Reflections on the analysis of artificial vocality: representations, tools and prospective

Abstract

Initially a result of talking heads, followed by the arrival of telephony and the gramophone, the use of artificial vocality within musical composition is becoming more and more common as different laboratories acquire devices enabling the manipulation of sound. Following Pierre Schaeffer's first experiments in Paris, many composers became interested in the expressive resources of the mechanical voice, the results of which are now present in a large corpus of electroacoustic works. By its very nature, artificial vocality establishes a new link between the vocal quality of a sound event (its vocality) and technology (its artificiality) within this type of music.

How then, can the musicologist study artificial vocality and the works in which it is used? Which tools should be used? What makes the analysis of artificial vocality so specific? Is it possible to create new tools for the analysis of artificial vocality within electroacoustic music?

In the search for answers to these questions, many difficulties present themselves. The first concerns the modes of representation and the methods used to analyse artificial vocality. On top of this, real reflection is needed concerning the disparity of technological tools used in analysis and the need for the application of a certain methodology in order to classify them. The starting point will be the establishment of a typology. Finally, the idea of being able to compare different representations of the same work using sophisticated tools will open the way to the discovery of new analytical approaches. Seeking freedom from the relative blindness caused by the over-specialisation and rigidity of technological tools is now an urgent necessity, particularly when considering artificial vocality.