A QUALIDADE DE VOZ GUTURAL: APONTAMENTOS PARA UMA CARACTERIZAÇÃO ACÚSTICA E ARTICULATÓRIA

O gênero musical death metal, subdivisão do heavy metal, tem como característica o emprego de uma voz urrada, distorcida e pouco compreensível. No âmbito da música, essa qualidade de voz é denominada “gutural”, nomenclatura que faz referência, de maneira ampla, a perceptíveis tensões na região da garganta (por isso, “gutural”) observadas por falantes que empregam essa técnica. Tendo em vista que, em estudos sobre qualidade de voz, não existem muitas descrições que abordam tal produção, objetivamos realizar alguns apontamentos que contribuam para a caracterização acústica e articulatória da voz gutural. Para isso, apresentaremos alguns aspectos introdutórios do conceito de qualidade de voz (LAVER, 1980) e, adicionalmente, referências a estudos que possam contribuir para a nossa proposta, como os de Sakakibara et al. (2004) e de Smialek et al. (2012). Além disso, analisaremos espectrogramas da voz empregada nas canções Crucifier Avenged e Hammer Smashed Face, ambas da banda Cannibal Corpse, com o objetivo de descrever as peculiaridades acústicas da voz gutural.Palavras-chave: Qualidade de voz. Gutural. Death metal.

La dramaturgie vocale : approche herméneutique des qualités expressives de la voix chantée. Le cas du metal symphonique

La voix possède des qualités expressives qui lui permettent d’ajouter du contenu sémantique au message qu’elle exprime. Ces qualités expressives, appelées phonostyles, sont liées à des connotations et représentations – un imaginaire vocal – qui permettent de comprendre qui parle, et quel est son état émotif, sans même avoir à regarder l’émetteur en question. Le même phénomène apparaît au moyen de la voix chantée, dont l’analyse phonostylistique permet de dégager l’émergence de personnages vocaux et de leur état émotif au cours de la chanson. L’imaginaire vocal attaché aux voix fait en sorte que chaque style vocal est lié à un imaginaire qui lui est propre. En cela, le metal symphonique s’avère un milieu propice à l’analyse des qualités expressives des voix chantées, puisqu’il fait entendre des styles vocaux éclectiques : lyrique, pop, heavy et guttural. Ce mémoire présente ainsi comme objectif d’étudier comment la voix est utilisée dans un corpus tiré du répertoire du metal symphonique, afin de dégager comment se crée ce que j’appelle la dramaturgie vocale au cours des chansons : c’est-à-dire la création d’un imaginaire propre à la chanson, au moyen des voix et des significations qu’elles ajoutent au texte chanté, telles que l’incarnation de personnages vocaux, la transmission des émotions vécues par ces personnages, mais aussi la création d’interactions entre eux.The voice has expressive abilities that add semantic content to the vocalized message. These abilities, called phonostyles, are connected to connotations and representations – a vocal imaginary – that enable us to understand who is speaking and his/her emotional state, without needing to see the speaker. The same phenomenon occurs in the singing voice: phonostylistic analysis reveals the appearance of vocal personae and their emotional state during the song. The vocal imaginary ensures that each vocal style has its own imaginary. Symphonic metal is a favorable field for the analysis of expressive vocal qualities, because it contains eclectic vocal styles: operatic, pop, heavy, and growl. This thesis aims to study how the voice is used in a corpus chosen within the symphonic metal repertoire in order to understand how what I call the vocal dramaturgy is created during a song. Vocal dramaturgy is the creation of a song’s own imaginary through the means of the voice and the semantic contents it adds to the sung text, such as the invention of vocal personae and the transmission of emotions experienced by these personae, as well as the interactions between them

'The Barghest o' Whitby': (A Genealogical Study of) Death/Doom Metal Music(al) Network in Northern England

Metal music has existed in one form or another for about half a century. While the musical style and the culture started out in a relatively unified way, with the 'extreme turn’ of late 80s and 90s, metal culture stratified. Doom metal, being one of the oldest styles in this newly formed structure, became even more fragmented. Death/doom is such a style. These smaller styles in metal culture have so far been investigated hierarchically. However, the implication that a hierarchy has is problematic in this context. Metal music studies is a budding field, so, we need to think more critically about the way we conceptualise the history of metal academically in these early years. Yet, so far, this stratification, with its hierarchy, has not been challenged or even discussed in detail. Scholarship often mentions these so-called ‘sub-genres’ uncritically. In order to challenge this idea, there needs to be a new model. However, because of the size and breadth of metal culture, one single work cannot come even close to covering the styles existing today. In this thesis, I attempt to draw boundaries around only death/doom to propose a way of modelling a new metal history. To achieve this, I define these newer and smaller styles as marginal styles using marginality idea of Park. Following this idea, sociology of music comes to rescue with Crossley’s music worlds. Music worlds, because of its emphasis put on the musical style -it is central-, is an intriguing perspective to look at the fragmented nature of metal music. A metal music world is a social construction performed by the participants, including musicians, fans, engineers, managers, label executives, and the press, around a metal musical style. These smaller styles, then, become ideal candidates for the application of this theory. This thesis treats death/doom in such a way using ethnographic, historical, and musicological methods