Voices, Violence and Meaning: Transformations of Speech Samples in Works by David Byrne, Brian Eno and Steve Reich

Abstract

The incorporation of pre-recorded speaking voices in musical compositions such as Steve Reich's It's Gonna Rain and Brian Eno and David Byrne's My Life in the Bush of Ghosts has opened up new modes of musical understanding that are inextricably linked with the speakers in question. Incorporating concrete, recognisable sounds from the ‘real world’ into the symbolic web of a musical composition encourages subjective readings of the source material, for example, by demonstrating how stereotypical Western constructions of African culture can be detected in the treatment of male Afro-American voices. This article will argue that the technological dehumanising of the speaker also produces a particular kind of violence. In addition to such views of violence as directed against the speakers whose words have been erased, this article will conclude that one can also interpret such works as a response to the intricate relationship between sound and speech in music.

Keywords:

• Speech Recordings
• Violence
• Sampling
• Steve Reich
• Brian Eno and David Byrne
• Barthes
• Derrida

Notes

[1] ‘Speech melodies' is a term used by Reich himself, particularly from his composition Different Trains (1987) onwards, when he developed a particular way of doubling speech melodies with musical instruments and using the melodies in question as musical material that could be repeated, varied and contrapuntally elaborated.

[2] Brian Eno and David Byrne's My Life in the Bush of Ghosts (EGCD 48) was released in February 1981.

[3] For a detailed account of how civil rights issues, the representation of Afro-Americans on stage and in the music scene and avant-garde theatre of the San Francisco Bay area in which Steve Reich was involved until 1965, see Cole (2012, pp. 336–340).

[4] For a strictly technical and detailed explanation of Come Out, see Reich, ‘First Interview with Michael Nyman’ (1970), in Reich (2002, pp. 52–55; especially p. 53).

[5] Seemingly chaotic, because the underlying musical process is extremely straightforward and can easily be perceived as such. The contrast between the clarity of the process and the fuzziness resulting from it is one of the most remarkable features of Reich's phase shifting pieces, including those where he only uses musical instruments and conventional pitch material instead of speech.

[6] To date, Reich has written five sampler-based pieces: Different Trains (1988), The Cave (1993), City Life (1995), Three Tales (2002) and WTC 9/11 (2011).

[7] The timings here are taken from the 2006 remixed reissue of the album. The original LP version uses a different mix, and with the duration of 3:35 is considerably shorter.

[8] ‘What is at stake ideologically when a process, whereby a white composer gradually transforms the voice of a black man into animal sound, is read as modern compositional technique?’ (Scherzinger, 2005, p. 217).

[9] ‘Le mot est un corps qui ne veut dire quelque chose que si une intention actuelle l'anime et le fait passer de l’état de sonorité inerte (Körper) à l’état de corps animé (Leib). Ce corps propre du mot n'exprime rien que s'il est animé (sinnbelebt) par l'acte d'un vouloir-dire (bedeuten) qui le transforme en chair spirituelle (geistliche Leiblichkeit)’ (my translation).

[10] A connection often mentioned by Reich; see, for instance Reich (2002, p. 199).