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Show 19 One notable extended technique vocalist who broke ground during the seventies was Meredith Monk a dancer and (b. 1942). The early years of Monk's professional life were spent as avant-garde theater choreographer and in the early 1970s her theatrical roots would serve her music when she turned to composing. Like Schoenberg, Monk's extended vocal technique developments were inspired by theater, but unlike Schoenberg, Monk sought to create an amalgamation of art forms throughout her career; even her purely acoustic pieces can be heard as "invisible theater." Monk said, "I work in between the cracks, where the voice starts dancing, where the body starts singing, where theater becomes cinema. ,,24 Her repertory of vocal techniques would eventually include glottal stops, Native American style vibrato, nasal singing, nonsense syllables and childlike vocal tones, sounds featured in Balkan singing, Tibetan chanting, and vocal techniques from other non-western traditions. Like Berio, the techniques used by Monk are rooted in singing and are considered extended because they specify the singing methods involved. The difference is that Monk's techniques include styles from many traditions while Berio's are limited to Western traditions. Joan La Barbara (b. 1947) has developed a repertoire of signature sounds throughout her career and used them in ways that expand the traditions of Cage, Reich and the American experimental tradition. Like Berberian and Berio, La Barbara found the correlation between electronic music and extended vocal technique to be inspiring, and during her college years explored sound with a Moog synthesizer and tape pieces. She was also influenced by her work with jazz musicians arid minimalists such as Steve 24 Deborah Jowitt, Meredith Monk (Baltimore and London: The John Hopkins University Press, 1997), back cover. |
