Voice as a Technology of Selfhood: Towards an Analysis of Racialized Timbre and Vocal Performance

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Voice as a Technology of Selfhood: Towards an Analysis of Racialized Timbre and Vocal Performance

I dedicate this dissertation to the first of many who have taught me how to live and work with dedication and high spirit: my ninety-year-old maternal grandmother Ingrid Nordeide.

To my husband, Luis, I also dedicate this work.

In this dissertation I examine the production of race through sound in general and vocal timbre in particular, and investigate how the construction of the black voice-against the backdrop of the normative white-in opera, spirituals, and popular music reflects deeply-held American ideas about race. Which processes have contributed to the racialized perception and reification of timbre? What are some of the social and political processes embedded in the cultural capital possessed by certain vocal timbres in specific cultural contexts and various historical periods?

I trace modern vocal pedagogy to its origin in colonial ideology, and the concept of a classical African-American vocal timbre from Marian Anderson to the spiritual in the abolitionist era. Investigating the vocal synthesis software Vocaloid, I uncover the macro politics of race and gender as they are materialized in the micro politics of sound: dominant race and gender relations are reproduced through electronic music products and tools. My study of the ways in which producers have framed the African-American jazz and ballad singer Jimmy Scott-as, most saliently, a woman, and as symbolizing death-offers insights into how nonconforming African-American masculinities are desired and consumed.

This dissertation ultimately investigates the performative and corporeal aspects of the singing voice, considering these phenomena in terms which involve both performers and audiences. As a consequence, I have shifted the focus of inquiry from the sound of singing-which I term timbre sonic-to the physical act of forming that sound-timbre corporeal-and proposed an investigation of the choreography of vocal timbre.

Introductory Chapter

Mr. Darden: "The second voice that you heard sounded like the voice of a Black man; is that correct?" California v. Orenthal James Simpson

We came to listen to that voice of difference likely to bring us what we can't have and divert us from the monotony of sameness.

Introduction

Lessons

Situating This Work In Scholarship

Race and Vocal Timbre

The Singing Voice

Discourse on the Quality of Vocal Timbre

Perspectives

Overview of the Chapters

Voice lesson One

Part One

Constructing Difference: Teaching Vocal Timbre

Physiological Premise

Physical Characteristics of the Vocal Folds

Morphological Differences

Voice Training

The Vocal Body (one)

The Influence of Pedagogy

Conversations Based on Scenes From the Vocal Studio

Sonic Perceptual Framework

Knowledge About the Influence of Geographical location on perception

The Modern Western Classical Vocal Ideal

Post-Garcian Voice: The Application of Science in Vocal Pedagogy

Time and Social Power

The Pedagogy of Whiteness: Taxonomies of Vocal Timbre

The Pedagogy of Whiteness: Constructing the Vocal Body

Chapter Two

Setting the Stage

Scene Two

Lights on ...

"Acousmatic Blackness"

Early African-American Classical Opera Singers

Elizabeth Taylor-Greenfield

Sissiretta Jones

Spirituals

Ethnosympathy

Overview

The dissertation examines the production of race through sound, particularly vocal timbre, and how the African-American voice has historically been perceived within American society. By tracing vocal pedagogy's colonial origins and current technologies in music, it critiques the assumption of an unmediated relationship between the body and vocal sound.

Key Points

1The dissertation critiques the idea that vocal timbre is a direct reflection of the body
2It analyzes the historical and political contexts influencing perceptions of racialized voices
3The research includes a study of modern vocal pedagogy and its colonial roots
4The work highlights the role of electronic music technologies in reproducing dominant race and gender narratives
5A focus on interdisciplinary approaches enriches the understanding of vocal performance and identity.

Details

Authors: Nina Sun Eidsheim
Category: Humanities

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