[spectre] Call for Papers - Leonardo Music Journal 15

[LEONARDO (mk)]

Call for Papers:
LMJ 15 (year 2005)

"The Word---Voice, Language and Technology"

In the beginning of music there very likely was the Word---whether "hush"
(little baby) or "hosanna"---but from the knife that kept the great
castrato Farinelli forever boyish to the harmonizer that made Laurie
Anderson temporarily mannish, technology has been used to tweak the human
voice and to color the stories it tells. With the advent of electronic
amplification, radio and recording, a single microphone could convey the
lip-brushing intimacy of the whisper and croon well beyond the first row of
the concert hall. The evolution of pop vocal styles from the 1950s onward
cannot be separated from innovations in recording technology such as tape
echo, double tracking, electronic reverberation and, most recently, an
ever-expanding palette of digital effects. Vocal cut-ups and processing
have been essential tools of the avant-garde from Walter Ruttman's film
soundtrack experiments in the 1930s, through Cage and Reich, to Ashley and
Sonami, while artists from Kurt Schwitters to Jaap Blonk have created
purely acoustic vocal works that mimic the aural artifacts of technology.

The interplay of the semantic content of a text and the melodic
possibilities of the voice have made "song" the world's most common musical
form, and technology-driven vocal innovations have often triggered the
emergence of new musical genres (rap being the most conspicuous example).
Between the much touted "abstractness" and "universality" of music and the
seductive specificity of words there exists a poignant and powerful lacuna.
The voice may be our first and most "natural" instrument of art, but art is
artificial, and the link between technique and technology is more than a
pun. As Voltaire said, "If it's too silly to be said, it can always be
sung."

For the next issue of LMJ we invite contributions that address the
interplay of the voice, words and technology in any style of music.

Deadlines:
15 October 2004: rough proposals, queries
1 January 2005: submission of finished articles

Address inquiries to Nicolas Collins, Editor-in-Chief, at:
ncollins at artic.edu. Finished articles should be sent to the LMJ Editorial
Office at isast at sfsu.edu.

Editorial guidelines and information for authors can be found at:
http://mitpress.mit.edu/Leonardo/Authors. Note: LMJ is a peer-reviewed
journal. All manuscripts are reviewed by LMJ editors, editorial board
members and/or members of the LMJ community prior to acceptance.

More information about LMJ - tables of contents, CD information, selected
texts and more - is available at
http://mitpress2.mit.edu/Leonardo/lmj