Sydney Arvid Michel Schelvis BA 10537899
Universiteit van Amsterdam MA Musicology
dr. F.O. Seibt (supervisor)
prof. dr. J.J.E. Kursell (second reader) 17.428 words S.A.M.Schelvis@uva.nl sydneyschelvis@gmail.com 00 31 6 18 39 56 30 Zuiderzeeweg 30B 1095KJ Amsterdam The Netherlands (NL)
Idiography 3
Introduction 4
§1. Beyond semantics; towards a semiology of materiality 8
Basic principles of semiological structuralism 9
A selection of Roland Barthes’ post-structuralist works 10
Case Study: EDM and the “Voice of Noisia” 18
§2. The body in relation to the musical materiality 21
Mladen Dolar - A Voice and Nothing More (2006) 21
EDM: production and performance 24
§3. The effect of musical materiality on and in the body 30
Paul C. Jasen - Low End Theory (2016) 30
Embodied Music Cognition and EDM 36
Conclusion 40
Bibliography 44
Idiography
I remember unboxing my new headphones that my close friends had collectively given me for my 21st birthday. The present was pre-arranged so that I had selected the particular model myself. After spending several hours on comparing headphones, I decided it had to be the Sony MDR-7506 for, despite being around as a model for 25 years, it was strongly recommended on multiple online forums. As soon as I had the headphones in my hands I came to realise the first song I would listen to would set the tone for the rest of their lifespan. I must have scrolled through my Spotify playlists for at least a couple of minutes without yet playing anything before I decided to go for music by Noisia. Having heard them live during the Amsterdam Dance Event some weeks before I remembered enjoying the multitude of layers in their music, as well as the vibrant sound colours juxtaposed to their dark drum ‘n bass music. For I had no particular song in mind, I simply went for the one featured atop on their personal Spotify page: Tommy’s Theme.
The opening of the song was different than I would have expected from Noisia because it sounded rather slow and industrial, with the swelling strings setting in to foreshadow an epic climax. Once the drop set in I encountered my first synesthetic experience ever; the sound of the lead synthesiser appeared to move spatially and in colour. It evoked an endophysical motion with my body as well as my sense-focus following the amorphous lead in front of me. The constantly changing shape followed the pitch and dynamics of the main melody, with dark green to bright yellow respectively colourising low to high frequency notes. The nebulous contour sometimes focussed so that it took a clear shape, that of a dot or line with a similarly coloured transparent shade or flare attached to it. Longer pitches tend to flex in timbre so that the lineal shape looped itself while changing colour. It moved vertically, diagonally, and in depth depending on the musical movement. My head followed the imaginary incarnation of the lead synthesiser as I imagined it to move around three-dimensionally; the constant alternation of grindingly low and peaking high notes triggered vertical motion from the tip of my jaw to the crown of my head. Never before had I had such a visual experience aroused by music. After the song had finished I took my headphones off to realise what had just happened, but I could not fully understand yet how it did.
Introduction
As a musicology student I often get asked whether music has lost its magic for me. My usual answer is that in some sense it indeed hardly ever overwhelms me anymore as I can often reason for myself how it would do so. With my musicological toolbox at hand I can expose the underlying structure or argue how it is merely a continuation of commercial exploitation of the culture industry. This ultimately leads to depreciation, regardless of the musical experience. As for the case described above I could do so as well, but for it was such an intense listening experience it made me realise music’s potential to affect beyond reason. Or perhaps better: beyond conscious reason. Curious as I am, however, I still feel a drive to musicologify this experience and to explain it. At the risk of losing its magic I will hence try to unmask the overwhelmingness of the situation by means of theorisation. The straightforward course to do so would be to study synaesthesia, the phenomenon whereby a stimulus to one sense (in this case auditory perception) prompts activation in another sense (here: visual). Synaesthesia is often found to be a consistent condition in a person, while as for me it occurred only once. Hence I would not dare to compare myself to composers like Liszt and Messiaen, who were truly synesthetic listeners and composed from that capability. What intrigues me even more than synaesthesia as a neurological condition is how I could have had this particular experience, under these circumstances, and with this specific song.
In this thesis shall move towards a systematic theorisation, taking my singular listening experience as point of departure. My main interest here is what moved me most in Tommy’s Theme: the lead synthesiser, because this is what ultimately induced synaesthesia. This synth resembles a voice, and it is this resemblance that I wish to elucidate. Voice, here, has a metaphorical nature: instead of an actual organic, human voice, it is the semblance of this centre-staged musical lead that has the same potential effect on the listener as a voice does. A voice brought forth by digital synthesisers is in some respect exemplary for contemporary (popular) music: with new means of music-making come new modes of music listening. Electronic dance music (EDM) is a hot topic in popular music studies for along with new methods and means of music making and listening, it introduced a vast collection of new themes to musicology. It constitutes itself mainly in popular music studies with common topics being identity-formation, club scenes (its presumed home), and on a more sociological level authority and hedonism. Here, however, I will predominantly employ theories on the voice as subject of study. The reason for my choice of studying the voice in this context is because of its initial contrast. That is, a digitally produced and non-vocal song inducing similar effects as the human voice grasped my musicological interest at once. I could even go so far as
to claim how this can be a metaphor for contemporary developments in artificial intelligence, but for the sake of keeping it musicological I will focus primarily on the listener. It is the listening experience that ultimately constitutes this voice-resemblance. Hence I will put my main focus on the reciprocal relation of voice and listener in electronic dance music. To use and apply the notion of voice in this musical paradigm is of course not so straightforward, so I will also problematise my use of the concept in order to create an exhaustive theoretical frame to work with. These theories of the voice and its effect are drawn from different musicological fields, alternated by disquisitions of practises in EDM-production and performance, as well as my idiographical experiences pertaining to EDM.
As the subtitle of this thesis indicates, my study is a post-semantic inquiry into EDM. That is, it scrutinises the semiological structure of semantic signification yet moves beyond a clear signifier-signified structure. Post-semantics means there is not a clearly deducible and verbalisable meaning to be found in the music – as would be the case with, say, a singer-songwriter’s lyrical songs from which the meaning arises chiefly out of the text – but instead it turns to the body rather than the mind as significational addressee. In (non-vocal) EDM the body is the main receiver of meaning in the sense that meaning arises out of physical sensation. Henceforth I shall therefore consider the latter as a replacement of the semantic idea of meaning; meaning is now sensation. In order to study this I will draw on theories of the voice as embodiment of addressor, starting with Roland Barthes’ post-structuralism. His break with structuralist semiology forms an exemplary model for a theory of
post-semantics as discussed here. In order to provide theoretical background I will first present a short
treatise on the basic principles of semiological structuralism, after which I will discuss five of Barthes’ major post-structuralist works. From outlining his theory his methodology will reveal itself. This first chapter then ends with a case study build upon the introductory idiography on Noisia’s Tommy’s
Theme. The onset for my inquiry into post-semantics thus lies in Barthes’ works, and particularly in
the last to be discussed The Grain of the Voice (1972). This essay was the first in its kind as a post-structuralist outline of a theory of the voice and therefore a perfect end to the chapter on Barthes and introduction to the other theories of the voice that are to be discussed.
The second chapter, “The body in relation to the musical materiality”, starts off with a treatise on Mladen Dolar’s A Voice and Nothing More (2006). This book, in line with The Grain of the Voice (1972), focuses on the confluence of sound and utterance, anatomically scrutinising the signification process from its incipience. As it was written some thirty years later than Barthes’ essay, however, it also incorporates mechanically (re)produced voices. Needless to say this corresponds to the theme of digitally produced EDM. Hence I will anatomise the process from EDM’s ex nihilo digital production onto its effect on the addressee’s body upon playback. This passage can be considered less theoretical and more of an exposition of the practice of EDM, so as to also provide a background to
the music’s working system. To expose the foundations of the production process and the music’s reception contributes to the musicological knowledge of electronic dance music, which can then be theorised. In particular theory of embodiment is relevant in this case, as the main interest in this chapter is the unsatisfactory search for an implied embodiment of the voice on the other end of the speakers. At the end of the chapter I will briefly return to my idiography to approach it accordingly.
At last, in chapter three, I will delve into contemporary academic work on low frequency sound and EDM, using Paul C. Jasen’s Low End Theory (2016). The chapter, titled “The effect of musical materiality on and in the body”, focuses on the effects and unintentional side-effects of bass-centric music on the body. Specific themes here are: agency of low frequency sound, the role and agency of the DJ, corporeal effects of inaudible sound, and importance of physical presence in relation to EDM. Since Jasen is highly affiliated with EDM and is involved with current events in this scene, his theory is a convincing onset for a musicology of electronic dance music. The second halve of the third chapter entails embodied music cognition as musicological discipline. In reference to theories appertaining to Marc Leman and Ragnhild Torvanger Solberg I will use embodied music cognition as a systematic approach to the psycho- and physiological reception of EDM. Its structuralist nature conflicts with the post-structuralist theories and methods up until there, yet I shall cautiously make an attempt at harmonising the two so as to create an all-encompassing post-semantics theory of electronic dance music. At the end of the chapter I shall also draw back on my introductory idiography to assess whether the hitherto established methodologies are able to explain or give more insight to the phenomenon.
This idiographic approach derived from a method that was only recently introduced to me in a course called A Musicology of the Everyday. Students were asked to write idiographies – from Greek: idio (personal) + graphia (script, writing, text) – in which they had to denote music listening situations regarding a specific theme as truthfully yet personally as possible, so as to establish a vast collection of experiences. These idiographies would then be discussed in application of relevant theory. I believe as a methodology this has a lot to offer, for it provides insight outside of academia. Apart from my life as a musicology student, I live a life as music aficionado too. Notwithstanding I reflect on my personal listening habits and experiences from a musicological perspective. This is rather a matter of perspective than a case of split personality, yet as pointed out above a deliberately non-musicological listening session enables musical magic to occur. Taking my listening experience as pars pro toto would be too hazardous for I would be at the risk over generalising my listening to that of everybody. On the other hand, my listening also need not be disdained right away, for it is an actual mode of listening that did in fact occur.
EDM’s impact on popular music is not to be underestimated; hence this thesis is a confluence of post-structuralist theory and popular music studies. My personal assumption is that electronic dance music is only yet in its adolescent phase, growing up to be pop music’s biggest (sub)genre in the upcoming decade(s) as production and playback technology develop to be more both more advanced as well as accessible for a larger public. As for now the main consideration is the shift in signification, coming from a predominantly lyrical song-based pop scene. In EDM physical presence and physiological agency are the principal considerations to be discussed here, with my research question therefore being: how can we make sense of the post-semantic signification process of musical materiality in electronic dance music?
§1. Beyond semantics; towards a semiology of materiality
In establishing a methodology for approaching post-semantic effect in electronic (dance) music, I will first turn to Roland Barthes (1915-1980). This French author became a leading figure in the post-structuralist movement in the second halve of the twentieth century. His most notable works deal with literature as well as music. Important to note here is that it is hard to speak of one Roland Barthes, as a theoretician that is, for his early publications as a structuralist semiologist are of a completely different nature than his later work, in which he generally emphasises the role of the reader/listener in (musical) texts. Although it is hard to pin down when this transition took place, it is widely accepted that his essay Death of the Author (1967) formed a disruption with his earlier writing phase; his scholarly transition from structuralism into post-structuralism was caused by his break with the static literary principles of the former, which will be elucidated in the next subchapter. To deal with an author whose theories are first of all contradictory to some extent (his earlier versus his later works), and moreover being self-undermining, as for instance the Death of the Author calls for a rejection of an author’s authority over a text, is quite challenging. It would mean to go against Barthes’ theory when aligning it in his name, which is an insurmountable problem when dealing with him as an author. To overcome this impasse I will create an own account of Barthesian theory, drawing on five of Barthes major publications in mostly chronologic order. From these I will employ concepts, ideas, bits and pieces so as to construct a consistent Barthesian theory and an analogue method with regard to the materiality of the musical signifier and its effect. The works to be discussed are Empire of Signs (1970), The Third Meaning (1970), The Pleasure of the Text (1973),
Camera Lucida (1980), and most prominently The Grain of the Voice (1972). In order to remain ad
rem, I will also draw on musical examples to elucidate my point throughout the discussion of these works. Before delving deep into Barthesian theory, however, I will first give an historical background to the works discussed, by explaining the basic principles of semiology and how it ultimately led Barthes’ break with structuralism in the late 1960s.
Basic principles of semiological structuralism
Semiology is a subset of semiotics, commonly referred to as the “study of signs and symbols”. It is not to be confused with the parallel subset of semiotics, which is the eponymous Peircean tradition of semiotics. Semiology, as science of signs constructed by Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913), focuses on the sign as a conceptual object. The sign has an inseparable twofold structure: it consists of the
signifier (its material manifestation) and the signified (the mental idea, concept, or meaning). Outside
of the sign lay the referents, but important to note is that the sign does not refer to the actual referent, but to the conceptual one. According to Saussurian semiology the link between signifier and signified is completely arbitrary and dependent upon the language in which it occurs (Audi 1999). To give a brief example: the word “water”. Its signifier is, in this case, the set of black letters on the white page, as spelled out above; the signified is the idea of water, the meaning invested and extractable from the signifier by linguistic convention.
The latter example pertains to semantics, a branch of semiology that is concerned with the relation between the sign and what it signifies, and is therefore often employed in meaning-extraction. This method takes the signs as having a signifier with one signified, i.e. they are monosemic. Its meaning (signified) arises out of differentiation: “water” and “later” differ only in one letter, but their meanings are completely disparate. Through such differences signifiers are conventionalised to convey one particular signified. Barthes’ break with structuralism was based on his revelation of the polysemy of signs, that is: signs signify on multiple levels, therefore being adherent to their addressee and situationality. In his earlier mentioned The Death of the Author from 1967 he consequently took away the author’s authority over a text’s meaning, doing away with the presupposition that the author is guarantees the only or “real” meaning of a text.
As this chapter’s title indicates, I will move beyond semantics towards a theory of post-semantics. What it entails will become clear from the usage of it throughout the text, for now it is worthy to note that it aims at looking beyond that which is signified by a signifier in the standard form; i.e. there is an “empty” signified slot in that nothing is signified but the signifier still brings forth an effect. With the first work to be discussed here, Empire of Signs (1970), Barthes new aim to scrutinise this signification process beyond the simple signifier-signified model becomes clear. His rejection of straightforward and retrievable underlying structures – structuralism’s greater aim – turns into a focus on the addressee and the role of the reader/listener in the process of meaning-extraction and -creation. Hence the emphasis lies on the materiality of the signifier, and how and what this signifies. This will later on be applied to musical materiality in electronic dance music.
A selection of Roland Barthes’ post-structuralist works
Empire of Signs (1970)
Empire of Signs was Barthes’ first major publication since The Death of the Author (1967), marking the development of his post-structuralist thought. The book was inspired by his trip to Japan in 1966 and although it appears at first as a travel diary of some sort, it actually is a prototypical outline for a theory of post-semantics. Overall the book tells of Barthes experiences as an alienated foreigner in Japan. Not being able to decipher the overwhelming amount of signs in the streets, nor able to understand spoken Japanese, he finds himself in a position where he is aware of the signifying nature of these signs, but to him they signify something other than what they “ought to” signify. That is, he recognises Japanese scripture as such, and this leaves him with the realisation that he is in Japan (alongside other possible realisations), but he is not able to capture the “true meaning” of these signs. As he opens his book:
The dream: to know a foreign (alien) language and yet not to understand it: to perceive the difference in it without that difference ever being recuperated by the superficial sociality of discourse, communication or vulgarity; to know, positively refracted in a new language, the impossibilities of our own; to learn the systematics of the inconceivable; to undo our own “reality” under the effect of other formulations, other syntaxes; to discover certain unsuspected positions of the subject in utterance, to displace the subject’s topology; in a word, to descend into the untranslatable […]. (Barthes 1982, p. 6)
In short, what Barthes means is that he gets a sense of pleasure from recognising a language as indecipherable to him while being in its enveloping culture. ‘The murmuring mass of an unknown language constitutes a delicious protection’, he continues, ‘[…] the unknown language, of which I nonetheless grasp the respiration, the emotive aeration, in a word the pure significance, forms around me, as I move, a faint vertigo, sweeping me into its artificial emptiness, which is consummated only for me: I live in the interstice, delivered from any fulfilled meaning’ (p.9). With this passage Barthes aims at his lack of understanding underlying semantic meaning, which drives him to make sense of the expressive signs in a different fashion; a fascination for all aspects of expressive utterance leaves him with an understanding that acknowledges his non-understanding of the initially implied meaning. Inasmuch as he lacks a “true” understanding, the signification process is not completely lost
on him: there simply is an empty signified. This is indicated by what he calls pure significance, which is the key notion of the next work to be discussed (The Third Meaning (1970))1.
While Barthes’ idiosyncrasy has been troubling his readers for decades now, I will delineate what is to be employed in this disquisition of his post-semantic theory, so as to clarify the lengthy quotations and his point. The main lesson to be learned from Empire of Signs with regard to this study is his approach towards the materiality of the signifier. This need not be related to tactility of any kind; what it implies is the manifestation, actualisation, or realisation of the signifier. For example, a Japanese sign may manifest itself on paper, a wall, etc. in a visually perceptible form. The materiality of the signifier is of importance in a post-semantic study because in this case it is the sign’s material manifestation that induces an effect, instead of the signified’s meaning. I can illustrate this, while staying close to the theory’s origins, by employing this Japanese kanji: 水. This signby convention, as Saussure would argue language works at large, means water. I, however, am not in the slightest affiliated or acquainted with Japan or the Japanese language(s), which means the meaning of water is completely lost on me. There is no way by which I can decipher it, without the use of external help that is, leaving me with the mere materiality of the signifier. Its shape, its curves, perhaps its colour, the quantity and direction of lines, and above all its gestalt are all that appears to me. Despite my inability to pose an educated guess at what it could mean in colloquial Japanese, it still has an effect on me. I would immediately recognise it as Japanese (or at least in my ignorant orientalism as Asian) without having any knowledge of what it could mean or how it functions in the greater structure of the language and culture in which it is disposed. In that way it presents itself with a sense of Japaneseness or Asianness, which triggers immediate associations with my tacit knowledge and earlier encounters of the same calibre. All this goes to show how, for me, the signifier with an empty
signified still has an effect on me; an effect that does not fit the significational conventions of Japanese
kanji’s, but rather is a personal realisation through cultural connotations. I understand that I do not understand it, yet I am still moved by it. It reminds me of manifold situations to which this material manifestation of the signifier could be relevant, but this effect differs from a semantic understanding.
The Third Meaning (1970)
Barthes’ essay The Third Meaning (1970) is one of his earlier yet most prominent post-structuralist works. Similar to Empire of Signs (1970) his theory arises out of a case study, which in this case are stills from Sergei Eisensteins’ Ivan the terrible (1944). From the onset Barthes distinguishes three
levels of meaning, starting with (1) an informational level. ‘This level is that of communication. Were it necessary to find a mode of analysis for it, I should turn to the first semiotics (that of the ‘message’)’ (Barthes 1977, p.52). This level of meaning applies to the development of the narrative and the expression and understanding of it. Then Barthes continues to the (2) symbolic level, which itself segments into three forms of symbolism: (i) referential – reference to cultural norms, habits, values, etc., (ii) diegetic – pertaining to the recurring theme within the narrative, and lastly (iii) historical – which is reflective on the usage of thematic material in narrative at large. These two levels, informational and symbolic, are semantic since they deal with clear and intelligible signifier-signified relations. Barthes continues: ‘[i]s that all? No, for I am still held by the image. I read, I receive (and probably even first and foremost) a third meaning – evident, erratic, obstinate. I do not know what its signified is, at least I am unable to give it a name, but I can see clearly the traits, the signifying accidents of which this – consequently incomplete – sign is composed’ (p.53). This is the incipience of the third meaning, where ‘[the signifier] exceeds meaning without, however, coming down to the obstinacy in presence shown by any human body’ (p.54).
By contrast with the first two levels, communication and signification, this third level – even if the reading of it is still hazardous – is that of signifiance, ‘a word which has the advantage of referring to the field of the signifier (and not of signification)’ (ibid.). That is to say, the addressee of the signifying act is left with an empty signified (close to what was discussed in Empire of Signs); s/he is at the level of signifiance. This is explained further with the designation of obvious and obtuse meaning to respectively the second and third level. ‘Obvius means which comes ahead and this is exactly the case with this meaning, which comes to seek me out; […] that which presents itself quite naturally to the mind […] As for the other meaning, the third, the one ‘too many’, the supplement that my intellection cannot succeed in absorbing, at once persistent and fleeting, smooth and elusive, I propose to call it the obtuse meaning […] Obtusus means that which is blunted, rounded in form’ (pp.54-55). So in the second, symbolic level the meaning is present to be obvious to the addressee; it is intended by the addresser and symbolises through common culture and shared knowledge of symbols. As for the third level, the meaning is obtuse, meaning it is not readily accessible to anyone, nor does it occur in the language-system; ‘it is not situated structurally, a semantologist would not agree as to its objective existence’ (p.60), it is disposed in detail that only appears through aberration. ‘The obtuse meaning is a signifier without a signified, hence the difficulty in naming it’ (p.61).
To link this post-semantic theoretical framework back to music, I will quote a prominent scholar in terms of music semantics. Susanne Langer, arguing for the untranslatability of language to music (and vice versa) states that ‘[t]he analogy between music and language breaks down if we carry it beyond the mere semantic function in general, which they are supposed to share. Logically, music
has not the characteristic properties of language – separable terms with fixed connotations, and syntactical rules for deriving complex connotations without any loss to the constituent elements. Apart from a few onomatopoetic themes that have become conventional […] music has no literal meaning’ (Langer 1959, p.197). If this holds true, it would logically seem impossible too to “translate” Barthes’ post-semantic theory as hitherto established to music. However, there is an alternative way of approaching musical semantics. In language the signifier is linked by convention to the signified, the mental concept; in music, be it a single note or a 2-hour DJ-set, signification can evolve from verbal lyrics (as in most pop-music), arise out of convention, onomatopoetic sounds, or a self-made meaning by the listener that most likely arises out of a confluence of context and mood of listening. This enumeration of possibilities shows the ambivalence of musical meaning, with none of the above consistently holding true for every act of listening. Nonetheless, all of these show a consistency in that they are not fixed but strongly depend on the listener’s subjective reception of it.
The Pleasure of the Text (1973)
As The Pleasure of the Text is solely aimed at literary criticism, I will here only point out the recurring terms. Most important of which are plaisir and jouissance. The former is by default translated to English as pleasure, the latter as bliss. Richard Howard, in his note on the text as translated by Richard Miller, points out that for the translation of jouissance, a problematic linguistic situation arises for connotational differences between French and English cause the essence of the original sememe. ‘Roland Barthes's translator, Richard Miller, has been resourceful, of course, and he has come up with the readiest plausibility by translating jouissance (for the most part: Barthes himself declares the choice between pleasure and the more ravaging term to be precarious, revocable, the discourse incomplete) as "bliss"; but of course he cannot come up with "coming," which precisely translates what the original text can afford’ (Barthes 1975, p.v-vi). Jouissance thus is related to physical joy, and signifies sexual orgasm. This brings me to elucidating the difference between plaisir and jouissance, which I best leave to the original text as well as its original translator:
Texte de plaisir: celui qui contente, emplit, donne de l’euphorie; celui qui vient de la culture, ne rompt pas avec elle, est lié à une pratique confortable de la lecture.
Texte de jouissance: celui qui met en état de perte, celui qui déconforte (peut-être jusqu’à un certain ennui), fait vaciller les assises historiques, culturelles, psychologiques, de lecteur, la consistance de ses goûts, de ses valeurs et de ses souvenirs, met en crise son rapport au langage. (Barthes 1973, p.25-26)
[Text of pleasure: the text that contents, fills, grants euphoria; the text that comes from culture and does not break with it, is linked to a comfortable practice of reading. Text of bliss: the text that imposes a state of loss, the text that discomforts (perhaps to the point of a certain boredom), unsettles the reader's historical, cultural, psychological assumptions, the consistency of his tastes, values, memories, brings to a crisis his relation with language.] (Barthes 1975, p.14)
As is evident from these descriptions, the notions of plaisir and jouissance are closely linked to the act of reading a literary text. However, a year prior to the publication of Le Plaisir du Texte, in 1972, Barthes published his Le grain de la voix, which will be discussed in-depth at the end of this chapter. In this essay jouissance is a key term too, hence I wished to highlight the erotic connotation to it here.
Camera Lucida (1980)
Moving on to the second-last work by Barthes to be discussed here, which is in fact the last book to have been published during his lifetime. Here I shall only discuss part 10, 11, 18, and 19 of the book, as these are the most essential segments of the work with regard to my study. Camera Lucida revolves around the spectator’s position in photography, and grants the reader with another two Barthesian notions: studium and punctum. The first, studium, is explained as ‘a kind of general, enthusiastic commitment, of course, but without special acuity’ (Barthes 1981, p.26) and ‘of the order of liking, not of loving; it mobilizes a half desire, a demi-volition; it is the same sort of vague, slippery, irresponsible interest one takes in the people, the entertainments, the books, the clothes one finds “all right”’ (p.27). The studium thus is a positive encounter with (in Barthes’ example) photography that the spectator seeks out by studying it in search for meaning. The punctum, on the other hand, ‘is the element which rises from the scene, shoots out of it like an arrow, and pierces me’ (p.26); ‘[a] photograph’s punctum is that accident which pricks me (but also bruises me, is poignant to me)’ (p.27). Punctum derived from Latin and means something like prick or sting, which is to be taken metaphorically here in the sense that, contrary to studium, it is directed from the photograph at the spectator and punctuates him/her. This directional force would then account for the emotive effect raised by the punctum.
In part 18 and 19 of Camera Lucida Barthes argues how the punctum often is a single detail of a photograph. This details shoots out of the picture, through the spectator’s studium, to form a metonymic seme. The examples provided show that the punctum can be something as small or
insignificant as a woman’s necklace or a toddler’s bad teeth regardless of the photograph’s context. Much like plaisir – jouissance, Barthes distinguishes studium – punctum also by posing that the former is “in culture” or better yet: arises out of culture, whereas the latter is personal and devoid of cultural connotations.
As Camera Lucida is solely aimed at the art of photography, it does not lend itself well for immediate conversion to other applications. However, it is in line with Barthes’ theory as established hitherto: there is the classical Barthesian dichotomy that implies there is one insipid element (e.g. the
second meaning, plaisir, studium) that is all to normal and lacks excitement, which is then contrasted or
superimposed by a new notion (e.g. the third meaning, jouissance, punctum) that induces an inexplicable effect or arousal in the addressee. Drawing from foreign figures, film stills, literary criticism, and photography, Barthes develops a wide theoretical framework for post-semantic studies to work with. However, this study is aimed at music, electronic dance music to be specific, so in the next part I will discuss his main work on music in similar fashion as before, so as to finalise this chapter on Barthesian theory of post-semantics with regard to music.
The Grain of the Voice (1972)
As has become clear form the theories and analyses discussed above, Barthes drew on a wide variety of forms of art to work out his idiosyncratic approach. One of his most renowned works in which he employs a similar approach is The Grain of the Voice (1972)2, of which the English translation was published in the bundle Image-Music-Text (1977) alongside The Third Meaning (1970) and The
Death of the Author (1967). This text takes musical signification into account, with special attention to
the extra-semantic aspect of musical expression through use of the voice. It is considered a canonical text in the field of musical semiology, yet distinguishes itself through its archetypical Barthesian method. The Grain of the Voice opens with the premises that language is incapable of interpreting music adequately, albeit being ‘the only semiotic system capable of interpreting another semiotic system’ (Barthes 1977, p.179). Barthes continues by discussing the verbalisation of music; that is, the habitual conversion of musical impression into “the poorest of linguistic categories”: the adjective. However, the main focus of the text is on language and music, and their instance of collision; ‘I shall straightaway give name to this signifier at the level of which, I believe, the temptation of ethos can be liquidated (and thus the adjective banished): the grain, the grain of the voice when the latter is in a dual posture, a dual production – of language and of music’ (p.181). This grain is “the impossible
2 The essay The Grain of the Voice (1972) should not be confused with the eponymous posthumously published interview
account of an individual thrill” that distinguishes itself from usual music criticism by being a noun, therefore being something, a concept, rather than being an attributed predicate.
Borrowing from Julia Kristeva he employs the notions of pheno- and geno-texts to be applied on, respectively, the singing of opera stars Fischer-Dieskau and Charles Panzéra. Needless to say these dualities, again respectively, imply a standard and an extra-semantic element. Barthes explains the geno-song as pertinent to Panzéra’s voice:
[A] voice with a grain which little signifies: something is there, manifest and stubborn (one hears only that), beyond (or before) the meaning of the words, their form (the litany), the melisma, and even the style of execution: something which is directly the cantor’s body, brought to your ears in one and the same movement from deep down in the cavities, the muscles, the membranes, the cartilages, and from deep down in the Slavonic language, as though a single skin lined the inner flesh of the performer and the music he sings. The voice is not personal: it expresses nothing of the cantor, of his soul; it is not original […] and at the same time it is individual: it has us hear a body which has no civil identity, no ‘personality’, but which is nevertheless a separate body. Above all, this voice bears along directly the symbolic, over the intelligible, the expressive […] the ‘grain’ is that: the materiality of the body speaking its mother tongue, perhaps the letter, almost certainly significance. (pp.181-182)
This long quote serves to indicate the bodily aspect of the grain; it always arises out of a de-individualised person and the materiality of vocal utterance. This is opposed to the superficiality of the pheno-song, which is inherently linked to Fischer-Diskau’s idiolect. The pheno-song is the customary way of singing; adherent to the composer’s intentions, in line with the audience’s hopes and expectations, and it forms the preferred and normative style of singing in the culture it is manifested in. It lends itself well for evaluation in terms of adjectives and is reliant on the norms and aesthetic values of the particular genre. Reading in between the lines one can sense Barthes’ scepticism towards genuine goodness in the pheno-song as he discusses it rather condescendingly, lacking speciality.
Arguing on the pheno-song, Barthes states that ‘everything in the (semantic and lyrical) structure is respected and yet nothing seduces, nothing sways us to jouissance’ (p.183), implying once again the dichotomy between plaisir, which is a product of cultural standards and “never exceeds them”, and jouissance, the (near-)erotic and personal experience of enjoyment. This, according to Barthes, dates back to music pedagogy in which the emphasis is put on respiratory practise rather
than the body as bringer of the grain. ‘The lung, a stupid organ […] swells but gets no erection; it is in the throat, place where the phonic metal hardens and is segmented, in the mask that signifiance explodes, bringing not the soul but jouissance’ (p.183). The eroticism that Barthes imposes on the
geno-song a strong bodily aspect, or even an encounter between two bodies: that of the singer and that
of the listener. This becomes clear when Barthes declares that ‘[t]he grain is the body in the voice as it sings, the hand as it writes, the limb as it performs. If I perceive the ‘grain’ in a piece of music and accord this ‘grain’ a theoretical value (the emergence of the text in the work), I inevitably set up a new scheme of evaluation which will certainly be individual – I am determined to listen to my relation with the body of the man or woman singing or playing and that relation is erotic – but in no way ‘subjective’ (it is not the psychological ‘subject’ in me who is listening […])’ (p.188).
The “theoretical value” and “new scheme of evaluation” resemble the post-semantic approach to film (the third meaning), text (jouissance), and photography (punctum) in that they each contain the recognition of and relation to another body, they pay special attention to detail, they arouse the addressee, and they deviate from cultural norms. Interestingly, especially for this study, Barthes mentions that the concept of the grain can also be applied on “popular music” and even more so on non-vocal music: ‘[w]hat is more, leaving aside the voice, the ‘grain’ – or the lack of it – persists in instrumental music; if the latter no longer has language to lay open significance in all its volume, at least there is the performer’s body which again forces me to evaluation’ (ibid.)
To funnel the universal theory of the grain to a singular concretisation, I will provide a concise idiography to illustrate the concept. My most recent encounter of the grain dates back to Field Day Festival in London on 3 June 2017. 01:13:03 into the DJ-set by Aphex Twin, to be precise3. It was at this moment I recognised the onset of Mescalinum United’s We Have Arrived (1990). As soon as the “bass dropped” (at 1:13:30) it released a kind of energy amongst the audience that had a massive impact on me as addressee. My reading of it was of the third level; it provided me with immediate sensation through mere music. It signified, but there was no signified. There were simply heavy bass beats and syncopated synthesiser-sounds that aroused a sense of jouissance; a near-erotic euphoric bliss. This minor example serves to illustrate my theorisation of Barthesian post-semantic studies so far, but is by no means universal. It was my very personal position at that time and place that caused the piece of music to have an effect of the third meaning on me. And even so the term third meaning is applied hesitantly here for Barthes’ own example is the voice of Charles Panzéra, which is quite different than a 2017 DJ-set. Nonetheless the essence remains: I was moved by an unintelligible (or at least unnameable) effect that signified beyond semantic meaning.
3 The timing is based on the performance’s live registration made available online; http://nts.live/projects/aphex-twin -
By reviewing the five publications above I targeted to reveal logical structure in Barthes’ method: the intentional creation of contrast between a standard and an extra-semantic element. The effect of the kanji’s materiality, the third meaning, jouissance, the puntum, and the grain all aim at denoting an arousal arisen out of the addressee’s reading of an artistic object. Barthes shuns from explicitly explicating his practice, implicitly building his theory through case studies. The convertibility and consequently applicability of Barthes’ method is iffy as each of his examples is personal and oddly specific. Only in the last work to have been discussed here, The Grain of the Voice (1972), he explicitly opens up his methodology for use “across all genres of vocal music including popular music” and application on instrumental music. Having established the core logic of Barthes most prominent post-structuralist publications, I will now propose a similar case based on my idiography study that adheres to the implied guidelines for a Barthesian analysis so as to make an attempt at a post-semantic practicum. Logically my case will resemble most that of The Grain of the
Voice (1972), with a cheek-in-tongue pun in the title, for it is a musical one, only drawing from
non-vocal electronic dance music.
Case Study: EDM and the “Voice of Noisia”
With the technological development of the past decades, music instrument taxonomy has mutated significantly, alike musical playback and performance. DJs have become immanent to urban nightlife and have reshaped the dance floor. Electronic dance music has, especially since its introduction into pop-music in the late 00s, grown to be a worldwide musical phenomenon, with some festivals having close to half a million attendees. A new global (sub)culture has risen, driven by a strong sense of hedonism and a desire for a new type4 of music. Similar to classical music (and at erratic instances also to pop and jazz) it has a strong distinction between composer and performer, respectively in its own terms: producer and DJ. Typically one is both, in that most DJs also produce music, and most producers also deejay5 - yet this does not necessarily involve their own productions. The DJ in general has caused a paradigmatic shift in musicological performance studies for the live element in a DJ-set is (typically) not the DJ making music, but rather playing back pre-recorded music. This, however, remains an on-going heated debate amongst scholars as well as EDM’s aficionados. The physical production of live music is reduced to the cranking of knobs and the sliding of tactile bars, with the intent to fittingly mix tracks into each other, alter sounds, build pressure, and keep a consistent beat.
4 The development, size, and impact of electronic (dance) music over the past 30 years in the west have put it level with
musicological typological classifications such as popular music, art music, and jazz. This principal triad is here remodelled so that electronic (dance) music is on equal ground, rather than being a genre or subordinate to one of the major frames.
The lack of intermissions between songs has for the greater part been resolved by the technological possibilities and the relatively low physical action required of the DJ. Despite the ever-persistent dominance of the song-structure, some of EDM’s (sub)genres are renowned for hour-long sets without pauses (e.g. techno and psytrance). As the name indicated, electronic dance music has its audience on the dance floor, thereby incorporating an active corporeal element into the music’s reception. Whether it is played in a local discotheque, club, concert venue, festival stage, or arena, the live experiences is actively physical.
The digital audio format, in a wider context of global digitalism, makes music extraordinarily mobile and transferable/sharable across the online global community. DJs’ ease of mobility is characterised by the miniaturisation of required gear; a single USB-stick suffices for a DJ to be able to play a set, with the rest of the equipment (PA system, DJ-decks, microphones, etc.) often being permanently installed into the venue. EDM subdivides into myriad (sub)genres, each of them being musically and (sub)culturally distinct from the other, with the umbrella term encompassing, amongst others, (mainstream) house6, techno and tekno, harstyle and hardcore, (psy)trance, dubsteb, drum ‘n bass, trip hop, and IDM7. All of these share three chief characteristics: they are digitally produced (although analogue/modular synthesisers and drum machines are still being used, much of the process is computer controlled), they typically have a constant beat that forms the basic structure for live mixing, and performance involves playing back pre-produced audio rather than actual music making. Numerous exceptions to these principles are made, with for instance Juno Reactor’s orchestral Navras, Autechre’s fluctuating tempos, and Romare’s “live techno”.
In the case presented here I will draw back on the song presented in the idiographical introductory anecdote: Tommy’s Theme by Noisia. Unlike Barthes I will not make a comparative analysis with its implied juxtaposition of the post-semantic to the standard (e.g. respectively: geno- vs.
pheno-song, punctum vs. studium, etc.), instead I will focus on the one particular song. The description
of my impression presented on page 3 was written rather shortly after the event had happened, far before I had studied Barthes’ post-semantic theory. Nonetheless it forms an ideal onset for approaching my listening experience through post-semantic theory. I like to believe my synesthetic encounter was triggered by the lead synthesiser’s resemblance to an impressive voice, perhaps like that of Panzéra for Barthes. The difficulty in such a post-structuralist practicum is to remain on a non-subjective level; something Barthes debunked by stating ‘it is not the psychological ‘subject’ in me
6 Often eponymously termed EDM, indicating the more mainstream, popular electronic dance music (e.g. David Guetta,
Calvin Harris, DJ Tiësto, etc.).
7 Intelligent Dance Music (IDM) evolved in the early 1990s from resentment towards simple popular house music;
characterised by inconsistency in generic sound and art music-like aesthetic appraisal. Prominent figures and fans have often rejected the genre’s name because of its claim to incorporate intelligence in music making.
who is listening’ (p.188). Despite the music playing on headphones, which as the name indicates are very directed and limited in their spatial distribution of airwaves, it was indeed my body that was listening, rather than my conscious spirit. On hindsight the Barthesian notions of punctum, jouissance, and grain apply appropriately to the bodily sensation Tommy’s Theme prompted in me, all moving beyond culture, beyond semantic signification, and into physical bliss. For the song largely adheres to standardised pop-song structure, short-term expectations as well as harmonic tension were key to the intensification and ultimate “eargasm”8 as sparked by the song’s drop. The in essence four-chord song is superimposed by myriad sound effects, modulated multiple times, and sometimes stripped of its harmonic content to only foreground the drum and the bass (not coincidentally eponymous to the genre’s name). Perhaps most striking is the very bass/lead synthesiser itself, which I have pointed out as main inducer of synaesthesia before. The three men behind Noisia, Nik Roos, Martijn van Sonderen and Thijs de Vlieger, are dedicated sound-technology geeks known to be able to spend hours on a single bass-line’s timbre, which in my reception of their music is rightfully revealed. That is, the grinding low frequency sound in Tommy’s Theme stood out immediately in comparison to other EDM had listened to hitherto. It grabbed me, moved me, and generated a strong sense of corporeal engagement in me. Instead of the music, or anything inside the music for that matter, signifying anything outside of the music, it converged with my body to bring about an effect. Puncturing right through my stadium, being a geno- rather than a pheno-song and containing the grain, causing jouissance; all post-semantic Barthesian labels appropriate my inability to verbalise Tommy’s Theme’s effect on me, which is the main reason for this miniscule case study. Instead of semiologically deducible semantic signification this example, as pars pro toto for an EDM geno-song, exposes effect as physical sensation in electronic dance music.
8 Colloquial portmanteau (ear + orgasm) used to denote a highly erotically climactic sensation caused by music’s
intensification and release, often accompanied by orgasmic gestures and goose bumps. It can be considered close to Barthes jouissance.
§2. The body in relation to the musical materiality
Contrary to the first chapter on Roland Barthes’ post-semantic theory, this chapter will have a single publication as its focus: Mladen Dolar’s A Voice and Nothing More (2006). As its title indicates the book is dedicated to the voice in its different manifestations, with different effects and approaches to these. It is considered Dolar’s magnum opus; at least of those works he wrote explicating his own theories and ideas (as opposed to his works on Hegel and other canonical philosophers). The Slovene philosopher is also renown for his collaboration with Slavoj Žižek and Rastko Močnik in the Ljubljana School of Psychoanalysis.
The main interest of the introduction arises from discussing Wolfgang von Kempelen’s speaking machine as well as his chess-playing automaton, thereby linking technology with speech and reason. These mechanical masterpieces of over two centuries ago serve to illustrate the historical wonder of technology, but even more so the effect of this wonder on the audience. Dolar emphasises the difference in presentation: “while the speaking machine was as mechanical as possible: it did not try to hide its mechanical nature; on the contrary, it exhibited it conspicuously. Its main attraction was the enigma of how something so utterly non-human could produce human effects. The anthropomorphic thinking machine [red. chess automaton] was counterbalanced by the non-anthropomorphic speaking machine’ (Dolar 2006, p.9). A preliminary link to EDM can be made here in that a mechanical reproduction of an otherwise human practice (music-making) seems to have abandoned all traces of human activity; a DJ need not be in front of his/her audience for the same effect to arise. However, ultimately it was a human being that engineered all the hard- and software from the MIDI-keyboard in the studio to the decks and speakers at the stage; and another human (the producer/DJ) is required to used his/her body for controlling all this equipment in order to fulfil the duty of producing music. I will return to this more elaborately at the end of this chapter. For now the introduction leaves me with one more relevant quote with regard to post-semantic studies: ‘[the speaking machine] endeavours to produce speech, some meaningful words and minimal sentences, but at the same time it actually produces the voice in excess of speech and meaning, the voice as an excess, and that was the point of fascination: the meaning was hard to decipher, given the poor quality of reproduction, but the voice was what immediately seized everyone and inspired universal awe, precisely with the impression it made of quintessential humanity’ (p.10). What this basically comes down to is: it is not the semantic meaning of what is uttered that matters, nor is it the place/time/origin of utterance, but it is the actual utterance itself; the origin of the voice.
Dolar opens the first chapter by opposing the voice and noise. The former is a natural phenomenon, the latter a cultural one, albeit the gap between them slowly getting thinner. As the chapter is titled “Linguistics of the Voice”, Dolar first turns to usage of the voice and signification in the semiological sense; ‘the voice which functions as the bearer of an utterance, the support of a word, a sentence, a discourse, any kind of linguistic expression’ (p.14). Dolar inherently links the voice to meaning, yet he sees the voice as a “vanishing mediator” that is the residual of the semantic process. It facilitates meaning yet disappears in it; ‘the voice is the instrument, the vehicle, the medium, and the meaning is the goal […] The ideality of meaning can emerge only through the materiality of the means [the voice], but the means does not seem to contribute to meaning’ (p.15). The link to post-semantic studies is evident here: the (human) voice is “mere materiality” that facilitates the meaning, but is discarded in the actual meaning-extraction.
In Barthes theory of the grain the materiality of the voice is what actually constitutes
significance for him as a post-semantic sensation. For Dolar, the voice is an “extra-linguistic element
that enables speech phenomena” but it is not in essence a linguistic phenomenon itself. He poses a dichotomy between the voice and the signifier, where the latter contains a dissectible logic that arises out of the classic Saussurian idea of negative differentiation with other semantemes. In the scrutiny of verbal signification Dolar describes to the voice as ‘natural soil of speech, [signification’s] seemingly positive substance’ (p.17). The voice as purely phonemic entity and linguistic sememes interdigitate so as to create semantic meaning. Linguistic units are empty without manifestations and rely, in verbal signification, on the materiality of the voice for them to be actualised in communication. This micro-semiology leads Dolar to the individuality of the voice, i.e. a voice serves as a personal fingerprint constituted by slight fluctuations in pronunciation and usage of language, which does not violate the norm but nonetheless generates idiosyncrasy.
With regard to mechanically (re)produced voices Dolar notes that there is a sense of robotic neutrality leading to “a touch of the uncanny” (p.22)9. In the next paragraph, “The linguistics of the non-voice”, Dolar discusses the manifestations of the voice outside of speech: coughs, hiccups, and screams. These are labelled presymbolic uses of the voice, and are external to linguistic structure (p.28). On the other hand there is the “postlinguistic” use of the voice, i.e. singing.
Singing takes the distraction of the voice seriously, and turns the tables on the signifier; it reverses the hierarchy – let the voice take the upper hand, let the voice be
9 Examples of artistic manifestations of this are Hal 2000 meeting its death in Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey or King
the bearer of what cannot be expressed by words. Wovon man nicht sprechen kann darüber kann man singen: expression versus meaning, expression beyond meaning, expression which is more than meaning, yet expression which functions only in tension with meaning – it needs a signifier as the limit to transcend and to reveal its beyond […] The voice is endowed with profundity: by not meaning anything, it appears to mean more than mere words, it becomes the bearer of some unfathomable originary meaning which, supposedly, got lost with language. (pp.30-31)
Dolar here aims at the pure materiality of the voice that, as has been expounded several times hitherto, constitutes a meaning beyond linguistics or semantics similar to Barthes’ significance. The post-semantic theory of the voice as proposed here differs from Barthes’, however, in that Dolar focuses only on the process of pronunciation, of verbal utterance, rather than on its effect on the listener. As purported above, Dolar scrutinises the relationship between language and voice in general and its role in the manifestation of language and lyrics, whereas Barthes specifies it to a particular singer’s proficiency.
Dolar continues on the presence and presentation of the voice and its (dis)embodiment. With a reflection on signifiers as mere bundles of differential oppositions, and the irrelevance of the materiality in semantic signification, he argues on how the voice appears as the connection between signifier and body:
It indicates that the signifier, however purely logical and differential, must have a point of origin and emission in the body. There must be a body to support it and assume it, its disembodied network must be pinned to a material source, the bodily emission must provide the material to embody the signifier, the disembodied signifying mechanics must be attached to bodily mechanics, if only in its most intangible and “sublimated” form, the mere oscillation of air which keeps vanishing the moment it is produced, materiality at its most intangible and hence in its most tenacious form. (p.59)
Borrowing from Michel Chion (who borrowed it from Pierre Schaeffer) Dolar employs the notion of acousmatic, which describes the situation in which we hear a noise without being able to perceive its origin. This for Dolar leads to a discussion on the assumption of divinity – the holy yet obscured voice of god – followed by a brief excursion on mechanical sound reproduction. ‘Radio, gramophone, tape-recorder, telephone: with the advent of the new media the acousmatic property of the voice became universal, and hence trivial […] we cannot see the source of voices there, all we see
is some technical appliance from which voices emanate, and in a quid pro quo the gadget then takes the place of the invisible source itself’ (p.63). Exactly this is what I wish to aim on in the following disquisition: the (dis)embodiment of digitally produced and reproduced electronic dance music. Ventriloquism, as discussed by Dolar, happens in EDM too, only in a different fashion.
EDM: production and performance
The idea of a human’s consciousness as root of creation remains, but instead of endophysical metamorphosis of breath-in air to a tuned and phonolised (thereby a semantic) exhalation there now is a mechanical mediator; i.e. the computer. This computer-generated “voice” is tied between (digital) interior and (material, yet post-semantic) exterior(isation) of the music. The digital sound format of which the input was (most likely) a MIDI-keyboard is only actualised and manifested in sonic reality through its playing in the form of sound; i.e. sound vibrations coming from the speakers. The human voice could be said to be more complex: it links, through the mind of its originator, the sounds it utters to a meaning via the vast web of language. In EDM the producer inserts musical meaning, i.e. potential physical sensation, into the meaning vehicle (the musical production). The digitally inserted and virtual sounds can immediately be played back to him/her. This sound can be a recording of an “actual” instrument, but can also come from an USB-powered MIDI-keyboard. The shape of the actual keyboard is obviously based on and resembling that of a piano, yet it only produces a digital (i.e. computer controlled and mediated) sound format of which the ADSR envelope and timbre depend on the “plugin”10; this can even lead to the seemingly odd use of a keyboard keys being used for non-pitched percussion. Another way to create a digital sound seme11 is to design one in a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) by mere mouse clicks. Here the relationship between the (potential) sound and the bodily originator is troubled: by minimal physical effort the producer creates music that is physically distanced from him-/herself. All input can be continually edited according to the producer’s desires, until it is “mastered” and published.
10 A plugin is a software application installed into a DAW, enabling sound modification and addition of effects.
11 Borrowing from structural linguistics: the smallest unit of meaning, here employed for indicating a single musical note,
Figure 1a: Logic Pro X screenshot
The screenshot above shows the drop-down menu in Logic Pro X (a standard DAW) when right-clicking in the musical timeline (upper right). The “sync lead” plugin was chosen at random, but the sound differs from all other options listed despite there not being any hardware other than my computer. The option to “Create Empty MIDI Region” as shown in blue grants me the opportunity to write digital music from scratch, using the keyboard as displayed (the letters correspond to the ones on my computer’s keyboard) or simply by “writing” notes using my “command” key. The screenshot below shows a melodic line I wrote only using mouse clicks. As the sound of my computer was off I produced soundless music – not in the sense of John Cage’s 4’33 though – which can be played back and edited at will, with once again only a single mouse click. The music can be said to be temporarily stored in the DAW and is open for constant adjustment and superimposed layering of musical tracks. Without any immediacy my conscious musical will can be inserted into the work in progress, which will only be “musicalised", that is to say: turned into music proper, when it is finalised, mastered, converted into a reproducible audio format, and transformed into airwaves via a speaker. The example as shown below is extremely minimal, being merely a broken ascending major C-chord, but it serves to illustrate the disembodiment of digitally produced EDM.
Figure 1b: Logic Pro X screenshot
After the music production-process a new form of disembodiment arises: the live performance. Here the music that has already been recorded, be it physically or digitally, is played to an audience, typically from a digital DJ-system attached to either a computer or an external storage disk. At this moment the DJ (even if it concerns the same individual, it is a different persona than the producer) is in service of the audience by mixing and sometimes live-editing, or even superimposed singing or instrument playing. The possibilities of adding meaning through physical expression are minimal; the aim is to let the music “speak for itself”. That is, the meaning lies in the effect on the audience prompted by appropriate timing, mixing, and presentation of a pre-recorded piece of music. The transmission of meaning arises from different categories and activities than with vocally produced music, though the sensation of “being moved” by both is alike. EDM’s production and playback is one of the most disembodied forms of music making, in stark contrast to vocal music, and to some extent to instrumental music. The interest here is therefore to scrutinise and find methods of revealing the process by which EDM transmits (post-semantic) meaning. Hence I demonstrated all the steps from an empty sonic timeline in a DAW (see Figure 1a), to the disembodied production of sonic sound bits (Figure 1b), and the live reproduction (or better: use) of pre-recorded audio material.
I will now delve deeper into the output aspect of EDM. Its manifestation through playback is what links most closely to Dolar (and Barthes’) post-semantic theory of the voice, albeit being voiceless. Let us imagine a “natural” live setting for the DJ-gig: a crowd ranging from approximately
50 to 50.000 people predominantly facing the DJ, who plays from an elevated DJ-booth, accompanied by monitors for him/her to have immediate auditory feedback, behind the DJ one or multiple massive screen(s) on which visuals are projected or displayed, and all throughout the hall/tent/terrain extra speakers and graphic monitors hang or stand to amplify and intensify the music. Such a setting entails immense technological preparation and maintenance throughout the show by sound and light technicians. In addressing the music’s post-semantic effect on the audience, the confluence of sonic and visual input is also to be taken into account. The voice as discussed by Barthes and Dolar was an archetypical, unamplified and unmediated voice that transmitted a meaning beyond logical comprehension; here the voice is reshaped and remodelled into an electronic voice, one that does not originate ‘from deep down in the cavities, the muscles, the membranes, the cartilages, and from deep down in the Slavonic language’, but instead was digitally created ex nihilo. We can still trace back its origins to the mind of a human producer, as with the voice, but the stage of mental concept to music, and the subsequent procedure of materialisation is of a different nature.
For the electronic dance music to materialise, i.e. turn into sound waves, one requires an electroacoustic transducer. What this does is transforming the input audio signal into the right sound waves, thereby bringing forth what we call music. Such an electroacoustic transducer is commonly referred to as (loud)speaker. An etymological peculiarity arises here: the device that nowadays serves as the only means of materialisation for EDM12 is still dubbed – no pun intended – speaker, after the human voice that is. Dolar shortly discusses his fascination with the painting His Master’s Voice (2006, p.74), in which a dog appears to hear his master’s voice in a phonograph. This sonic playback device could colloquially yet appropriately be termed a speaker, for in this era (and perhaps for dogs still) the sound was a case of magical ventriloquism; one could not locate the sound source and trace it back to its original body. In the DJ-set setting as described above, the sonic playback devices are still labelled speakers, although the speaker’s voice is substituted by a digital and disembodied music production. The music’s materialisation occurs by the electroacoustic transducers converting the audio file as selected by the DJ into airwaves, which are subsequently overlaid on the audience like a sonic blanket.
This is where the addressee’s musical embodiment comes into play. Embodied music cognition as a musicological discipline and approach to the study of EDM will be discussed in the third and final chapter, nonetheless I will address the addressee’s embodied position in the music here briefly; that is, the body as disposed within the range of the music’s material manifestation. The theory of the voice as purported by Barthes and Dolar designates the voice in its natural, unmediated environment, rather different from the elaborate sound systems often found at DJ-sets. Vocal
