The Race of Sound

Listening, Timbre, and Vocality in African American Music

Bibliographic Data

ID23397016
AuthorsNina Sun Eidsheim (0000-0001-6373-3998, corresponding author)
Year2019
Publication date2019-01-11
Open AccessYes
TypeBOOK
VenueThe Race of Sound (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherDuke University Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1215/9781478090359
OpenAlexW2905376011
Open LibraryOL51655096M
ISBN9781478090359
LanguageEN
Citations received103

In The Race of Sound Nina Sun Eidsheim traces the ways in which sonic attributes that might seem natural, such as the voice and its qualities, are socially produced. Eidsheim illustrates how listeners measure race through sound and locate racial subjectivities in vocal timbre—the color or tone of a voice. Eidsheim examines singers Marian Anderson, Billie Holiday, and Jimmy Scott as well as the vocal synthesis technology Vocaloid to show how listeners carry a series of assumptions about the nature of the voice and to whom it belongs. Outlining how the voice is linked to ideas of racial essentialism and authenticity, Eidsheim untangles the relationship between race, gender, vocal technique, and timbre while addressing an undertheorized space of racial and ethnic performance. In so doing, she advances our knowledge of the cultural-historical formation of the timbral politics of difference and the ways that comprehending voice remains central to understanding human experience, all the while advocating for a form of listening that would allow us to hear singers in a self-reflexive, denaturalized way.

Acoustics · Active listening · Art · Musical · Race (biology) · Sociology · Sound (geography) · Timbre · Visual arts · Communication · Gender Studies · Music History and Culture · Musicology and Musical Analysis · Psychology · African americans · Music · Music and race · Singing · Social aspects · Sound, recording and reproducing · Theory of music & musicology · Tone color (Music) · Vocaloid (Computer file) · Voice culture

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Open DOIOpen Access