands this physical presence to sit at the very heart of the genotextual potential of performance. The article observes the work of UK music theatre group SharpWire and other actor-musician ensembles, such as those involved in John Doyle's recent productions, and suggests that in the performance of music theatre, the actor-musician re-enacts the emergence into the Symbolic order that is the very essence of human expression.

The Voice of Angels?

2019 ◽  
pp. 156-168
Author(s):  
Patrik N. Juslin
Keyword(s):  
Great Degree ◽  
Musical Expression ◽  
The Voice ◽  
Music And Emotion

The previous chapters outline a number of musical features that may be used to express emotions, such as happiness and tenderness, and show that these features have certain characteristics that constrain their use. This chapter explains why and how the features come to denote emotions in the first place. Such an account can help resolve the second paradox of music and emotion. Some authors regard musical expression as something ‘subjective’ and ‘ambiguous’, whereas others as something that involves a great degree of inter-individual agreement. Exploring how musical expression actually ‘works’ shows that there is some truth to each of these perspectives.

An Ironic Overlay: The Use of Voice-Over Narration in The Age of Innocence, by Martin Scorsese

Adaptation ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 161-175
Author(s):  
Cynthia Beatrice Costa
Keyword(s):  
Edith Wharton ◽  
Source Material ◽  
Inside Information ◽  
Rhetorical Device ◽  
Martin Scorsese ◽  
The Age Of Innocence ◽  
Degree Of Association ◽  
The Voice

Abstract Often praised for its cinematic artistry and faithfulness to the homonymous novel (Edith Wharton, 1920), The Age of Innocence (Martin Scorsese, 1993) is sometimes seen, however, as a reminder of the perils of voice-over narration in fiction films (Herman). By examining its use in relation to notions of novel adaptation (Whelehan; Leitch) and approaching irony in the film as a rhetorical device (Booth; Hutcheon; MacDowell), this article counterpoints the opinion (Travers; Cahir) that the voice-over narration might have decreased the dramatic potency of Scorsese’s work. In doing so, two main hypotheses emerged: (1) displaying a voice that purposefully invokes the novel’s author might have enhanced the degree of association between adaptation and source material, and (2) in deepening the viewers’ understanding of certain scenes by revealing inside information, the voice-over adds an ironic overlay to the film.

Adolescent singers and perceptions of vocal identity

2003 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 243-256 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Monks
Keyword(s):  
Technical Development ◽  
Musical Expression ◽  
Choral Directors ◽  
Self Image ◽  
Rich Diversity ◽  
Rehearsal Strategies ◽  
Human Psyche ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Voice ◽  
The Way

The link between voice and self-image is so fundamental it is often overlooked or taken for granted. Yet the knowledge of this relationship has much to teach singing teachers and choral directors in making communication with singers more effective, in choice of repertoire, technical development and rehearsal strategies. This study set out to explore the way adolescent singers think about their voices and express themselves through singing. The results produced a rich diversity of evidence which suggests that vocal change is a fruitful area for exploring in greater depth the relationship between the voice, musical expression and the human psyche.

scholarly journals Voices that Matter?

2021 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 113-137
Author(s):  
Josephine Hoegaerts
Keyword(s):  
Sound Studies ◽  
Source Material ◽  
Historical Research ◽  
Practical Approach ◽  
Interdisciplinary Methods ◽  
Business Meetings ◽  
History Of ◽  
Bodily Practice ◽  
Analytical Approaches ◽  
The Voice

How do we thoroughly historicize the voice, or integrate it into our historical research, and how do we account for the mundane daily practices of voice . . . the constant talking, humming, murmuring, whispering, and mumbling that went on off stage, in living rooms, debating clubs, business meetings, and on the streets? Work across the humanities has provided us with approaches to deal with aspects of voices, vocality, and their sounds. This article considers how we can mobilize and adapt such interdisciplinary methods for the study of history. It charts out a practical approach to attend to the history of voices—including unmusical ones—before recording, drawing on insights from the fields of sound studies, musicology, and performativity. It suggests ways to “listen anew” to familiar sources as well as less conventional source material. And it insists on a combination of analytical approaches focusing on vocabulary, bodily practice, and the questionable particularity of sound.

The Voice in Women

2021 ◽  
Vol 54 (1) ◽  
pp. 105-115
Author(s):  
Barbara Borts
Keyword(s):  
Female Body ◽  
Orthodox Jewish ◽  
Women's Voices ◽  
Physical Presence ◽  
The Voice ◽  
Secular Life

Most Jews have heard about Kol Isha, the proscription against women raising their voices in song. But discussions about the voice of a woman were broader than whether or not she could sing and in what context, and in whose presence. The discomfort men had about women, not just singing but also speaking, has never been simply an issue of a voice, but rather of a voice embodied in a particular body, a female body, whose physical presence has traditionally presented a problem for Jewish men. These days, this is not solely an uncomfortable problem within the Orthodox Jewish world, but also within the progressive Jewish world, where women’s voices and women’s presence are still challenging and discomfiting to people. Nor does it remain solely a source of Jewish anxiety; women and their voices affect women in all aspects of secular life as well.

The Inner Life of Sound

2020 ◽  
pp. 74-84
Author(s):  
Walter S. Reiter
Keyword(s):  
Essential Element ◽  
Musical Expression ◽  
Inner Life ◽  
Constant Attention ◽  
Modern Times ◽  
The Many ◽  
Messa Di Voce ◽  
The Voice

One essential element of musical expression is the living sound, capable of holding the constant attention of the audience. This lesson traces that ubiquitous concept from Caccini’s “swelling and abating of the voice” (1602) to the violin études of Mazas (1843). In the Baroque sound world, free from the all-pervasive vibrato of modern times, it was the responsibility of the bow to provide this ‘inner life of sound.’ Based mainly on the writings of Tartini, Geminiani, and Leopold Mozart, all of whom are quoted, this lesson contains five exercises for perfecting the expressive device that guaranteed this living sound, the “Messa di voce.” The many different aspects of its technique, gleaned from the sources, are isolated and explained in detail, from simple pressure with the forefinger to the addition of vibrato: two composers who indicated this device in their compositions, Veracini and Piani, are quoted and illustrated.

scholarly journals The Voice and the Gaze as ‘objet petit a’

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Utsav Banerjee ◽  
Keyword(s):  
English Translation ◽  
Symbolic Order ◽  
The Real ◽  
The Gaze ◽  
Objet Petit A ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Voice ◽  
Lost Object

Repression of the Real is a function of the coming-into-being of the Symbolic Order. That which is repressed resurfaces in the Symbolic, thereby threatening its order. What resurfaces is the non-repressible remainder, an excess that can neither be conceptualized nor can be eliminated. This remainder of the Real is what Lacan refers to as objet petit a or simply objet a. Objet is French for object, petit is French for small, and a is the first letter in the French autre, meaning other. In casual English translation, therefore, the objet a is essentially the small other. For Lacan, the objet a is a signifier of the Real that is lost in the process of symbolic constitution of the subject which resurfaces in the Symbolic Order. Its name is a misnomer in that it is not an object at all. It is rather a non-object because what is originarily lost is nothing—the original loss or the lost object is only a retroactive construction. And it is this loss that becomes the cause of desire, precisely because of the fact as a loss/lack it provides the necessary immaterial basis for desire—we desire what we have lost or currently lack. In other words, objet a is the object-cause of desire. It is equivalent of the partial object in Freud. Freud speaks of three partial objects—namely, breasts, faeces, and phallus; in Lacan, we find two more—namely, the voice and the gaze. This paper examines the voice and the gaze as objet a in Lacan.

scholarly journals The Sustainability Aspects of the Construction Industry in Crisis (Pandemic)

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rupali Suresh Desai ◽  
Upendra R Saharkar
Keyword(s):  
Construction Industry ◽  
Infrastructure Development ◽  
Corona Virus ◽  
Professional Environment ◽  
Physical Presence ◽  
Life Threatening ◽  
The Right ◽  
Living Objects ◽  
The Voice

Covid-19 has turned all living objects into an entirely unprecedented ways of living life with the right approach towards sustainability. This has made ample amount of changes in experiencing a life. In a professional environment, every industry has suffered in the wave of life threatening disease of Covid-19 which is well known by the name “Corona virus”. Civil industry is one of them and perhaps the most affected industry where the physical presence of workforce is utmost important to execute the work. The work lagging has tremendously affect the economy that it almost stopped the development in Infrastructure development and hence economy. This study has come up with the thorough preparation by referring to multiple articles, live examples and from the voice of experienced individuals who felt the heat of the wave.

scholarly journals Words Left Unspoken in the Lives of the Black

2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (2 (16)) ◽  
pp. 63-71
Author(s):  
Vicky Tchaparian
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Black History ◽  
Symbolic Order ◽  
African American Community ◽  
Absence Of Power ◽  
Speak Up ◽  
The Voice

Toni Morrison’s fifth novel, Beloved, represents a postmodern traumatic story the characters of which deal with black history and the scars it has left on the African American community. As Rafael Perez-Torres claims, “the story of slavery invoked by Beloved is built on the absence of power, the absence of selfdetermination, the absence of homeland, the absence of a language” (Perez-Torres 1993:131). Throughout the story T. Morrison gives a voice to a ghost to speak up, but she takes away the voice of the ghost’s mother who does not have the power to tell her story about her infanticide and so, has a troubled relationship with language. Later, Beloved’s sister, Denver, who becomes dumb and deaf after learning the story about her mother’s infanticide, gets back her senses when she goes to the community to ask for help to nurture her suffering mother. Although T. Morrison treats different themes, the following paper is an attempt to study the importance of language in Beloved, through comparing the Maternity symbolic order in Morrison to the Paternity symbolic order in Jacque Lacan’s The Psychoses (1955-1956).

DIS/EMBODYING AUTHORITY: FEMALE RADIO “PREACHERS” AND THE AMBIVALENCES OF MASS-MEDIATED SPEECH IN MALI

2012 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 23-43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dorothea Schulz
Keyword(s):  
Muslim Women ◽  
Religious Knowledge ◽  
Media Technologies ◽  
Physical Presence ◽  
The Media ◽  
Sound Reproduction Technologies ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Cultural Constructions ◽  
The Voice ◽  
Gender Specific

AbstractThis article explores how the introduction of sound reproduction technologies inflects what were previously considered authoritative, standardized, and gender-specific forms of religious leadership and how these changes affect in turn the (gendered) subjects of media practice. Examining the recent, controversial public presence of female radio preachers in Mali, the article elucidates the often ambivalent reactions to their radio-mediated dissociation of voice and physical presence, ambivalences that are expressed in the form of gender-specific evaluations of the acceptability of preaching on radio. The article thus argues that analyses of the controversial position of Muslim women in religious debates might benefit from a close scrutiny of the media technologies that enable these women's public mediation and also from paying sustained attention to cultural constructions of the voice as a medium of transmitting religious knowledge.

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