Feminist Theory and Music 4 conference, 1997
University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA
paper by Hannah Bosma
(extended version)
Écriture Féminine in electrovocal music
When I say I study gender issues in music, many people react by asking in what way compositions by men are different from compositions by women. They even often offer some suggestions: aren't compositions by women more soft, smooth and sweet, and compositions by men more loud, abrupt and macho?
These questions embarrasse me. I am not searching for a general difference between compositions by men and by women, and I do not think such a search makes sense. Compositions relate to musical styles, to other compositions, and to other cultural products. There are huge differences between different musical styles and cultures; and, women differ greatly from each other, and men differ greatly from each other. Women can and do compose in many different ways.
But still, there remains a desire to study music in relation to gender, and not only the lives and professional positions of female composers. So far, I did research about the different roles of male and female voices in computer music and electro-acoustic music, and about the role of the female singer in this music. Those are features one can hear in the music and see in a performance. I also discussed the problematic notion of authorship in relation to feminist theories, and I discussed relations between male composer and female vocalist as it can be perceived in compositions and accompanying discourses. And now, there remains a desire to study compositions by female composers, and to look for ways in which issues of gender and femininity can be found in their work.
1. introduction
In her book Het zingend lichaam, Joke Dame suggests a similarity between the literary work of French women writers (such as Hélène Cixous) under the name of "écriture féminine" and music by composers like Luciano Berio and John Cage. Even more so, Dame proposes to consider as "écriture féminine musicale" the vocal music of Cathy Berberian, Joan La Barbara, Meredith Monk, Diamanda Galas, Laurie Anderson, Moniek Toebosch, Greetje Bijma and Jannie Pranger. However, Dame does not further work out this interesting suggestion.
In this paper, I will look more closely at this notion of "écriture féminine musicale". Dames notion of "écriture féminine musicale" evokes questions about the relation between this "feminine" music and the, predominantly male, musical avant-garde. Also, questions arise concerning the role of language, voice, body and electronic sound technology. All vocalists and composers mentioned by Dame not only used the voice, but also electronics.
2. What is écriture féminine (musicale)?
In "écriture féminine", features are elaborated that are traditionally, stereotypically considered as feminine. For example, "écriture féminine" is bodily and irrational. The concept of "écriture féminine" is therefore often criticized as reinforcing traditional, sexist, mysogynist stereotypes such as woman as irrational, excessive, bodily, sexual, governed by the cycles of nature, giving birth and nurturing children, mother and daughter forming a union.
In her suggestion of an "écriture féminine musicale", Dame stresses the vocal, non-verbal, non-linguistic aspects of "écriture féminine": close to the voice, the voice of early childhood and the voice of the mother, the body, the flesh and rythm of language, play, disruption, excess, gaps, grammatical and syntactic subversion, laughing. The idea that feminine vocal music is characterized by the use of nonverbal, pre-linguistic voice sounds, is also offered by Renee Cox in her article "Recovering Jouissance". Both Dame and Cox relate these aspects of "écriture féminine" to Kristeva's notion of the semiotic, that consists of the materiality of language, sound, the sound of the body, the movements of the voice, intonation, timbre, rythm, that accompany and disturb language. Kristeva´s "semiotic" is linked to the pre-linguistic, pre-symbolic, pre-Oedipal primary processes. Marcia Citron refers also to this idea in her book Gender and the Musical Canon.
And while the feminine writing of Cixous, Irigaray and others is much more rich and diverse than this description suggests, I want to focus in this paper only on the idea of the pre-linguistic voice as feminine. So I will not discuss other possible aspects of "ecriture feminine musicale", for example related to musical structure.
The pre-symbolic, pre-linguistic features are considered to be feminine, because these are characteristic for the little child when it is in a symbiotic relation with the mother, and because girls are not supposed to separate as much from the mother as boys. Kaja Silverman criticised this idea of femininity for not considering the mother as a teacher of language and culture. And, as Judith Butler notes, it does not take into account the cultural variety of mothering. Butler criticizes Kristeva's notion of the semiotic as supposing a natural, maternal body, independent of the cultural, symbolic order; instead, Butler argues that this idea of a natural, feminine, maternal body stems from this cultural, symbolic order. In line with this argument and following Foucault, I would say that every bodily practice is related to culture and is therefore a cultural practice.
Moreover, although women are considered to be more expressive and more responsive to paralinguistic emotional expression, Mirjam Tielen found in empirical research no difference between men and women in paralinguistic sensibility. Considering pre-symbolic, non-verbal vocal utterances as feminine, is an important, stereotypical idea that might not reflect the actual vocal behaviour of women. As a cultural idea however, it has an important existance in cultural products like literature and music. For example, producing non-verbal vocal sounds is an important stereotypical role for women in opera, film and electronic music, as Joke Dame, Michel Poizat, Kaja Silverman and I showed. [Moreover, Susan McClary discussed with respect to canonical works by male composers, how female voices are often assigned music that trangresses the rules of the then prevalent musical style.]
Ecriture féminine has a special relation to the avant-garde. Julia Kristeva, considers the semiotic, (that is, the pre-symbolic or pre-linguistic,) as a feminine realm that is much present in the works of male avant-garde writers like James Joyce and Antonin Artaud. Hélène Cixous also often refers to texts of James Joyce. Kristeva even argues that, because women are less anchored in the symbolic order, it is more dangerous for women to explore the semiotic order, because they could easily become too much entangled in the illogical realm.
Dame's musical examples of "écriture féminine musicale" also consist of avant-garde vocal music. Dame's lists of "écriture féminine" consists mainly of female vocalists and female vocalist-composers who experimented with their voices and transgressed the conventional ways of singing, performing or composing: Joan La Barbara, Meredith Monk, Diamanda Galas, Laurie Anderson, Moniek Toebosch, Greetje Bijma, Jannie Pranger. Thereby, Dame mentions two male composers who composed works for vocalists performing in an unconventional way: Luciano Berio and John Cage.
3. Thema
Thema: Omaggio a Joyce is one of the pieces made by Luciano Berio and Cathy Berberian. It is a tape composition, in which all the sound is derived from Berberian's voice. The particular sound of Berberian's voice is very characteristic of this piece. For this composition, a recording of Berberian reading a fragment from Joyce's Ulysses was made, and then manipulated by Berio. Berberian's voice is inextricably part of this composition, since this composition does not exist as a score, but as a recording. I would say, Berberian and Berio are both co-composers or co-producers of this piece. However, Thema is known as a composition by Berio. And to my surprise, in many texts (sleeve notes and analyses) about Thema, Berberian is not even mentioned; but James Joyce always is. In most texts about Thema, it is suggested that the voice is the same as Joyce's text; at most, "a voice" or "a female voice" is mentioned. In his article, Berio sees himself as following Joyce; he does not mention Berberian at all. A patrilinear descent is suggested, ignoring the woman. Thema: Omaggio a Joyce is a modernist, avant-garde composition. Both technologically and musically, it was, in 1958, innovative. It is modernist and avant-garde in its avoidance of melody, harmony and rythm, and in its analysis of musical and vocal material into small units and then building a different, new musical fabric. (However, compared with other avant-garde music in the fifties, especially serialism, Berio's music is far less rigid, less systematic and more sensual and appealing.) The title of the piece - Omaggio a Joyce -, the compositional procedure as described by Berio, and the piece itself, suggest that with this piece, Berio place himself in the "tradition" of modernist avant-garde writer James Joyce, extending Joyce's work.
Thema is full with unconventional, female vocal sound, in which we hear the sound of language and sound of the body. This is partly so because of Berberian's particular way of reading. Thereby, Joyce's text is itself unconventional and full with Kristeva's "semiotic" features: full of linguistic play and full of invitations to play with one's voice. Berio's cutting of Berberian's reading into fragments, dissolving the voice from language, greatly enhances my perception of the voice sounds as semiotic.
So full of semiotic, unconventional, female vocal sound, wouldn't Thema be a perfect example of "écriture féminine" in electronic music? The author politics of Thema, however, make me hesitate. In many writings about Thema, especially in Berio's article about the piece, Berberian's particular, impressive voice is reduced to anonymous linguistic material. Although so abundantly there, the feminine, semiotic voice, is not symbolically recognized nor valued. Moreover, in the composition itself, the de-semantisation of the female voice impresses me as often violent: cut into pieces and overwhelmed by electronic procedures.
Hélène Cixous cites with approval Molly Bloom's words in Joyce's Ulysses; Christel van Boheemen remarks that in that way Cixous values a stereotypical notion of femininity as elaborated by a male author: Molly goes on and on talking in a vulgar and bodily way, thereby conforming to a common misogynist stereotype. In Thema, we also hear a feminine voice in a work by a male author. There is a great difference, however: in the composition, we do not exclusively hear a woman's voice as invented by a male author; we hear the female vocal art of Cathy Berberian, recorded and incorporated in Berio's composition.
Cixous and Irigaray very explicitly value femininity as an alternative economy that exceeds binary logic and can overturn the existing patriarchal order. "A feminine subject refuses to appropriate or annihilate the other's difference in order to construct the self in a (masculine) position of mastery", says Cixous. Is Berio a feminine subject? I would say no: Berberian's work was appropriated by him. There is no place for two different authors of Thema in its surrounding dominant discourse. However, as feminist listening subjects, we can revalue Berberian's part.
4. vocalist-composers
Berberian's vocal art mostly came into the world through compositions authored by male composers. Even when Berberian's particular voice and creativity is indissolubly part of the tape-compositions Thema: Omaggio a Joyce and Visage, these compositions are still known as "composed by Berio". In a stereotypical way, the female voice is considered as "sound material", and the male composer, who orders this material, is considered as most important.
The vocal art of Cathy Berberian was a great inspiration for many female vocalists. Some of these female vocalist not only became singers, but also composers of their own work. Vocalist-composers like Diamanda Galas and Joan La Barbara made compositions to be performed with their own voice and compositions with their voice on tape. Author politics are different in these works: since vocalist and composer are one, the vocalist clearly figures as author. The composer-vocalists take both the masculine position of composer, determining structure, and the feminine position as vocalist, producing vocal sound.
For composing and authoring their vocal work, electronic sound technology is of great help. The vocalist-composers use recording, amplifying and sound processing for the manipulation of their voice sound, for structuring and composing, and for fixing the composition and disseminating it. Sound technology makes it possible to compose a fixed composition with one's own voice, instead of writing a score to be performed. Diamanda Galas and Laurie Anderson are often seen on stage as mastering the technological equipment, by for example turning knobs and by using different microphones to choose different ways of processing their voice. In the work of Laurie Anderson, technology is in many forms a recurrent theme. When one adheres to traditional notions of femininity as bodily, unmediated and natural, the importance of electronic sound technology for processing, composing and disseminating their voice, seems at odds with the supposed femininity of the work of these women.
In the work of these vocalists-composers, non-verbal and unconventional vocal sounds play often an important role. Are these sounds a revolutionary break-through of the feminine, the body, the semiotic order? Is this music therefore "feminine music"? The breaking-up of language and the use of non-verbal vocal sounds is however an established practice in the predominantly male musical avant-garde, for example in music by Luciano Berio, Karlheinz Stockhausen, György Ligeti, Dieter Schnebel, and many others. Moreover, breaking up language is also the most significant device of the conspiciously male tradition of sound poetry, as for example the work of dadaists like Hugo Ball and Kurt Schwitters, and of contemporary artists like Henry Chopin, Jaap Blonk, and many others. When I compare the non-verbal vocal parts of these male traditions with the vocal parts of the female vocalist-composers, I find an important difference: most of the female vocal works are much more related to singing. The avant-garde composers splice language and leave the realisation in sound to others; the sound poets stutter and cry; the female vocalist-composers mostly sing in many different ways. I do not consider the femininity of the non-verbal vocalizing of female vocalist-composers like Joan La Barbara and Diamanda Galas as free, raw, bodily semiotic; the femininity of these works consists of the extension, development and staging of cultural practices of singing [- and singing is, in our contemporary culture, mostly practised by women, and can therefore considered as a feminine practice.] Instead of submitting to the cultural laws of singing, these vocalist-composers change the rules of singing and thereby change the cultural order. By composing with their unconventional, newly invented voice sounds, the opposition between the work of the composer and the work of the vocalist is abandoned. Vocalising has become, explicitly, creating.
Moreover, the female vocalist-composers often do not stay in the realm of non-verbal, unconventional sounds. I find it remarkable that in the work of Diamanda Galas, text and musical style (that is, musical conventions) have become more and more important as signifying elements to play, parody, comment and convey. It is also remarkable that in Berberian's own solo performance show Recital, she tells stories and plays and parodies with different singing styles. And, obviously, in the work of Laurie Anderson, text and speech have always been very important; the more so in her story-telling project "Songs from the Nerve Bible". The few non-verbal voice-like sounds in Laurie Anderson's work are often very much electronically mediated.
So I would say that the work of these women vocalist-composers is feminine because they work with cultural, feminine practices of singing and performing; I do not consider their work as feminine because their presumed "raw", uncultural body breaks up language and musical style. Breaking up language is a male avant-garde practice that has been appropriated by the female vocalist-composers, and has been extended by them in different ways. The women vocalist-composers combine feminine cultural practices of singing and performance with "masculine" cultural domains of avant-garde, authorship, composing, language and technology.
5. Coda: other female composers
In some elektrovocal compositions by women composers, I found elements that are strikingly in tune with some of the issues I just discussed. Wende Bartley, Vivian Adelberg Rudow and Alison Isadora made compositions with voice and electronics without primarily using their own voice. In the compositions I will discuss, references to female or feminine practices and tradition are very explicit. I find it remarkable, that in their work female voices are often speaking, or that, when non-verbal, signification still plays an important role.
The composition With Love, by Vivian Adelberg Rudow, is for cello and tape. In the programme notes, the composer explains how this composition relates to a very feminine issue: motherhood. In some performances, loudspeakers are placed in two decorated cello cases: one is called "Electronic Woman", the other "Electronic Mom". On the tape, there are voices of 23 people telling about their mothers, or about being a mother. Moreover, there is newly composed music, and fragments of older pieces by the composer.
Interestingly, the only non-verbal voice sound we hear in With Love, seems to come from a baby and a man's voice. Mothers or women are not associated with non-verbal sounds and the pre-symbolic world here. Instead, the mothers are described as being very capable of adult activities like hiking, driving, cooking and being an artist. Mothers have an adult speaking voice. Not the pre-symbolic child in the mother-woman is being celebrated; the focus is on mothers as adults and as cultural subjects. Also it is discussed that one can find particular inherited traces of ones mother in oneself (whether one is male or female). This idea seems to be parallelled by the musical idea of re-using recorded fragments from older compositions by the composer. Thus, sound technology is not merely used here for modernist goals of complete, systematic control of even the aspects of sound that are least under control of the composer, such as timbre and microfluctuations of pitch and timing. Instead, sound technology is used for some of its most primary and worldly features: recording and re-playing, intermingling of elements from different times, and joining of different voices.
Wende Bartley's Rising Tides of Generations Lost is entirely a tape composition. Non-verbal voice sounds, fragments of words, as well as words and sentences can be heard. These are spoken by different female voices. The programme notes of the composer as well as the words and sentences in the composition, relate to a "history of woman". In this context, the fragmented voice sounds do not function as "pure", abstract sounds, but refer to acquiring or loosing a metaphorical voice, that is, the power to speak and act openly. This acquiring or loosing a voice is located in history: for example, voices desintegrate in a sound that reminds one of fire, of the burning of witches. These non-verbal voice sounds are not located in the pre-symbolic situation of the mother-child dyad; instead, the association of the woman's voice with non-verbal sounds is placed in a historical and political context.
Another composition in which female voice and electronics are combined is Hoofdwascomposed by Alison Isadora, for soprano, washing machine and electronics, performed in Amsterdam in De IJsbreker and at STEIM, among others, by soprano Jannie Pranger. The singer sings and speaks texts about washing and about some special, independent women in the early days of the washing machine (for example: travelling with a washing machine on a motorbike) - part of the history of women and technology. Thereby, the singer uses a washing machine on stage to wash; the sound of it is electronically amplified and processed. Moreover, the singer sings singing exercises, and tells about practising singing, and how good it is to combine it with washing. She tells, that different stages of the washing process can be used for different stages of practising singing, like warming up the voice, learning melody, or learning text. So, the non-verbal voice sounds are not presented as excessive, absolute or abstract, but as part of the practice of singing; and singing is an occupation, that in our contemporary culture, is mostly practised by women and is associated with femininity as well as with cultural agency and pleasure. Both women and the art of singing go together very well with electronic technology, already for almost a century.
6.To conclude
The idea that women have a priviliged relation to the pre-cultural, pre-linguistic of pre-symbolic realm, is a common stereotypical idea in our culture. "Ecriture féminine" reinforces, elaborates and extends this idea. Instead, I do not relate femininity to the general notion of a presumed uncultural body. I consider feminine practices such as mothering and singing as cultural practices of women. In the work of female vocalist-composers and of women composers, I perceive a mixture of masculine and feminine cultural practices, such as singing, composing and electronic sound technology; and often I find in electrovocal work of women composers references to cultural feminine issues like mothering and singing.
Abstract
In this paper, I look for femininity in electrovocal music. My point of departure is, following Dame, Citron and Cox, that pre-symbolic, pre-linguistic or non-linguistic vocal utterances can be considered as a feminine realm. But, however suggestive this idea is, for me the problem is that the fragmentation of language is a common avant-garde practise of male composers like Berio, Stockhausen, Boulez, Nono, Schnebel and many others.
1) In my opinion, the specificity of the work of female vocalist-composers as Diamanda Galas, Meredith Monk and Shelley Hirsch, is not their production of non-verbal vocal sounds as such; the feminist aspects of their work are, in my point of view, the emancipation, extension and innovation of feminine practices of singing, accompanied by a change in author politics and by the use of electronics: these women sing and compose their own elektrovocal music.
2) In elektrovocal works by female composers, I often find explicit references to women's issues; for example, in the work of Wende Bartley. In this respect, linguistic utterances are often important, whether in the music or in the programme notes. Also, non-verbal vocalisations often do not appear as abstract, absolute, meaningless sound, but acquir a much more specific meaning by their context.
So, I moved away from a general, abstract idea of feminine music as characterised by pre-symbolic utterances, to focus on specific references to women's issues and practices, and to focus on specific points of contact with feminist theories.
