The voice as transcursive inscriber: The relation of body and instrument understood through the workings of a machine

Abstract

This article examines the relationship of the body with a musical instrument; specifically it looks at the vital threshold conditions that occur during the interplay of voice and instrument. By examining the work ‘IKAS’ (1982) for solo saxophone by German composer Hans-Joachim Hespos, the unusual timbral relationships created between vocal and instrumental sounds are exposed. I argue that this particular work highlights the performer/instrument relation as one marked by Gilles Deleuze's notion of the workings of a machine and a machine's relation to a ‘flow’, in particular a machine's function with view to the break in the flow. By turning towards Deleuze's concept of the machine, this article offers a slightly different vocabulary for music analysis, one that more easily encompasses certain works of the twentieth century, specifically those that are more timbre- than pitch-based.

Keywords:

• Performer
• Instrument
• Voice
• Deleuze, Gilles
• Machine
• Break-downs

Notes

[1] Already Marshall McLuhan (1964) saw the voice as one of the principal ‘extensions’ of man.

[2] Etymonline: www.etymonline.com (accessed November 2005).

[3] A project that deals with instrumental prosthesis in music is the work ‘Music for Prosthetic Conga’ by Pedro Rebelo: www.sarc.qub.ac.uk/∼prebelo/index/works/prostheticcongas/left.htm (accessed November 2005).

[4] www.stelarc.va.com.au (accessed November 2005).

[5] www.stelarc.va.com.au (accessed November 2005).

[6] I have questioned the formula ‘from-to’, the idea of the instrument as extension, in Schroeder (2005).

7] Score: Hans-Joachim Hespos (1982), ‘IKAS—ein entrée für altsaxophon’. Hespos Edition, Delmenhorst, H 028 E. All score extracts are represented with the permission of the composer.