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Unimagining Song: Making Kin in the Vocal Scene

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 December 2018

Chris Tonelli
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Extract

The task set out for us in this curated section of the Yearbook is, from the perspective I present here, problematic. We are invited to consider utterances on the boundaries between speech and song, and I cannot help thinking that this is like being asked to consider bodies at the border between the air and Canada. Though the terms “speech” and “song” both have numerous meanings, speech generally refers to something relatively concrete: the use of the human voice to convey linguistic meaning. The term speech is like the term air; it refers to something intangible but still concrete. Song, on the other hand, is like Canada. It is a reification. How do we address the space between something concrete and something imagined? Song's borders lie at a variety of distinct perceived locations. Unlike with speech, we cannot objectively determine the line between song and non-song. Even if no one shares your sense of where the borders of song lie, no one has the authority to claim you are wrong. Others may be correct to deem your judgment as culturally inappropriate in a given context, but not objectively untrue. If I hear all speech as song, you cannot prove me wrong. If you see all running as dance, I have no solid ground to assert that it's not. We can quibble over intention and the importance of shared cultural conceptions, but ultimately there is no objectively verifiable way to confirm an utterance as song.

Type
Speech, Song, and in-Between
Information
Yearbook for Traditional Music , Volume 49 , 2017 , pp. 149 - 161
Copyright
Copyright © 2017 By The International Council for Traditional Music

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Footnotes

1.

This essay does not do justice to the complexity of distinct definitions of what constitutes speech. My argument here depends on a definition of speech that takes speech to be a medium for the transmission of messages. What makes speech verifiable as speech and more than mere reification is the presence of patterns that can be verified as shared conveyors of meaning. While there may be a case to be made for the existence of speech that cannot be objectively determined as speech, this case would not overshadow the broader distinction I am trying to point to here. Speech and song would remain distinct in this regard, at least in terms of degree.

References

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