Voicescapes

The (En)chanting Voice & Its Performance Soundscapes

Abstract

This is an exploration of a type of chanting that is not ordinarily considered music, but through “musical” parameters such as pitch, vocal style and intensity, it is often performed in settings in a musical way in order to create a vocal soundscape that surpasses that of everyday speech, although is distant from the singing voice in terms of its context and style of performance. This paper draws on Schafer’s work on soundscape in order to explore the ways the voice forms part of a meaningful sound environment (e.g., 1977, 1992, 1993). A performer who uses chanting, or a vocal style very close to this creates its sound-scapes, or “voicescapes”, in order to position it within a particular social situation and context to command a position of intense affect. This exploration of the socially performed voice shows that in some contexts it clearly has musical traits—something that challenges the boundaries of what music is or is not— and that social performance is an important process allowing such vocal performances to carry meaning. The discussion presents several examples of the chanting voice as a performing instrument that is essential to many contexts of everyday life. It is an instrument that creates voicescapes in a multitude of social settings in order to, for example, capture the attention of listeners, add expression to a situation, or position the chanter vis-à-vis an audience. The contexts in which such vocal performances are found include auctions, horse races, sports commentaries, marches, and markets. In such contexts the voice is performed in a chant-like way in order to capture the attention of an audience or to express in an emotional way a scene or image. In each, the voice is usually raised in pitch, in intensity, and it chants.