| by Hannah Bosma |
1. What is an author?
As Barthes (1968), Foucault (1969), Silverman (1988) and Citron (1993) show,
the notion of the author is complex. The author is a person, a myth, a way to
classify works and a function of a text. The author is an interesting
analytical category and especially relevant in relation to gender issues. In
electroacoustic and computer music, the possibilities of authorship differ from
written texts as well as from performed music.
The power ànd the problem of the author reside in the permanency of his
or her creative work. Because of its permanence, a written text can be studied
by different persons in different times and places. The author will `exist'
`forever' through the permanency of the written texts. But, as Barthes and
Derrida tell us, the author is always absent from the text. The text has a
`life' of its own, over which the author has no power. In this respect, the
author is `dead': for the reader, there is only a text, and there is no
guarantee that the intentions of the author will come through.
With the advent of audio and visual recording technology, performance can
become a permanent, reproduceable, authoritative text. Before, performance
(e.g., singing) existed only in the moment itself: the sound art of the famous
castrati is forever lost, but not the scores of their contemporary composers.
Sound recording technology made it possible for the creations of singers to
outlive the performance as well as the performers and to be copied and
multiplied. Now, vocal creations by, for example, Enrico Caruso or Maria Callas
are authoritative `sound texts'. Listeners can interpret and use these `sound
texts' in their own way; and the sound can be copied, sampled, cited,
manipulated, and become a part of other compositions. In this respect, the
singer, like the author, is `dead'.[1]
Sound technology not only made it possible to record a performance of a score
or an improvisation, but also to compose directly with sound on tape. This can
have important consequences for the authorial status of composer and singer.
Theoretically, a singer now can become an author of a permanent creative object
with a recording of a performance or an improvisation, or with a
tape-composition of her vocal sound. But in practice, sound technology did not
eliminate the dichotomy of composer and performer. For example, this division
lies at the heart of the law for copyright and neighbouring rights in relation
to recorded sound products like CD's.
I will now have a look at the status of women's voices in different
electrovocal compositions. I will consider different forms, functions and
places these voices have or are assigned, not only in tape compositions but
also in the accompanying texts and practices. It will be shown that voices or
vocalists can have different roles with regard to authorship in electronic
music. In electronic music, female voices can function as anonymous vocal
material, performer, improvisor, co-author or author. In some electrovocal
compositions, the authorial status of the female voice is an explicit theme.
2. Thema: Omaggio a Joyce
The first well-known tape-composition with a female voice is Thema: Omaggio
a Joyce (1958) by Luciano Berio. Although often not recognizable as such,
it is completely made of electronically manipulated voice sounds uttered by one
woman. Thema is entirely based on a reading of the beginning of chapter
11, the `siren chapter', of James Joyce's Ulysses. Especially in the
first and last minute of the piece, we clearly hear this woman's voice. It has
a particular, attractive, warm and full timbre. The voice is fragmented, cut
into pieces, and recomposed into strange combinations. Often, the voice seems
to be overwhelmed by noises.
The sleeve notes, like many other texts about Thema, are based on a text Berio himself wrote about this composition (Berio 1959).[2]
It is remarkable in this essay that Berio relates the
text to the music, but wrote almost nothing about the voice. His text suggests
that the spoken text is a neutral extension of the written text. We read
nothing about the special, particular sound of this voice. We don't even read
who the `owner', the `author', of this voice is. In Berio's text, only two male
authors appear: Joyce and Berio. The text of the male composer-author is silent
about an anonymous female vocal artist, who functions as `vocal material'.
Whose voice is this? The owner of this voice is rarely mentioned in texts
about Thema, although the entire composition is made of its sound.
[3] This is not `just a voice'. It is the voice of
Cathy Berberian, the great vocal artist who with her extraordinary vocal
abilities and creativity co-produced many vocal compostions of Berio and other
composers.
Stoïanova (1985) interviewed Berio as well as others who were involved
with his work. Again, Berio doesn't mention Berberian in relation to Thema.
[4] But Stoïanova lets
others speak who do mention Berberian's creative role in the making of Thema: Umberto Eco and Cathy Berberian herself.[5] Reading or performing a text is not a neutral
translation of the written text but a creative act (Fónagy 1983). There
is one written text and many ways to read it. Added are timbres, intonations,
rhythms, pauses etc., what is often called the `musical' part of language. A
written text can suggest some of these musical elements, but there is always
much room left for its creative vocal performance. Especially onomatopoeia,
which occur so often in Joyces' text, `invite' the reader to interpret, to play
with the voice sounds and voice organs and to exceed the rules of language
(Attridge 1988).
The work of the vocalist and the composer is inextricably interwoven in Thema. But only the composer Berio is the author of this piece. His
name belongs to the composition. Vocalist Berberian is often not even
mentioned.
3. Visage
The next electrovocal composition of Berio, Visage (1961), is also a
next step in the relationship of author and voice. Visage consists
mainly, and most prominently, of the voice of Cathy Berberian, uttering all
kinds of sounds, and only one word: `parole'. For this composition, Berio asked
Berberian to improvise according to a few vague instructions (Berberian in
Stoïanova 1985: 70). The recording of this improvisation forms the main
part of Visage; Berio made a montage of it and added electronic sounds
and manipulations in the background (Osmond-Smith 1991). Berberian's sighing,
crying, laughing, moaning, groaning and stammering, and her many other
impressive non-verbal voice sounds, are the most striking features of
Visage. One can imagine that these sounds shocked the Radio of Milano:
Visage was considered as `obscene' and `too pornographic' (Berberian in
Stoïanova 1985; Osmond-Smith 1991); and though Visage was made in
the Studio of Phonology of the Radio of Milano, it was not broadcast in full
(Stoïanova 1985).
With Visage, an important promise of electronic sound technology is
fulfilled: that is, features that previously were considered as part of
performance, i.e., vocal production and improvisation, now form a permanent,
reproduceable, distributable product - a composition. But still, Berberian is
not considered as a co-composer or co-author. She is mentioned in the sleeve
notes, but her place is far less prominent than Berio's. Indeed, although most
of the pieces on this CD mainly consist of
Berberian's voice, her name is not on the cover; only the names of composers
Berio and Maderna.[6] And in Dreßen's (1982) analysis of Visage
(just as in his analysis of Thema), Dreßen does not even
mention that the voice in this piece is a female voice. Strangely, he does
mention that in the end `a kind of electronic men's choir comes out' of the
sound mass (92). (Otherwise, he only writes about `a voice'.) Stoïanova
suggests that Berberian's art is unconscious by writing that `her voice'
`invented the expressive utterances' (67). According to Stoïanova, `the
author' (i.e., Berio) is `the owner of the body, matter, sensuality and
compositional technique' and `composes a coherent version' by his
`compositional cutting' (71).
According to the texts accompanying Visage, the male composer-author
organised (i.e. predominantly the work of the mind) and `owns' the piece and is
presented as most important. The female vocalist, who produced the most
striking part of the composition by her vocal art, vocal sound production and
improvisation (i.e., work of body and mind), is assigned a less prominent
place. Though this avant-garde composition was made with the newest technology,
the old hierarchic dualism is still found.
4. La Barbara: The Name, The Sounds, The Music
La Barbara: The Name, The Sounds, The Music (1991) by Larry Austin is another electroacoustic
composition with female voice by a male composer. The relation between author
and voice in this piece is uncommon.
[7]
`La Barbara was commisioned and composed for performance by the
accomplished and acclaimed singer and composer, Joan La Barbara', says the
first sentence of the sleeve notes. In La Barbara, we hear fragments of
an interview by Larry Austin with singer-composer Joan La Barbara; `thirty
three moments extracted from our recorded conversation, moments chosen because
they seemed an essence of a facet of her career as a singer/vocalist/composer'.
One hears Joan La Barbara talking about her authorship: she talks about her
name, about the sounds of her name; about the vocal sounds she makes; she
describes why she uses certain sounds and how she composes with her voice
sounds. One also hears the vocal art of Joan La Barbara, consisting of
non-verbal extended voice sounds. On the tape, La Barbara's voice sounds are
treated so that they keep their own character: the electronic processing
stresses the richness of these sounds and does not destroy or overwhelm La
Barbara's voice. In a live performance of the composition, one will also hear
and see Joan La Barbara `live': doing vocal improvisation on the stage,
accompanying the playback of the tape.
In the interview on the tape, Joan La Barbara talks about her name, La
Barbara. She acquiered this name when she married. The marriage lasted only ten
months, but she kept the name after changing it a little bit, because she liked
the sound of this name: it had a better `flow' than her own name. Then, she
demonstrates what she means by vocally `performing' her name, by making the
`flow' she hears in this name explicit by the intonation and timing of her
voice. One also hears her improvising on the sounds of her name.
The author-composer of La Barbara: The Name, The Sound, The Music is
Larry Austin. Austin owns the copyright. But in this composition, the vocalist
is presented as another author, not only of other compositions, but also of her
vocal art: her vocal sound production and her vocal improvisation. This is
being done by a juxtaposition of her different `discourses':
5. Hildegard Westerkamp: India Sound Journal
In the work of Hildegard Westerkamp, her own speaking voice is often present.
India Sound Journal (Montreal, September 1995) consists of recordings of
environmental sounds in India, combined with the projection of images made
during the same journey, and with Westerkamp's voice. In the performance,
first, one heard Westerkamp's speaking voice without seeing anybody. She said:
`I am in India', and mentioned a date in the past. Then, one heard this same
voice, saying: `I am in Montreal', and she mentioned the date that day.
Hildegard Westerkamp seemed to have two voices, one in the past, one in the
present. Confusion. Were these voices live or recorded? Then, Westerkamp
herself came on the stage, and told with a musical timing about her experiences
in India: the confusing, overwhelming sensory perceptions, the large contrasts;
being immersed in a culture which is so different. At the same time, there were
sounds and pictures of this experience.
Here, the author is in the middle of the piece, referring to the author
outside the piece, to the experiences of the author in another world. But,
while at the same time `mastering' her piece and her performance, this author
is telling about being overwhelmed and confused in another culture, in another
place.
By telling about her own experiences it is stressed that this female vocal
performer is not `just' a vocalist, but is the composer-author. And, the vocal
and bodily presence of the author in this piece stresses that the
composer-author is female. Both are exceptional, since female vocalists are
mostly performers and not composers, and composers are mostly male.
Westerkamp's presence in the piece stresses her subjectivity in different ways:
6. Conclusion
The complex notion of authorship is an interesting analytical category in relation to gender and electrovocal music. Although electronic sound recording and processing technology offers possibilities to change the authorial status of vocalists by 1) changing the status of their work from evanescent performance to reproduceable, durable, distributable object and 2) using specific vocal sound as basis and inextricable part of a composition, female voices in electronic music are often incorporated as vocal objects. Whereas in performed music the singer is impressively present, in tape music sometimes the name of the vocalist who produced the recorded and processed sounds is not even mentioned. But there are also compositions in which different forms of vocal, compositional and textual authorship are explored and the stereotypical, hierarchical dichotomy of male composer and female voice is abandoned.
[1] Like in Any Resemblance Is Purely Coincidental (1980) by Charles Dodge, and Maria Callas (1988) by Christian Marclay.
[2] CD Berio/Maderna: Electronic works, Acousmatrix 7, BV Haast Records CD 9109. The sleeve notes are written by Konrad Boehmer.
[3] In Dreßen's (1982) extensive analysis of Thema, it is not even mentioned that this voice is a female voice: he only mentions "der Überführung des Textes aus dem abstrakten Schriftbild in die Konkrete akustische Ebene. Der Text wurde hörbar [...]" (45-6)). Griffiths (1979) as well as the sleeve notes of the CD (Boehmer) only implicitly mention Berberian as the voice of Thema, when they discuss Berio's Visage.
[4] In Berio/Dalmonte (1981/1983) Berio does mention Berberian as the voice in Thema: he mentions Sequenza III, Thema, Circles and Visage as `des oeuvres qui sont toutes liées à la voix de Cathy Berberian, laquelle a été pour moi une sorte de second Studio de phonologie.' (125) Note that Berberian here is not presented as a creative subject.
[5] Osmond-Smith (1991) also mentions Berberian's share.
[6] Berio/Maderna: Electronic works, Acousmatrix 7, BVHaast CD 9109.
[7] For voice and computer music on tape; recording on Centaur Records, CRC 2166, CDCM CMS 13, with Joan La Barbara, soprano.
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