Human Voice Treatment in Various Types of Electroacoustic Music
Hettergott, Alexandra
1, avenue des Gobelins (boite 23)
F-75005 Paris/France
+33-1-43 31 41 27 (phone/fax)
a.hettergott(,wanadoo.fr
The paper shows an overview of a project done at INA-GRM in Paris/France focusing on the different ways of
human voice treatment in various types of electroacoustic music (as a general term) throughout the last fifty
years. In order to select those oeuvres being sort of "paradigmatic" in using one, yet also any combination of the
three undermentioned functional treatment modes determined as a starting point, more than hundred important
electroacoustic compositions (most of them stored in the GRM's archives) created within the last fifty years were
taken into consideration. From this pre-selection a third was chosen again for thoroughgoing scrutiny; these
works were described and visualized more in detail as regards type and treatment method, (parallel to) their
structure, yet also, as far as possible, the how and why of the compositional techniques applied.
1 Introduction
The treatment of human voice in electroacoustic
music, as a general term, can functionally be
differentiated in (I) an informational (speech), (II)
an instrumental (voice), and (III) a material (sound)
processing mode applying to the use of both voice
source and speech content, with the "material" one
being the one most recent as well as most peculiar
to electroacoustic music. I.e., while the two former
types can well be found in other compositions using
human voice, including all intermediate forms
between singing and speech used in contemporary
classical acoustic music, the third one does wellexceed those traditional aspects. That is, due to the
completely different (post)processing techniques -
at the same time corresponding to a differing
compositional aesthetics which itself again is
influenced by these technical means -, the matter
type of human voice-in-music does even most
immediately originate from electroacoustic music,
as making voice/speech a constituent sound matter
is possible only by virtue of a given technology
applied to manipulate, to modify, to transform a
live or recorded sound into a new sonic object. I.e.,
A) Speech: normal speech and (un)processed text,
either sampled or recited ("accompagnato"), where
the informational (semantic) aspect remains most
important;
B) Voice: song-like or melismatic/vocalizing
either prerecorded or live accompanying voice
being more instrumental (in the sense of having a
more music instrument-like function) and
immediately emotionally effective; and here also
(artistic) voice production aspects other than pure
singing are often manifest;
C) Matter: the due to the applied transformation
technique more or less unrecognizably manipulated,
transformed, and distorted voice, where the above
aspects dilute and human voice does get more
material-like, i.e., (in the pure form) voice as well
as speech as such are only sound matter estranged
from all emotional or informational connotations.
- However, presupposing any intermediate, sub
and mixed categories combining different
techniques/levels of voice processing.'
Hence, the classification chosen here on the one
hand aims at compositional and constructional
principles and techniques regarding the treatment of
human voice, also as to the period of time, and on
the other hand at different levels of voice-in-music
per se. Furthermore, the significant aspects of those
compositions taken into account, which in
consequence belong less purely to the former two
but to the third treatment mode in its rich variety,
were spectrographically visualized.2 In addition to
the aforementioned distinction and the analysis
connected with, the visualizations thus also shed
some light on further stylistic aspects manifest (yet
not exclusively) in the "material" domain, like, for
instance, any formal aspects.
2 General Findings and Examples
- Sampling basics in human voice treatment:
I. reorganization of voice/text segments;
II. de/recontextualization of voice/text excerpts.
In order to generate
i. new sound types/colors;
ii. new machine-like (i.e., non-human-like)
rhythm events/patterns (e.g., by means of
loops/repetitions);
iii. new (direct) semantic relations/references
(indices)
For instance, Fugitives Voix (1997) an acousmatic piece
by D. Teruggi, combines both the instrumental-emotional
(voice production) and the material (voice processing)
aspects regarding the composition with human voice
and/as music. In addition, a second-level semantic aspect
can be found in the way the two singers do interact. Other
compositions, putting whole words or phrases into new
contexts supplement the material with the semantic (text)
aspect. This recontextualization characteristic to all
collage-like assemblages is possible only by editing
means, withthem (often) implying a kind of higher-level
scenario contextually developing over time (see below).
2 GRM-software Acousmograph and Sound Forge 4.5TM
ICMC Proceedings 1999
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