Abstract
The novelty of this approach lies in studying singing from the point of view the multifunctionality and polyvalence of the voice in all the typically plural dimensions that contribute to making it a unique instrument, the only instrument embodied/ incarnated in its interpreter, both material and transcendent. An “object” both external and internal, both the most intersubjective and the most personal — to the point of requiring “someone other than oneself” to help one take one's distance from it to study it — the voice has the faculty of bringing together simultaneously the polar opposites of Being.
With a methodology at the crossroads of the human sciences, this study forms part of a broader systematic investigation I engaged in concerning the detailed analysis of the singing lesson and the comparison of its specific psycho-dynamic processes with those involved in the learning of other musical instruments.
I deal with the role and influence that non-verbal/non-vocal languages assume in the teaching and learning about the voice in its singing dimension when it is used with the value of a musical instrument. This is what I refer to as the “instrument-voix”. The notion of gesture is of pivotal importance in non-verbal language, and this notion is twofold in nature: it involves the problematic of Time, which (itself) necessarily involves that of Memories. Dealt with here will be the influence of nonverbal languages upon mnesic activities.
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