From sublime to hysteria
semantic dissolution and animality in contemporary singing
Abstract
Using the concepts of aesthetics, philosophy and psychoanalysis, we analyse the posture of the singer and what the linguistic heritage of the voice implies. Making use of physiological observations, spectrograms and examples of the repertoire, we study the consequences of such a posture and its use in the contemporary repertoire.
What does this new vocality tell us about the animality inherent in man and its role in postmodern aesthetic questions? We also tackle the subject of ambivalence between “instrumentality” and “animality” from the point of view of the contemporary singer.
Keywords: contemporary vocality, semantics, animality, proprioception.