www.hannahbosma.nl

Ctrl+Shift Art - Ctrl+Shift Gender

As a follow-up to The Facelift of Gender, Axis, the Bureau for the Arts f/m, is bringing out a new reader on the interaction among new media, gender and art.
Ctrl+Shift Art - Ctrl+Shift Gender presents a selection of articles that illuminate the impact of new media technologies on art, culture and gender presentation. The meaning of these concepts is continually subject to change, thus rebutting the idea that art disciplines and sex are static entities.
Developments in new media have disrupted the classic hierarchical relation between "producers" and "consumers" in the cultural field. In interactive projects, for instance, the distinction between author, performer and viewer becomes increasingly blurred. The traditional role of cultural institutions is also called into question because digital works often are not to be pigeonholed in any one category. Artists and activists make use of these shifts in order to create a sanctuary for social critique and cultural innovation. In the course of this, subjects like authorship, representation and the role of the institution become central. The articles in Ctrl+Shift Art - Ctrl+Shift Gender also cast light on the specific role of gender in these processes.

With contibutions from: Anne-Marie Schleiner, Sylvie Parent & Valérie Lamontagne, Faith Wilding, Angelicka Beckmann, Yvonne Volkart, Cornelia Sollfrank, Mo Throp, Hannah Bosma, Kathy Rae Huffman, Andra Mc Cartney.

costs: Fl. 15,- (excl. porto)
Order : mail us axis@axisvm.nl
http://www.axisvm.nl

Who creates electro-vocal music?
(authors, composers, vocalists and gender)

by Hannah Bosma

Electronic sound technology has influenced the development of music in many ways. For instance, the emphasis on timbre or sound colour in modern instrumental music is often related to experiences and ideas that were developed in electronic music, as is the case with the music of György Ligeti, for example. On the other hand, timbre was already becoming more and more important in instrumental music, as for instance in the music of Edgard Varèse (1883-1965). But, significantly, Varèse was indeed dreaming of the possibilities of electronic or electroacoustic music - a dream that came true at the end of his life with the composition Déserts (1954). The alternation of instrumental and electronic parts in this composition can be considered as a metaphor for the intertwining of social, cultural and technological factors in the development of techno-cultural phenomena like electronic music. Technology does not determine itself in an inevitable way, but is made by humans, men and women, in a social environment. Nor does technology inevitably determine cultural or social developments. Technology can be used and developed in many different ways. It is important to watch out for the fallacy of technological determinism. When the consequences of technology are presented as inevitable, often interests, discrepancies, disagreements and power relations are concealed. Feminist studies of gender and technology often discover the refrain "new technologies, old stories": new technologies as vehicles for old gender patterns.

In relation to electronic sound technology, I have a nice techno-optimistic dream. Like most dreams, it is not so fantastic at all, and it can be observed in real life to some extent: one of the most important aspects of electronic sound technology - that is, the recording of sound - can not only contribute to the emancipation of timbre, but also to a positive change in the role of the vocalist. And because vocalists are often female, whereas composers are mostly male, this implies a positive change in musical gender roles.

authorship: composers and performers

Traditionally, composers create music in the form of musical notation on paper: a musical score. Scores, like books, last in time, after the composer's death, and can be multiplied and distributed around the world. But scores are nothing without the musical knowledge, skills and practices to interpret and perform them. Much essential musical information does not exist in musical scores, but only in the musical practices of performers. It is impossible to give a "true authentic" performance of an old piece of music, because the musical knowledge, skills and practices that belonged to the composition have disappeared or changed. Composers do not invent music on their own: they work together with performers. Composers need to base their compositions on the knowledge and skills of performers. Often, compositions are written for a specific performer, who has a great influence on the composition. Performers are essential for Western classical music. Not only do they transform sheet music into sound, they also influence musical style and technique. One could say that both composers and performers are co-creators of musical pieces, with different tasks: composers compose notes on a score and performers create a subtle play with sound, timbre and timing. Carolyn Abbate (1993) states that "[d]ebates about author politics need to be entirely rethought when we move from the written textual genres that inspired them to live performed arts, whose phenomenologies are another matter" (234). The relation between writer (or author), text and reader is different from the situation in music. In Western classical music, the listener hears a co-production by composer and performer(s). Performers often usurp the authorial power, states Abbate. A performer "'making' music" (or "'creating' a role") is a "second author," "who completes the work in her (or his) own interpretation" (234-5), and on whom the composer is dependent.
          But the interdependency of composer and performer is often not uncontested. The strange role of performers as second authors is threatening. Composers often complain of or are angry with performers (Abbate's example is Wagner's tirades against the singers who interpreted his music (234)). And if one looks into histories of Western music (e.g. Grout) and in musicological curricula, one finds composers and their works, and almost no performers. Music history is a story about almost exclusively male composers. Musicological studies focus on the work of composers, not on the work of performers. On the one hand, this is quite understandable: we still have access, more or less, to the work of composers - their scores. Performances, that is, sounding compositions or improvisations, are lost. For example, the sound art of famous singers in the past is lost for ever, but not the scores of their contemporary composers. The character of performance is overwhelming presence and evanescent process: impressive at the moment itself, lost afterwards. But on the other hand, the different status of composer and performer is not so much related to technology as well as to socio-cultural structures and ideas.
          For public and fans, performers are stars: powerful and adored. But in the domains of law, musicology, science, scholarship and serious criticism, the status of performers is low. Of course, the words "composer" and "performer" already say it all: these words suggest that the composer creates and that the performer only executes or reproduces (although the work of performers is in fact very creative, as I argued above). In law, composers, not performers, have the status of "authors." The author/composer's work is considered to be original and creative, but a performer is considered to be more like a manufacturer, executing and materializing the instructions of the author, reproducing the author's musical creation. This dichotomy of composer vs. performer is related to the dichotomies of intellect vs. body, spiritual vs. material, master vs. slave, production vs. reproduction, and masculine vs. feminine. The rights of authors are protected in the Bern Convention, 1886 (Netherlands: 1912). Since 1961, the "neighbouring rights" of producers and performers are protected in the Rome Convention (it took until 1993 before this was implemented in Dutch law). Neighbouring rights are very similar to author rights; in this sense neighbouring rights are a very important step towards the acknowledgment of the work of performers. However, I think it is very important to notice that composers and performers are still considered as different categories, and that performers are not taken for authors.

new technology – new authors?

In my techno-optimistic dream, sound recording is able to change the status of the musical performance and the dichotomy of composer and performer. When recorded, the musical work of a singer is repeatable, distributable and long-lasting, after the moment of performance and after the death of the singer. It can be listened to and analysed again and again. Through sound recording, the music of the singer can be perceived beyond the reach of the singer herself. Recorded, the creative work of the performer can acquire a status comparable to a composition: permanent, reproducible and authoritative. Moreover, sound recording technology not only makes it possible to record a performance-interpretation of a score or an improvisation, but also to compose directly with sound (e.g., voice) on tape. With a recording of a performance or an improvisation or with a tape-composition of her vocal sound, a singer becomes a creator of a permanent creative art object. Whether she made it on her own or co-produced it with others, the work of the vocalist is an inextricable and essential part of a musical piece consisting of recorded vocal sounds. In this kind of music, the roles of vocalist and composer are changed or merged. As a (co-)creator of a permanent recorded object consisting of an interpretation, improvisation or tape-composition, one can assign the vocalist the status of an author.
          There are indeed signs that point in this direction. Take for example cd's called "Maria Callas," "Kathleen Ferrier," "Enrico Caruso" or likewise. On these cd's, not the composer but the singer is presented as the main figure. And, of course, in pop/rock music some performative aspects like sound and timing are inextricably part of the recorded product and the singer is often considered as the main figure. In pop/rock music there is not a standard way of singing; the special sound of a particular voice is a very important, identifying element. Also for singer-composers like Joan La Barbara, Diamanda Galas or Laurie Anderson, sound recording is very important for their work; especially so, because extended vocal techniques, a special timbre or a special way of speaking or singing (timing, intonation) are all features which cannot be notated adequately and are essential in their work. In this way, sound recording technology has contributed to the extension and proliferation of the work of the (often female) vocalist. (But of course other influences were also important: for example, the search for new sounds in avant-garde music, performance art and feminism.)
          But although the art of vocal performance-interpretation or improvisation is now available as a lasting object of analysis (for example for comparing different performances of the same composition, or analysing an improvisation), musicology is still predominantly concerned with scores, i.e. the work of composers. And although one can argue that in pop, rock or avant-garde tape music the work of the composer and the work of the vocalist/instrumentalist are essentially intertwined, the distinction between composer and performer still lies at the basis of the laws for musical copyrights. Interestingly, one of the main factors of the emancipation of vocalists in pop/rock music is the fact that nowadays they are often credited not just as performers but also as (co-)composers and (co-)producers.
          It is interesting that in pop music there are many female singers who gained power and status and became co-composers and co-producers (for example Madonna, Björk, Alanis Morissette, and many others); unfortunately, in pop music one can find also many examples to the contrary, especially in house/dance music. In academic modernist avant-garde music the situation is similar: there are many interesting female and male vocalist-composers; but in many other cases the female singer and male composer have more traditional roles. A very common gender pattern in electronic art music is the combination of a male composer with a female singer. Often, the female singer is a live-performer on stage accompanied by a tape; this is a rather traditional situation, in which the composition is one level, and the performance is another level of the musical work. It is amazing that there are many compositions for female (virtuoso) singer and tape, and almost none for male singer and tape (see Bosma 1994).
With pure tape-music, vocalists, instrumentalists, technicians and composer all contribute to the composition in the production process (there is no live performance; the composition only exists on tape). In this case author politics definitely needs to be rethought. Are these compositions co-productions by co-authors? What is the position of the female vocalist in tape-music?

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 specific timbre and intonation is an important, essential, characteristic feature of the composition. 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, all seem to be based on an essay Berio himself wrote about this composition, published in 1959. It is remarkable in this essay that Berio relates the text to the music, but wrote almost nothing about the voice. Berio's article essay suggests that the spoken text is a neutral extension of the written text. He writes nothing about the special, particular sound of this voice. He does not even mention whose voice it is. In Berio's text, only two male authors appear: Joyce and Berio. The essay 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. (In Dreßen's (1982) extensive analysis of Thema, he does not even mention that this voice is a female voice: he only writes about the vocal sound: "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.) As we can read elsewhere, and probably immediately recognize, it is not just a anonymous voice: it is the voice of Cathy Berberian, the great vocal artist who with her extraordinary vocal abilities and creativity influenced and worked together with 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. (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 ´té pour moi une sorte de second Studio de phonologie." (125) Note that Berberian is not presented here by Berio as a creative subject.) But Stoïanova lets others speak who do mention Berberian's creative role in the making of Thema: Umberto Eco and Cathy Berberian herself. (Osmond-Smith (1991) also mentions Berberian's share.) Reading or performing a text is not a neutral translation of the written text but a creative act. (See Fónagy 1983.) There is one written text and many ways to read it. Timbres, intonations, rhythms, pauses etc., what are often called the "musical" part of language, are added. 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 occurs so often in Joyce's text, "invite" the reader to interpret, to play with the voice sounds and voice organs and to exceed the rules of language. (Attridge (1988) makes this argument.)
The work of the vocalist and the composer is inextricably interwoven in Thema. But only the composer Berio is considered as the author of this piece. His name belongs to the composition. Vocalist Berberian is often not even mentioned.

Visage
In Berio's next electrovocal composition, Visage (1961), there is different 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. 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 (according to 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 "pornographic" (Berberian in Stoïanova 1985; Osmond-Smith 1991), and although 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, reproducible, distributable product - a composition. The creative role of the female voice in Visage is more openly acknowledged than in Thema: Berberian is mentioned as improviser.
        But Berberian is still 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 consist mainly of Berberian's voice, her name is not on the cover; only the names of composers Berio and Maderna are (Berio/Maderna: Electronic works, Acousmatrix 7, BV Haast CD 9109). And in Dreßen's 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 (Dreßen 1982: 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, voice sound production and improvisation (i.e., work of body and mind) is assigned a less prominent place. The ambiguous authorial relation between Berio and Berberian is illustrated by Osmond-Smith's remark that Berio "allowed Berberian's fertile imagination it's head" (63). Berio is the composer-"master" who gave Berberian's creative voice a large and important place (the "central core" according to Osmond-Smith (1991: 64)) in his composition.

La Barbara: The Name, The Sounds, The Music
La Barbara: The Name, The Sounds, The Music (1991) by Larry Austin (for voice and computer music on tape; recording on Centaur Records, CRC 2166, CDCM CMS 13, with Joan La Barbara, soprano. http://www.music.unt.edu/CDCM/ ) is another electroacoustic composition with female voice, authored by a male composer. The relation between author and voice in this piece is uncommon.
        "La Barbara was commissioned and composed for performance by the accomplished and acclaimed singer and composer, Joan La Barbara," according to 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 (The Name); about the vocal sounds she creates (The Sounds); she describes why she uses certain sounds and how she composes with her voice sounds (The Music). Joan La Barbara tells how she acquired her 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, and other vocal art, 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 stage, accompanying the playback of the tape.
        The author-composer of La Barbara: The Name, The Sound, The Music is Larry Austin. 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":

  1. telling about her work and her authorship in a recorded interview;
  2. recorded vocal improvisation with non-verbal vocal sound;
  3. Joan La Barbara as improvising "live" performer, visible for the public.
In the interview, La Barbara explains her non-verbal vocal art. Through this embedding, her non-verbal vocal sounds are presented as a creative, authorial, and conscious musical discourse by her, the vocalist-composer. This is quite different from opera and Hollywood film, where the non-verbal "cry" of the female character is, in the narrative, an involuntary and powerless cry of fear or death (Dame 1994, Poizat 1992 (1986), Silverman 1988, Bosma 1995). Also, through the accompaniment of the interview, the processed improvisations on the tape, and the text in the sleeve notes, it is stressed that the vocalist on stage is not performing someone else's composition, but that she, with her own improvisation and creation of vocal sound, is co-composing the composition. Joan La Barbara's non-verbal vocal voice sounds, recorded as well as "live", are not only female "body" (material), but also "mind" (compositional). (This resembles Bradby's (1993) distinction between "sampling the body" (female voice) or "sampling the mind" (male compositional fragments).)
        The story which Joan La Barbara tells about her name is very significant. It stresses the connection between her authorship and her vocal sound. Her name is presented as a consciously chosen author's name. By improvising with it, her author's name becomes equal to her vocal art, that is, the author's work. This name has a typical feminine history: it was acquired through marriage. But this name soon changed its status, not being the name of her husband any more, but being chosen, appropriated and changed on musical grounds.
        In this composition La Barbara is presented as an embodied, plural author, referring to other works outside the composition. But she does not have the status of being the author of this composition itself, though she co-produced or co-created it for a large part: as initiator she commissioned it, and as co-worker she produced the text, the vocal sounds and the improvisations. Author-composer Larry Austin created the framework, the structure; Joan La Barbara did the rest. As a listener, I would say that this composition is a co-production, a co-creation by two co-authors. However, this is not the case: only Larry Austin is mentioned as the author-composer. La Barbara's name is in the title, being very close to the composer's name, but at the other side. Larry Austin calls the composition a portrait – and I would like to add that commissioned portraits indeed are similar complex works with two different kinds of subjects, both acknowledged by law: the author/painter/photographer and the subject portrayed. Joan La Barbara is object of this composition, and subject in the composition. She is also subject "outside" or "before" this composition, because she commissioned it. Very explicit, and very real, a female voice is speaking in and through a composition of a male composer.

Joan La Barbara
Joan La Barbara is well known as a composer-vocalist performing her own work, often using electronic sound technology, and as a vocal performer of works of avant-garde composers like John Cage. She is also a composer of instrumental and electronic/computer music (for example, L'albero dalle foglie azzure (Tree of Blue Leaves) (1989), for oboe and computer music on tape, with Barbara Herr Orland, oboe (and, according to the sleeve notes, with the voice of Joan La Barbara). Published in CDCM Computer Music Series 13, Centaur, CRC 2166 (1993), Larry Austin and La Barbara, co-producers and David Rosenblad, engineer). An example of her electrovocal work is the album Sound Paintings (Lovely Music LCD 3001, 1990 (individual pieces 1979, 1980, 1983, 1984, 1988)). La Barbara figures on this album not only as composer and vocalist, but also as player of quirro and maracas, as recording and (re)mix engineer and as co-producer (other musicians and engineers are also mentioned). The pieces on this album consist of multi-layered recordings of her voice. Her vocal authority is stressed by the remark on the sleeve that "[a]ll of the vocal sounds on this CD were recorded in real time with no electronic manipulations and consist of both traditional and 'extended' vocal techniques I have developed over the past twenty years." Explicitly, vocal technique, vocal production and vocal sound are authored. The sleeve notes of composer-vocalist La Barbara describe the creation and composition of the vocal sounds: it is suggested that composing and singing were one activity.
        Remarkably, another electrovocal work by La Barbara, 73 Poems, is presented as a co-production between poet/visual artist Kenneth Goldsmith and composer-vocalist La Barbara (both names are on the cover), instead of a composer 'using' or 'taking' a text from a writer whose name is mentioned in a less prominent place (Lovely Music LCD 3002, 1994. However, the copyright is by Joan La Barbara and Lovely Music; Joan La Barbara is mentioned as the composer (and performer, co-producer, co-sound designer, co-recorder and co-mixer); Kenneth Goldsmith is mentioned as the author of the poems and artwork). In the sleeve notes by John Schaefer, this co-operation is highlighted and contrasted with the traditional situation where writers often were suspicious of setting their verse to music (for example, Goethe refused Schubert's request for permission to set his poetry). 73 Poems is co-authored instead of showing the stereotypical rivalry between the author of the text and the author of the music.

Nadir & Zenit (and other soundpaintings)
Another example of an acknowledged co-production is Nadir & Zenit by Greetje Bijma, Louis Andriessen and Sybren Polet. Bijma and Andriessen made a musical composition of the text by Sybren Polet; in the sleeve notes both Bijma and Andriessen are mentioned as the musical authors (BV Haast CD 9303; as a radio piece it won the Prix Italia). Louis Andriessen is well-known as a composer; he plays electronic keyboards in this piece. Greetje Bijma is an important, much praised singer of jazz and improvised music, using a lot of strange, extended vocal techniques. (Many CD's with her work are available via: BV Haast; ENJA Records Matthias Winckelmann GmbH, P.O. Box 190333, 80603 Munich, Germany; JARO Medien GmbH, Bismarckstr. 83, D-28203 Bremen, Germany, tel: 0-421-705771, fax: 0-421-74066.) In Nadir & Zenit she gives a wonderful, exciting vocal interpretation of Polet's text, with a great variety of timbres and vocal techniques, and with subtle tonal, rhythmic and timbral inflections. As one can hear in this piece, sound recording technology makes it possible to compose a lasting musical object with musical and vocal parameters which are difficult to notate, like particular timbres and singing techniques, and subtle tonal, rhythmic and timbral inflections. These vocal parameters are created by vocalists. With regard to Nadir & Zenit, vocalist Greetje Bijma is indeed acknowledged as co-author of the music.
        Traditionally, a composer composes a score; a performer interprets the score into sound. In the twentieth century, many composers composed with sound colours and timbre, often on tape, instead of with pitches and durations notated in a score. What is the difference between a composer and a performer, when they both produce sound on tape?
        Electronic sound technology makes it possible for a vocalist to compose directly with vocal sound on tape. She can for example put different layers of her singing together into one texture, like Joan La Barbara did on her CD Sound Paintings (Lovely music LCD 3001. Lovely Music, LTD., 105 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10013). Women like Joan La Barbara, Diamanda Galas, Laurie Anderson, Meredith Monk and Shelley Hirsch combine singing with composing while using sound technology.

"Encore" - The "Death" of the Singer

Through recording, a vocalist can become an author of a lasting, distributable product.. But, as Roland Barthes and Jacques Derrida teach us, an author is "absent" from his text (or film, or tape-composition). Although authors often try to exert as much power over their work as possible, and although law protects the author to a large extent, authors cannot control the interpretations, influences and traces marked by their works. They cannot even fully control the text itself, there always being room for the unconscious and "the other." Thus an author is never a fully independent, individual creator. In this respect, the author is "dead": the reader brings the text alive, and there is no guarantee that the intentions of the author will be followed. Moreover, a recording can be "stolen" and re-used in a way which was not intended by the author, although this is illegal if the author has not given permission – "sampling" has caused many law suits and disputes. Making a new electronic composition out of pre-existing recorded music has been called "plunderphonics" by John Oswald and Chris Cutler.

Maria Callas
An example of plunderphonics is the piece Maria Callas (1988) by Christian Marclay (on CD Musicworks 60). This piece consists of a recomposition of fragments of recorded singing from the famous singer Maria Callas. Her long high notes and non-verbal vocalisations are edited, cut, rearranged and superposed (the sound of her voice is not distorted). Except for "encore, encore" (1'46''-1'55''), no words can be heard. Callas' vocal art forms the basis and the material for this composition. Without her recorded singing, this composition would not exist. Marclay did not secretly "steal" her recorded singing, but places Maria Callas in the middle of the attention by making her name the title of this piece. Marclay's editing is clearly heard. Thus, both "Callas' part" and "Marclay's part" are distinguishable in Maria Callas.
        Is this piece an homage to Maria Callas, or does it make her singing ridiculous? The excessive prolongation (continuous repetition by cut-and-paste) of the high dominant b (0'57''-1'43''; 2'47''-2'57''), with Callas' large vibrato (often considered as one of her weak points), can have a ridiculing effect. Here the stereotype of female operatic singing as high, loud and non-verbal is reinforced. Callas' art of interpreting characters, often considered as her most important contribution to the history of opera performance, is completely lost in Maria Callas. Her singing is fragmented. On the other hand, other parts highlight her beautiful, virtuoso vocal art. In Maria Callas particular aspects of Callas' singing are brought to the fore: her special sound colours are isolated, superimposed and highlighted, as are her special changes in sound colour, her typical vibrato, transitions between notes and sudden, fast, light, titillating coloratura. All these aspects are features of operatic singing that are not notated in a score, but created by the vocalist. The structure of Maria Callas is based on the isolation and rearrangement of these features. With Maria Callas, Marclay treats singer Maria Callas as a vocal author.

Een Lied van Schijn en Wezen
Een Lied van Schijn en Wezen (1992/93) by Gilius van Bergeijk (on cd Gilius van Bergeijk - Volume One, X-OR CD 07, P.O. Box 13435, 2501 EK Den Haag, The Netherlands. Phone: +31-20-6756350; fax: +31-20-6791352; xorluc@xs4all.nl; http://www.xs4all.nl/~xorluc) is another electronic composition in which a recording of female singing is re-used. The main part of this composition is made by subjecting a recording of the fourth movement of Gustav Mahler's Kindertotenlieder, performed by Kathleen Ferrier and Bruno Walter (1949), to a procedure of shifting repetition. First one hears the first four seconds; then seconds 1-5 are heard, then seconds 2-6, etc. During the piece the intervals become smaller: in the end one does not hear repetition any more, but distortion. At first this procedure makes Ferrier's singing stuttering; later one recognizes the procedure. The effect is an impression of great violence exerted on Ferrier's singing: regardless of music and phrasing, her voice is cut again and again in the middle of a note, phrase or breath. In the end, her voice is wildly distorted.
        In the sleeve notes Richard Ayres writes that the theme of Een Lied van Schijn en Wezen is the passage between illusion and reality. (The Dutch title translates: A Song of Appearance and Being). He relates this to the text of Mahler's song: "The beautiful text depicts a parent's two attempts at coming to terms psychologically with the death of children. During the first two verses a mother (in this recording) tries to convince herself that her children have merely gone out walking in the mountains, and that they will soon return safely home. In the final verse she finally admits that they won't be returning and have instead 'gone ahead' - a recognition that they are in fact dead, and that at some point everybody must follow. [...] The master tape consists of thousands of tiny tape slivers, all cut and glued together by hand, and all playing a unique part in the metamorphosis between what it appears to be - Mahler - and what it is in reality - Gilius van Bergeijk."
        It is not difficult to relate this theme to the Death of the Author. While for the reader or the listener the author is absent and "dead," for the author, writer or composer it is the other way around: his "children" (his texts or compositions) will go away and "die." In Een Lied van Schijn en Wezen, the recording of Ferrier's and Walter's performance of Mahler's composition appears to be "dead" or departed from its authors: re-used and changed by Gilius van Bergeijk.
        I find it remarkable that in the sleeve notes Een Lied van Schijn en Wezen is related to the text of Mahler's composition, but nothing is said about the performance by Kathleen Ferrier and Bruno Walter. The orchestra is not even mentioned. This is remarkable because Een Lied van Schijn en Wezen is completely made out of the recording of their performance. Especially Ferrier's voice is very characteristic for this piece. The recording is not a neutral reproduction of Mahler's score, but has a particular character. Van Bergeijk's compositional process does not manipulate Mahler's score, but the tape of Ferrier's and Walter's performance. The compositional process is however inspired by the text of Mahler's composition. The sleeve notes, the title and the compositional process of Van Bergeijk's composition relate to the text of Mahler's composition, not to Ferrier's vocal creation. Ferrier is described as a figure in the composition ("a mother"), not as a vocal author. Van Bergeijk's compositional work does not have any relation with Ferrier's typical way of singing. This forms a sharp contrast with Marclay's composition Maria Callas, in which Callas' vocal authorship is central with regard to the title, the sound and the structure of the composition. (Another interesting example of (high-tech) plunderphonics is Any Resemblance Is Purely Coincidental (1980) by Charles Dodge, with computer analysis and re-synthesis of the voice of Enrico Caruso.)

Conclusion

Sound recording makes it possible to consider a vocalist as an author of a durable, reproducible sound-text capable of dissemination. But, like the author of a literary text or a score, the vocalist-author has no absolute power over her/his products: the recordings can be interpreted, reinterpreted, re-used and reworked by others. Because, stereotypically, composers are mostly male and vocalists often female, this change of status of the vocalist into an author, producing instead of reproducing, can be considered as positively affecting musical gender roles. This is not to say, however, that these changes take place automatically as a determinate result of technological changes. 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 reproducible, durable, distributable object and 2) using specific vocal sound as a 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. That recording technology does not necessarily lead to either the emancipation or the disappearance of the singer can be seen in the comparison of the work of singer-composers like Joan La Barbara with Berio's rendering of Thema, or by comparing Maria Callas with Een Lied van Schijn en Wezen.
        Issues of authorship do not only relate to "who did what," but also to who is represented as an author, and in what way. It can be very useful to read credits not as a neutral rendering of the various contributions of the musicians, but as a text that for example offers us a male composer or a female singer as the main figure, or presents a composition as a co-production. Who is represented in the credits, in what way, and how does that relate to the music?
        Although theoretically electronic sound technology could bring about an important change with regard to author politics, this is not always the case. Author politics is not determined by technology, but by ideas and socio-cultural practices. Technology studies warn us to watch out for technological determinism. Technological determinism is a way of thinking which is widespread, and one can often perceive it in discourses about new technological developments in the arts. Will the Internet or multimedia change the world or the arts? Maybe changes will (and already did) occur in relation to these new technologies, but these changes are not and will not be simple, unambiguous or uniform. Technological practices are and will be social and cultural sites of contestation and multiplicity, connected to existing social-cultural practices, patterns and institutions. Gender patterns turn out to be very persistent, and often take on new guises in new media. New technologies offer many different possibilities for change, but also new possibilities for the survival of old structures. It seems important to me that both tendencies are kept in mind. Both a critical scrutiny of old and new techno-social-cultural practices and a hopeful exploration of possibilities for positive change are needed. Thus, it is important to not only speculate about the future but also to study the past and the present. In discussions about art and technology, much attention is paid to the newest and hottest technological developments; but the consequences of older, very common and very important technologies like sound recording and sound amplification still deserve much more critical and analytical attention. In the above discussion about the status of the (female) vocalist and the (male) composer in tape-music, I have tried to give a glimpse of an analytical strategy which looks for conservative as well as progressive tendencies and in which there is room for critical as well as hopeful observations.

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www.hannahbosma.nl