Scratch and Mix

This paper elucidates the practice by which composers and DJs use the turntable to ‘scratch and mix’ samples of recorded female voices, thereby reframing them into new contextual forms. The paper focuses on two pieces: ‘Got ‘Til It's Gone’, a pop song by Janet Jackson and Q-Tip which samples and manipulates a fragment of Joni Mitchell's ‘Big Yellow Taxi’; and Christian Marclay's turntable scratching on the voice of the late Maria Callas. The discussion is interpolated with a reading of Jean-Paul Sartre's novel La Nausée, for his literary embodiment of the recorded voice. Keywords: VoiceTechnologyElectronicCallasMarclaySartre Notes [1] ‘Some of These Days’ was in fact recorded by Sophie Tucker, ‘the last of the white red-hot mamas’. This fact affirms that ‘the negress’ terminology is indeed nothing but a term, for it bears no biographical validity beyond the fictional imagination of the author. See La Capra (Citation1983, pp. 206–207). [2] Thanks to Lisa Colton for pointing this out. [3] The term ‘turntable’ is used in current lexicon to describe either the analogue mechanism, or its digital equivalent. [4] As Mark Katz remarks of the phonograph effect, ‘This noise, real or digitally simulated, is now firmly part of our modern sonic vocabulary, and can be powerfully evocative to listeners. It was long deemed an unwanted addition to the phonographic experience by both the industry and listeners, but ironically became a valued a meaningful sound when digital technology finally eliminated it’ (Katz, Citation2004, p. 146). As Professor Barbara White points out, ‘You don't know what you've got 'til it's gone!' (personal correspondence, 16 November 2006). [5] ‘Maria Callas’ is available in CD format on Christian Marclay's album More Encores (2003). [6] Oloyga is ‘a ritual shout peculiar to females’, those shrieking, high-pitched, unmediated moments of vocal ecstasy uttered by the female body during—traditionally—ritual practice, climactic moments, or women's festivals (see Carson, Citation1995, 125)

Art · Electrical engineering · Linguistics · Phonograph · Programming language · S Voice · Scratch · Sociology · Telecommunications · Visual arts · Communication · Computer Science · Engineering · Language, Metaphor, and Cognition · Philosophy

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