The Notation and Use of the Voice in Non-semantic Contexts: Phonetic Organization in the Vocal Music of Dieter Schnebel, Brian Ferneyhough, and Georges Aperghis

In this chapter I examine the way in which Dieter Schnebel, Brian Ferneyhough, and Georges Aperghis develop “non-semantic” vocal music, its consequences for vocal performance, and its implications for the perception of the singer's identity on stage. Dieter Schnebel and Brian Ferneyhough have used the symbols of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) as a means of codifying parts of vocal sounds in their pieces. By using non-semantic text material, these composers were able to maintain flexibility and control over the vocal sound organization in their compositions to a higher extent than with a prewritten libretto. The IPA also gave them specific control over the individual vocal articulators, significantly increasing the number of vocal sounds at their disposal, but also changing their approach to the human voice from a fixed sound source or human “character” to a disassembled machine with a huge range of combinatorial properties. However, Ferneyhough and Schnebel approach non-semantic vocal music from fundamentally different angles.