A System for Describing Vocal Timbre in Popular Song

[1.1] This essay presents a perception-based system for describing vocal timbres.(1) Vocal timbres in popular song contribute significantly to both the immediate pleasures and conceptual meanings afforded by this music, but they resist description. Of course, pleasure and meaning also arise through entrainment to a groove, in hearing in the lyrics a story relevant to personal experience, by following the ebb and flow of rhythmic or intervallic dissonance between different layers of a track, or by noticing sensitive instrumental performances or expert mixing by studio engineers. My focus here is on vocal timbre because it is a highly salient parameter of popular song recordings, and is an affecting and intimate component of song performance. Vocal timbre telegraphs the interior state of a moving body, presenting the listener with blueprints for ways of being and feeling. In listening to vocal music, we may involuntarily mirror the actions we imagine the performer undertaking, thereby "catching" the affect of a performance.(2) Through this physical rapport, singers' voices can become sources of comfort as well as pleasure, as the feeling of listening to vocal timbre leads to identification with, as well as enjoyment of, a recorded song.[1.2] The problem of describing the vocal timbres of popular singers is a subset of the problem of describing timbre in general. When it comes to describing timbre in the context of an interpretation motivated by visceral experience, it is difficult to find satisfying words or representations, and misunderstandings abound. For example, I invite you to think about the timbre of Aretha Franklin's voice, as heard on her 1967 recording of "Respect" (Example 1).Example 1. Aretha Franklin, "Respect," 0:08-0:22By listening to the timbre of her voice, which is conceptually distinct but thoroughly intertwined with the other elements of her vocal performance, I have a physical intuition about what it is like to sing like Franklin.(3) But how do I describe the timbre of that voice, in order to explain what it means to me? How might I go about comparing the affective impact of Franklin's vocal timbre in this recording to Otis Redding's vocal timbre in his performance of this song? How can we compare our subjective experiences and resulting interpretations of these vocal timbres with one another? Vocal timbre is complex in its acoustic makeup and modes of production. The relationship between its acoustic and physical features, and between these features and listener perception, is still opaque. This is perhaps why analysts have traditionally avoided in-depth study of timbre, preferring to study elements of musical sound that are easier to measure, like pitch structures and rhythm. The increasing variety of timbre to be heard in all types of music means that this avoidance is no longer tenable (if it ever was). In popular music broadly considered, timbre is one of the most active parameters of experimentation, and a primary means of differentiation among artists and styles. Timbre, and vocal timbre especially, therefore poses a delightful yet frustrating analytic challenge--it is a facet of musical experience that cannot be denied any easier than it can be explained.[1.3] The system for vocal timbre description I offer here draws on phenomenological and ecological understandings of listening in order to address the creation of meaning that arises as part of individual human perception of vocal timbre. It is based on the premise that one's feeling of what it would be like to vocalize in a particular way is a fundamental yet frequently overlooked part of how we conceptualize vocal performance. It is possible to describe this feeling in an organized way by referring to four types of bodily position, activity, or tension involved in vocal production: the movement of vocal folds, the position of the vocal tract, the location of sympathetic vibration, and breath support. …