Voice Studies: Critical Approaches to Process, Performance and Experience

by Konstantinos Thomaidis (Editor), Ben Macpherson (Editor)

Overview

Voice Studies brings together leading international scholars and practitioners, to re-examine what voice is, what voice does, and what we mean by "voice studies" in the process and experience of performance. This dynamic and interdisciplinary publication draws on a broad range of approaches, from composing and voice teaching through to psychoanalysis and philosophy, including:

• voice training from the Alexander Technique to practice-as-research;
• operatic and extended voices in early baroque and contemporary underwater singing;
• voices across cultures, from site-specific choral performance in Kentish mines and Australian sound art, to the laments of Kraho Indians, Korean pansori and Javanese wayang;
• voice, embodiment and gender in Robertson’s 1798 production of Phantasmagoria, Cathy Berberian radio show, and Romeo Castellucci’s theatre;
• perceiving voice as a composer, listener, or as eavesdropper;
• voice, technology and mobile apps.

With contributions spanning six continents, the volume considers the processes of teaching or writing for voice, the performance of voice in theatre, live art, music, and on recordings, and the experience of voice in acoustic perception and research. It concludes with a multifaceted series of short provocations that simply revisit the core question of the whole volume: what is voice studies?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781138809352
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	05/29/2015
Series:	Routledge Voice Studies
Pages:	252
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d)

About the Author

Konstantinos Thomaidis is a Lecturer in Drama and Theatre at the University of Portsmouth. He is joint founder of the Centre for Interdisciplinary Voice Studies, co-convenes the Performer Training working group at TaPRA and is founding editor of the Journal of Interdisciplinary Voice Studies.

Ben Macpherson is Senior Lecturer and Course Leader for Musical Theatre at the University of Portsmouth. He is joint founder of the Centre for Interdisciplinary Voice Studies, a founding editor of the Journal of Interdisciplinary Voice Studies and composer of musical theatre.

Table of Contents

Foreword - Paul Barker Part 1: Introducing Voice Studies Introduction: voice(s) as a method and an in-between - Ben Macpherson and Konstantinos Thomaidis 1. The Re-vocalization of Logos? Thinking, doing and disseminating voice - Konstantinos Thomaidis Part 2: Voice in Training and Process 2. The Singularity of Experience in the Voice Studio: a dialogue with Michel Henry - Päivi Järviö 3.Learning to Let Go: control and freedom in the passaggio - Tim Kjeldsen 4. Training Actors’ Voices: towards an intercultural/interdisciplinary approach - Tara McAllister-Viel 5. A Sea of Honey: the speaking voice in the Javanese shadow puppet theatreJ - an Mrázek Part 3: Voice in Performance 6. Nonsense: towards a vocal conceptual compass for art - Mikhail Karikis 7. Performing the Entre-Deux: the capture of speech in (dis)embodied voices - Piersandra Di Matteo 8. Sensing Voice: materiality and the lived body in singing and listening philosophy - Nina Sun Eidsheim 9. Lamenting (with the) "Others," "Lamenting our Failure to Lament"? An auto-ethnographic account of the vocal expression of loss - Marios Chatziprokopiou 10. Enchanted Voices: voice in Australian sound art - Norie Neumark Part 4: Voice in Experience and Documentation 11. "Body Musicality": the visual, virtual, visceral voice - Ben Macpherson 12. Transcribing Vocality: voice at the border of music after modernism - Pamela Karantonis 13. Strange Objects/Strange Properties: female audibility and the acoustic stage prop - Ella Finer 14. The Eavesdropper: listening-in and overhearing the voice in performance - Johanna Linsley Part 5: A Polyphonic Conclusion 15. What is Voice Studies? - Ben Macpherson, George Burrows, Diana Van Lancker Sidtis, Yvon Bonenfant, Lyn Darnley, Amanda Smallbone, Nina Sun Eidsheim, ‘Femi Adedeji, Jarosław Fret, Konstantinos Thomaidis

Editorial Reviews

"The editors have made great efforts to engage with the shifting landscape of an emergent discipline and avoid the trap of limiting it by over definition and should be applauded for seeking to give a voice to Voice Studies. This book will provide fertile ground from which the discipline can continue to grow."

- Drama Research

"Voice studies, as delineated in this excellent collection of essays, is an interdisciplinary framework from which to explore voice. We are asked to think of voice as an organized whole that is somehow more than the sum of its constituent parts, and always existing in context: theoretical, philosophical, and cultural."

- Theatre Topics

"A much-anticipated and highly useful collection of essays, reflections, and interventions on voice from diverse angles. [...] By emphasizing the plurality and ‘inbetweenness’ of voice through process, performance, and experience, the essays enrich our understanding of vocal expression and the possibilities that a burgeoning field of voice studies has to offer."

- Twentieth-Century Music

"This anthology of essays looks at voice more academically with particular emphasis on approaches to voice work at different times and in various cultures [...] there’s a lot here for researchers and/or students who want to know more about voice as a discipline."

- The Stage

"For cutting-edge, varietal or blended approaches to sung or spoken voice studies, the offerings of "Voice Studies" are unreplicated, exciting and unique, challenging the reader to further explore and develop this ancient area of art, performance, and expression."

- Midwest Book Review

From the Publisher