Y3 | Timbre, Orchestration, and the Human Voice Workgroup

Timbre, Orchestration, and the Human Voice Workgroup
Y3 | Workgroup Summary

15 July 2021
13:30-15:00 EDT
Via Zoom

Workgroup Leaders:
J. Marchand (Concordia University), K. Soden (McGill University), L. Reymore (McGill University)

Aims:

General Goals of Group

·      Gaining more understanding of the voice as an instrument and how it fits with other instruments; how is the voice orchestrated with other voices or with other instruments

·      Approaching the voice from a scientific and empirical perspective

·      Solving semantic issues about the voice

·      Adding to the scant information about opera orchestration

·      Fostering communication between singers and composers

·      Understanding the influence of singing metaphors on instrumental timbre

Goals at the meeting

·      Discuss the three active projects

o   Comments/criticisms

o   Encourage new collaborators to join

o   Hear about new projects/new project ideas

·      Find ways for voice group to join the room acoustics choral blends group

·      Brainstorm new project ideas

Discussion Points:

1.     Update on Voice Timbre Semantics

This project addresses questions of how people characterize vocal timbre vs. instrumental timbre. Methodology will be adapted from L. Reymore’s dissertation. Participants will listen to samples and then be interviewed by the team. Semantics will be extracted from the interviews. Questions to be addressed include 1) whether people use different tactics to describe voices and instruments; 2) whether different groups use different descriptors (instrumentalists vs. vocalists, musicians vs. non-musicians); 3) Whether different semantics appear to be used when participants describe different genres. Two different corpora will be used. The first includes highly controlled stimuli set recorded for a project related to vibrato in different genres (music theatre, opera, and jazz). The other is the Mixing Secrets library: an online database of different tracks from eight different genres. The RAVDESS was also considered but finally not chosen for this leg of the project.

2.     Update on Opera Orchestration

Using methodology from both K. Soden’s and L. Reymore’s dissertations, the first leg of this project aims to examine doubling in a pilot corpus of five Mozart operas and five Puccini operas. Arias have been encoded. The goal right now is to understand how the voice is doubled by the orchestra. Some research questions are: 1) what kind of doubling is used most often in Aria writing? 2) when it occurs, for how long does it happen? 3) what is the meaning of the doubling? 4) why is a certain instrument doubling the voice at this point in the aria?

The Timbre Trait Profiles, which provide characterizations of proto-Western musical instrument timbres by Western musicians, will be used to investigate whether certain voice types tend to be doubled by different instruments with similar trait profiles of different instruments. These might be used to support tropes or to characterize certain archetypes.           

An investigation is planned on how Mozart and R. Strauss signal gender through orchestration and timbral choices. What instruments are used to indicate gender? (Example, martial music in Marriage of Figaro associated with Cherubino).

Other suggestions:

a.     Looking at the operas of Czernowin, all singers in the pit not on stage, 20th cent. Considerations where voices are treated like instruments and instruments mimic the voice.

b.     Looking at solo and choral voices in the opera and the choral blend and the blend between the voices and the orchestra. In the analysis, it should be examined whether the composer wanted the elements to mix or wanted them to have separate identities.

c.     Important contrast between doubling the voice at the octave below and the octave above.

d.     Rather than compare Mozart to Puccini or Mozart to Strauss, we should compare different operas written by the same composer (too many variables across eras and geographical locations).

e.     There is interest in piano conductor scores. A separate line above the piano reduction exists on which important orchestral/timbral events are indicated. These would facilitate the learning process for singers, especially since piano vocal versions of many contemporary operas have not yet been created, but would also be an interesting analysis project.

Further questions to investigate:

a.     How orchestration ties into performance practice?

b.     How piano-vocal versions, or chamber versions differ timbrally from orchestral versions, etc?

c.     Is the composer choosing a certain doubling to add depth, support, blend, or to segregate the sounds?

d.     Could MIR be used? In about a year and a half, might Orchview be able to do this?

e.     Could this lead to an edited volume or special edition journal on opera orchestration since information on this topic is scant?       

f.      Could we foster more communication and exchange between vocalists and composers? Why are there so few contemporary vocal ensembles? Can we somehow develop pedagogical recommendations both for teaching singers to think more about how they fit into an orchestra and to teach composers what singers need in order to learn music well and sing effectively (supportive and appropriate textures and timbres in the accompaniment, audible guide notes, proper tessitura for the voice type, etc.)

3.     Choral Blending: Voice and Space

Choral blend project based on social distancing and blend during pandemic. Sound expands from the singer to fill the room by reflecting in the space and mixing with the singer. Figuring out how to balance the choir while distanced is challenging.

4.     Update on Extended Techniques Catalogue

Extended vocal techniques refer to anything outside of mainstream bel canto vocal technique. Outside of the classical world, many of these sounds are simply considered singing, ‘normal’ vocalizing, but within the operatic world it has even been suggested that producing some of these other sounds is vocally unhealthy. This fear extends beyond singers to composers, who are unsure how to use these techniques in their writing for fear of hurting singers. Some examples of extended techniques include overtone singing, inhalation singing, various types of growls, squalls, and vocal fry. A link to a lexicon of extended techniques created at UCSD (available on the repository) as well as a preliminary bibliography of sources for extended techniques and electroacoustic music has been provided. Researchers have begun populating a Google Drive folder with samples that include an audio recording, a spectrograph, and a data spreadsheet for each sample. If this is of interest, it could be shared to the entire group and others can add samples or resources.

It has been noted that contemporary composers are also interested in untrained or differently trained voices as well as voices extended via dsp, signal processing, use of microphones. Also, the phenomena of singers doubling themselves in pop music, which ties in with the doubling project in opera orchestration was mentioned. There are whole other sides of this topic, for example, hip hop, rap, sound poetry, spoken word. Several members expressed interest in this (see #6).

What is reasonable to ask of instrumentalists in terms of vocal production and how best to notate it? Tying this into orchestration, how do these extended techniques relate to instrument techniques? How composers link them, and the singers’ perspective on combining and juxtaposing with other singers or instruments. There is a student at UdeM who is a classically trained and certified teacher but sings metal. She is writing her master’s thesis on vocal health and techniques in metal singing, particularly growling. At University of Calgary, there is a student working on voice as a source of text and sound via electronics (radio spoken etc). New skills are necessary when hearing yourself reverberated, pitch shifted, delayed, and through stage monitors.                  

The eventual goal is to prepare a resource for the TOR that would include audio examples, tutorials, lists of experts, written resources (papers, books, etc.), repertoire lists, examples of notations, information on how to be culturally respectful when using these techniques, links to evidence based pedagogical materials, etc. We are open to suggestions.

5.     New Project Proposal: Robustness of vocal metaphors in instrumental music

After some theoretical work on vocal metaphors in instrumental playing (cantabile, in a singing style, etc. and pieces inspired by voices - Ex. Talking piano, Concerning King, pieces that are inspired by vocals) this project would now involve some experimental research in collaboration with interested members of the voice group. One idea would be to have instrumentalists play a melody several different ways and have listeners rank the versions from most to least vocal (how robust is cantabile for the audience?). Several questions remain: What instruments should be considered (how does the approach change from one instrument to another?), what melodies, and how many versions are needed? How do instrumentalists approach cantabile playing? Is this different in contemporary music than in Romantic or Baroque? J. Noble is interested in the vocal metaphor in both conventional and novel approaches.

6.     New Project Proposal: On rap?

There is interest in the mention of voice and timbre in rap. The researching of vocal timbre, “pitched” rap, and appeal has been proposed. Eminem’s rap, for example, is pitched accurately enough to be sung in cover versions, while not all rap lends itself to this. Additionally, there is interest in:

·      how spoken word in rap is perhaps connected with recitative

·      how samples are used as leitmotifs

·      the metatimbre of the rap style voice.

Suggested book: The Rhythmic Voice in Rap (https://mcgill.worldcat.org/title/flow-the-rhythmic-voice-in-rap-music/oclc/1109843258&referer=brief_results).

Suggested papers: Serge Lacasse’s paper on Eminem: https://www.erudit.org/fr/revues/pr/2006-v34-n2-3-pr1451/014262ar/

and Loren Kajikawa’s paper Eminem’s “My Name Is”: Signifying Whiteness, Rearticulating Race (2009).

Action Items:

1.     Voice Timbre Semantics group to begin conducting interviews. Fall 2021 semester.

2.     Put together printed literature sources for opera orchestration and any programmatic meanings attached to specific instruments in eras/locations of Mozart and Puccini. Fall Semester 2021.

3.     Continue encoding opera arias. Fall Semester 2021.

4.     Send call for ideas on opera orchestration project. ASAP

5.     Call for Czernowin collaboration with Y. Adler. ASAP.

6.     Write an AMiT post on The Animal After Whom Other Animals are Named by Zosha di Castri. Fall Semester.

7.     Conduct interviews with singers in the choral blends project. Meeting to plan in September. Project to continue in Fall 2021 semester.

8.     Vocal metaphors experimental planning in Fall 2021. Send email call ASAP.

9.     Explore the possibility of a rap project. Summer 2021.

Follow-Up:

1.     Kate Soper’s YouTube channel, in which she goes into depth about how to perform the vocal techniques in the music she writes. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqvYFiwIVvrpa86kAjHIGYA This could be added to the TOR.

2.     Write a research creation module or blog post on reverb.

3.     Create a crash course on listening and incorporate some of the things discussed at this meeting. How does it sound if something is dry, reverberant? Difference between choir at the beginning only in the direct sound - what was added in the recording? Preparing/finding materials about that for the project.

4.     Continue work on the TOR module on extended techniques. Make an airtable/schedule and begin dividing tasks.