In his paper "Staccato, Swivel and Glide," Den Tandt explains that the appeal of rock 'n' roll music was due in large part to its ability to make the "bodily dimension of singing perceptible" (p. 4). Rock stars would perform with such unconstrained carnal energy that it would inevitably overcome the articulateness of their speech; in rock music, we perceive the body penetrating abstract thought and sabotaging its linguistic form. It was unclear to me exactly what Den Tandt's article might have to do with 'falsetto', but it was clear to me that Den Tandt thought that inflection in rock singing produced meaning distinct from what was semantically expressed through lyrics. I especially agree with Den Tandt's point towards the end of the article when he suggests that music, although possibly lacking representational meaning, is nonetheless capable of a presentational or 'performative' meaning through the act of musical performance itself.
Christophe den Tendt explains rock'n'roll singers' use of semi-articulation in their music, and highlights a few ideas of what these techniques represented. In regard to falsetto singing, I found den Tendt's section on the "refusal of adulthood", highlighting how the Beatles (and other said "teeny-bopper" bands) utilized high-pitched, androgynous voices to potentially represent the "pre-oedipal component of the genotext" most relevant. This idea of the high-pitched voice signifying absolute innocence (that of the child with no conception of language and semiotic symbolism) can be challenged (or at least qualified) through inspection of the history of opera and the castrati. These young, male(ish) singers sang the highest pitches in operatic performances - yet played the most heroic of characters. The audience was made to look up to these boys and the high pitches that they sang were depicted as strong and powerful - not childish and naive. Clearly, this does not refute the fact that the Beatles gained their fame due to their baby-boy appeal, however it does provide a context when music and the body were look at and appreciated in an entirely different paradigm.
The idea of obscuring words to hide a message in rock-and-roll music is not a new concept. Indeed, disagreements on the accurate lyrics for a song, or reversing music to find “hidden meanings” stand to show that we seek a meaning within that which appears meaningless. While den Tandt does not explicitly mention falsetto as a method of obscuring language in a song, we can absolutely see this motif in rock music. In the song “I Believe in a Thing Called Love” by The Darkness, lead singer Justin Hawkins makes much use of falsetto. This, coupled with the speed of delivery of the words, makes for an often difficult-to-comprehend text. What exactly is the significance of the falsetto? Perhaps it resonates with den Tandt’s description of “rock’s geno-text produc[ing] high pitched, often androgynous … voices.” Glam rock, as a genre, already capitalizes on this (de)gendering and (hyper)sexualizing of its singers. Falsetto thus helps to accomplish these goals. But falsetto also serves another important function. The delivery of the obscured text (whatever it is) certainly demonstrates excitement. Essentially removing the actual text and replacing it with falsetto makes it sound almost like a giddy schoolgirl – youthful, naïve, animated. Androgyny and excitement all rolled into one; but then again, isn’t that what glam rock is all about? Perhaps the falsetto in this song is then analogous to the staccato, swivel and glide in the music of the 1950s.
I believe the use of falsetto is similar to what Den Tandt described as "the singing voice aspiring to become an instrument." There may not be any sound reasoning for the use of falsetto in a song, but the act alone gives "performative meaning." Just like staccato, swivel, and glide, it is a transgressive inflection. However, falsetto could also be used for more practical purposes, such as cutting through the mix. This would go against the "aesthetics of semi-articulation" because it serves to increase clarity.
In this article, Tandt said, “…one may wonder to what extent the music's inflected musical style contributed to making performers sex objects.” It seems strange to me that society would consider men singing with high-pitched voices attractive. One would think that low and deep voices would be considered “sexy” since they sound more masculine, but exactly the opposite is true in many different styles of music.
- In pop, Justin Timberlake (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6AMoSO7M74&feature=fvst 2:27) is pretty much a sex symbol, and he uses falsetto extensively in nearly every song he sings - In opera the male lead is almost always a tenor, and the higher he sings the more we are impressed and attracted (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBwS3JA3SMY 0:57) -Of one of my favorite bands, Muse, the lead singer Matt Bellamy often sings ridiculously high (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYITA0xMtDc 1:11).
Some more interesting people singing in falsetto: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4PW9J9BTjM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RakKNtLVYU
The Frith article expands on the Barthes reading in a way that confirms all of the ideas that I thought the Barthes reading suggested. It makes a lot of sense to think about people's perception of other people's voices as a function of their own history and experiences within music and beyond the scope of music. There is definitely a factor that goes into one's perception of grain in a singer's voice that is biased by previous experience. That being said, however, I also agree that it is almost irrefutable that some singers can always provoke that physical response -- that intimate connection that brings you much further into the singer's body and being than something more removed like language. One other thing I particularly enjoyed about the article, though it was a somewhat minor detail, was the idea that singers enjoy singing most when they put themselves in a listener's role and sing in the way it feels physically right to -- with no regard to semantics. In my experience, this is absolutely true.
(P.S. this is worth mentioning -- for all of you singers, I definitely recommend keeping in mind the way the writers describe "grainy" singers because I tried this while singing a lead at practice today and people were taken aback by the difference.. crazy!)
I have to say, I quite enjoyed Frith's article, "The body electric" (if partially because I think I'm getting what he's saying). There are a few connections I made to it.
For one (though this is not related to falsetto), although I don't sing myself, I agree with his point that there is physical enjoyment in the use of the voice to create sounds. The example that came to my mind is a song I love by Bill Withers, "Ain't No Sunshine" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIdIqbv7SPo). I have always enjoyed the long stretch of repetition of the phrase "I know", switching between registers, and I suspect that my enjoyment is but a small empathetic experience of his enjoyment.
Secondly, I think falsetto can definitely exemplify his concept of putting on another personality through a physical change in the voice. I take an example from my childhood: my brothers and I used to play with Beanie Babies, and we always used our own voices in falsetto as the Beanies' voices. I think the implication, though we knew this subconsciously, was that smaller creatures should have higher voices. (And indeed there is a correlate in the physics of instruments--e.g. shorten a tube and the sound of air passing through it becomes higher in pitch.) Through our falsetto voices we took on the identity of the Beanies. (And...who says females don't have falsetto?? But I'll leave that to discussion.)
Finally, a friend of mine last night shared with me unknowingly what turns out to be an amazing example of using falsetto to cross the boundaries between our conventional attachments to what are the "male" and the "female" voices. This is a guy singing "A Whole New World" from Aladdin: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9-CS2v8wcc. He is certainly taking on the persona of another in this song (obviously, since it's a well-known male/female duet); and honestly if I was not watching the video, I most likely would never have guessed that a male voice is singing the female lines.
The article "Staccato, swivel and glide" presents an aesthetics of semi-articulation of early rock music which is inspired by Julia Kristeva's analysis of semiotic and symbolic signifying processes. Tandt claims that early rock n' roll marks the appearance of songs with radically disruptive geno-texts, saying its libidinal discharge was channelled not only through the beat of electric guitars, but even more prominently through the singer's body and voice. Examples he listed indicate that whatever meanings are generated through the performative game of rock's vocal inflections must be produced by connotation. The inflection refers to the transgression of the musical norms, such as rhythm, pitch and articulation, as well as the style of performance. I believe that the phenomenon of male's 'falsetto' he mentioned in the last section of his essay functions similarly to what irregular rhythm and inaccurate pitch do in rock music. They all depart from the system of well articulated communication among constituted subjects, leading to a disrupt regeneration of the symbolic order.
The reading reminds me of the Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen. Even though the band thrives after the 70s, it reflects the aesthetics of early rock. The music switch abruptly between singing styles and emotional tones. The relationship between the lyrics and the music is perplexing. (while the text is expressing something violent, the music is oddly lyrical) The singers, all males, sing in the range that is ambiguously between that of the male and of the female.
Reading Firth's article, my first thought went back to the Grauer article involving the Kalahari. I thought about the fact that yodel is a style that characterizes these primitive cultures; it is a style of singing that demands control over the falsetto register, and emphasizes the differences between the falsetto and normal registers. Firth's discussion about falsetto made me think that maybe the yodel was first brought about as a way of unmistakably identifying the voice; as a way of sexualizing the body by pointing to both its high and low registers.
Firth discusses how singing in a high register can be a very desirable trait in male vocals. Singing in a high strained voice can show more intense feeling, and can be a sign of vocal prowess. In the band The Mars Volta, the singer almost always sings in a very high register. Even when he isn’t singing up in the stratosphere, his nasally tone makes the notes sound higher. Many people consider this a sign of vocal skill and power because he has such range, and enjoy the bands music all the more because of his androgynous sound. Personally I think the music suffers because he almost always sings in a high register, but to each his own. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1T9eMKxjiLc&feature=related (2:46)
What may have been the semiotic geno-text during the advent of rock and roll is often now symbolic pheno-text. Integrated falsetto is an extreme example of the "contrast in pitch" that early rock singers employed. It may have been transgressive and primally and profoundly expressive, existing outside of a learned referential system in music. But in today's postmodern society, falsetto has come to exist within this system. When a singer throws in some falsetto, it most likely consciously harkens back to earlier singing styles in which falsetto was used as "grain;" in this recall of past traditions, it becomes a symbolic referent. Think about the band The Darkness - they got famous because their gimmick was a complete throwback to the late 1970s: They had long hair, wore tight pants, and their singer sang almost exclusively in falsetto. This falsetto exists not primarily as a corporal expression of emotion but rather as a conscious cultural reference. The semiotic signifier-signified binary has indeed become confounded.
In his paper "Staccato, Swivel and Glide," Den Tandt explains that the appeal of rock 'n' roll music was due in large part to its ability to make the "bodily dimension of singing perceptible" (p. 4). Rock stars would perform with such unconstrained carnal energy that it would inevitably overcome the articulateness of their speech; in rock music, we perceive the body penetrating abstract thought and sabotaging its linguistic form. It was unclear to me exactly what Den Tandt's article might have to do with 'falsetto', but it was clear to me that Den Tandt thought that inflection in rock singing produced meaning distinct from what was semantically expressed through lyrics. I especially agree with Den Tandt's point towards the end of the article when he suggests that music, although possibly lacking representational meaning, is nonetheless capable of a presentational or 'performative' meaning through the act of musical performance itself.
ReplyDeleteChristophe den Tendt explains rock'n'roll singers' use of semi-articulation in their music, and highlights a few ideas of what these techniques represented. In regard to falsetto singing, I found den Tendt's section on the "refusal of adulthood", highlighting how the Beatles (and other said "teeny-bopper" bands) utilized high-pitched, androgynous voices to potentially represent the "pre-oedipal component of the genotext" most relevant.
ReplyDeleteThis idea of the high-pitched voice signifying absolute innocence (that of the child with no conception of language and semiotic symbolism) can be challenged (or at least qualified) through inspection of the history of opera and the castrati. These young, male(ish) singers sang the highest pitches in operatic performances - yet played the most heroic of characters. The audience was made to look up to these boys and the high pitches that they sang were depicted as strong and powerful - not childish and naive.
Clearly, this does not refute the fact that the Beatles gained their fame due to their baby-boy appeal, however it does provide a context when music and the body were look at and appreciated in an entirely different paradigm.
The idea of obscuring words to hide a message in rock-and-roll music is not a new concept. Indeed, disagreements on the accurate lyrics for a song, or reversing music to find “hidden meanings” stand to show that we seek a meaning within that which appears meaningless. While den Tandt does not explicitly mention falsetto as a method of obscuring language in a song, we can absolutely see this motif in rock music.
ReplyDeleteIn the song “I Believe in a Thing Called Love” by The Darkness, lead singer Justin Hawkins makes much use of falsetto. This, coupled with the speed of delivery of the words, makes for an often difficult-to-comprehend text. What exactly is the significance of the falsetto? Perhaps it resonates with den Tandt’s description of “rock’s geno-text produc[ing] high pitched, often androgynous … voices.” Glam rock, as a genre, already capitalizes on this (de)gendering and (hyper)sexualizing of its singers. Falsetto thus helps to accomplish these goals.
But falsetto also serves another important function. The delivery of the obscured text (whatever it is) certainly demonstrates excitement. Essentially removing the actual text and replacing it with falsetto makes it sound almost like a giddy schoolgirl – youthful, naïve, animated. Androgyny and excitement all rolled into one; but then again, isn’t that what glam rock is all about? Perhaps the falsetto in this song is then analogous to the staccato, swivel and glide in the music of the 1950s.
I believe the use of falsetto is similar to what Den Tandt described as "the singing voice aspiring to become an instrument." There may not be any sound reasoning for the use of falsetto in a song, but the act alone gives "performative meaning." Just like staccato, swivel, and glide, it is a transgressive inflection. However, falsetto could also be used for more practical purposes, such as cutting through the mix. This would go against the "aesthetics of semi-articulation" because it serves to increase clarity.
ReplyDeleteIn this article, Tandt said, “…one may wonder to what extent the music's inflected musical style contributed to making performers sex objects.” It seems strange to me that society would consider men singing with high-pitched voices attractive. One would think that low and deep voices would be considered “sexy” since they sound more masculine, but exactly the opposite is true in many different styles of music.
ReplyDelete- In pop, Justin Timberlake (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6AMoSO7M74&feature=fvst 2:27) is pretty much a sex symbol, and he uses falsetto extensively in nearly every song he sings
- In opera the male lead is almost always a tenor, and the higher he sings the more we are impressed and attracted (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBwS3JA3SMY 0:57)
-Of one of my favorite bands, Muse, the lead singer Matt Bellamy often sings ridiculously high (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYITA0xMtDc 1:11).
Some more interesting people singing in falsetto:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4PW9J9BTjM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RakKNtLVYU
The Frith article expands on the Barthes reading in a way that confirms all of the ideas that I thought the Barthes reading suggested. It makes a lot of sense to think about people's perception of other people's voices as a function of their own history and experiences within music and beyond the scope of music. There is definitely a factor that goes into one's perception of grain in a singer's voice that is biased by previous experience. That being said, however, I also agree that it is almost irrefutable that some singers can always provoke that physical response -- that intimate connection that brings you much further into the singer's body and being than something more removed like language. One other thing I particularly enjoyed about the article, though it was a somewhat minor detail, was the idea that singers enjoy singing most when they put themselves in a listener's role and sing in the way it feels physically right to -- with no regard to semantics. In my experience, this is absolutely true.
ReplyDelete(P.S. this is worth mentioning -- for all of you singers, I definitely recommend keeping in mind the way the writers describe "grainy" singers because I tried this while singing a lead at practice today and people were taken aback by the difference.. crazy!)
I have to say, I quite enjoyed Frith's article, "The body electric" (if partially because I think I'm getting what he's saying). There are a few connections I made to it.
ReplyDeleteFor one (though this is not related to falsetto), although I don't sing myself, I agree with his point that there is physical enjoyment in the use of the voice to create sounds. The example that came to my mind is a song I love by Bill Withers, "Ain't No Sunshine" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIdIqbv7SPo). I have always enjoyed the long stretch of repetition of the phrase "I know", switching between registers, and I suspect that my enjoyment is but a small empathetic experience of his enjoyment.
Secondly, I think falsetto can definitely exemplify his concept of putting on another personality through a physical change in the voice. I take an example from my childhood: my brothers and I used to play with Beanie Babies, and we always used our own voices in falsetto as the Beanies' voices. I think the implication, though we knew this subconsciously, was that smaller creatures should have higher voices. (And indeed there is a correlate in the physics of instruments--e.g. shorten a tube and the sound of air passing through it becomes higher in pitch.) Through our falsetto voices we took on the identity of the Beanies. (And...who says females don't have falsetto?? But I'll leave that to discussion.)
Finally, a friend of mine last night shared with me unknowingly what turns out to be an amazing example of using falsetto to cross the boundaries between our conventional attachments to what are the "male" and the "female" voices. This is a guy singing "A Whole New World" from Aladdin: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9-CS2v8wcc. He is certainly taking on the persona of another in this song (obviously, since it's a well-known male/female duet); and honestly if I was not watching the video, I most likely would never have guessed that a male voice is singing the female lines.
The article "Staccato, swivel and glide" presents an aesthetics of semi-articulation of early rock music which is inspired by Julia Kristeva's analysis of semiotic and symbolic signifying processes. Tandt claims that early rock n' roll marks the appearance of songs with radically disruptive geno-texts, saying its libidinal discharge was channelled not only through the beat of electric guitars, but even more prominently through the singer's body and voice. Examples he listed indicate that whatever meanings are generated through the performative game of rock's vocal inflections must be produced by connotation. The inflection refers to the transgression of the musical norms, such as rhythm, pitch and articulation, as well as the style of performance. I believe that the phenomenon of male's 'falsetto' he mentioned in the last section of his essay functions similarly to what irregular rhythm and inaccurate pitch do in rock music. They all depart from the system of well articulated communication among constituted subjects, leading to a disrupt regeneration of the symbolic order.
ReplyDeleteThe reading reminds me of the Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen. Even though the band thrives after the 70s, it reflects the aesthetics of early rock. The music switch abruptly between singing styles and emotional tones. The relationship between the lyrics and the music is perplexing. (while the text is expressing something violent, the music is oddly lyrical) The singers, all males, sing in the range that is ambiguously between that of the male and of the female.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irp8CNj9qBI
Reading Firth's article, my first thought went back to the Grauer article involving the Kalahari. I thought about the fact that yodel is a style that characterizes these primitive cultures; it is a style of singing that demands control over the falsetto register, and emphasizes the differences between the falsetto and normal registers. Firth's discussion about falsetto made me think that maybe the yodel was first brought about as a way of unmistakably identifying the voice; as a way of sexualizing the body by pointing to both its high and low registers.
ReplyDeleteFirth discusses how singing in a high register can be a very desirable trait in male vocals. Singing in a high strained voice can show more intense feeling, and can be a sign of vocal prowess. In the band The Mars Volta, the singer almost always sings in a very high register. Even when he isn’t singing up in the stratosphere, his nasally tone makes the notes sound higher. Many people consider this a sign of vocal skill and power because he has such range, and enjoy the bands music all the more because of his androgynous sound. Personally I think the music suffers because he almost always sings in a high register, but to each his own.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1T9eMKxjiLc&feature=related (2:46)
What may have been the semiotic geno-text during the advent of rock and roll is often now symbolic pheno-text. Integrated falsetto is an extreme example of the "contrast in pitch" that early rock singers employed. It may have been transgressive and primally and profoundly expressive, existing outside of a learned referential system in music. But in today's postmodern society, falsetto has come to exist within this system. When a singer throws in some falsetto, it most likely consciously harkens back to earlier singing styles in which falsetto was used as "grain;" in this recall of past traditions, it becomes a symbolic referent. Think about the band The Darkness - they got famous because their gimmick was a complete throwback to the late 1970s: They had long hair, wore tight pants, and their singer sang almost exclusively in falsetto. This falsetto exists not primarily as a corporal expression of emotion but rather as a conscious cultural reference. The semiotic signifier-signified binary has indeed become confounded.
ReplyDelete