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Experiments with the Human Voice: Max Mathews Essay example

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The voice is a crucial tool within the history of sound as it appears in so many different, interconnected forms and disguises. An experience of voice auditory within history generally can be experienced through different movements that can be observed with regards to the figure of voice. The voice in terms of presence and sound helps in understanding the voice also in terms of techniques and manipulations. These terms presented are influenced within countless vocal techniques and manipulations with properties of time and spatial aspects. How it effects the voice through these aspects can also give the reality or even illusion of times and space, and how it navigates through it.
Spoken, screaming, growling, vocal tremolo, vocal trill, …show more content…

Extended Vocal Technique can prove to be a very pure management of the voice, and depending on certain timbral techniques used can effect how we hear and perceive vocal sounds within certain spaces. An extended vocal method is in some ways a pure voice experience, which is beautiful and inimitable in itself. It pushes the limitations of what most would think about a standard singing method by including any or all of the sounds the human voice can make. Luciano Berio wrote ‘Sequenza III (1966)’ for his wife and also singing actress named Cathy Berberian. It was created as a unique challenge as it was a piece that could not be imitated exactly the same. In Sequenza III we experience the voice as the only expressive tool revealing a list of 15 techniques according to Berio. Some of his techniques include, “salvoes of laughter,” “teeth-chattering,” “tongue-trill against the upper lip,” as well as “44 agogic markings” such as “far away,” “dreamy,” “ecstatic,” “extremely intense” and “fading away.” It’s an exploration that give us a perpetual experience, by using such distinctive vocal techniques adjusting volumes tones and pitch so it increases and decreases the space covered. It gives an illusion to the listener in terms of echo, reverberation and the duration of particular vocal sounds.
Author Janet Halfyard argues that Berio’s studies must “serve the needs of the composition rather than merely to thrill the audience with

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