| dc.description.abstract | As the processed singing voice has become a prominent feature in popular music through VST- plugins such as Autotune, an increasing body of scholarly work has sought to engage with the cultural ramifications of this vocal-body hybridity (see, for example, Brøvig-Hanssen & Danielsen, 2016; Eidsheim, 2008; Heesch, 2016; Young, 2015). However, few of these voices in the field of musicology engages with how the potential of digital vocal processing shapes the creative process for the artist-topliner. In the creative processes of desktop production (Danielsen, 2020), the artist- topliner becomes gatekeepers, deciding how much of their own vocal identity (Heesch, 2016) ought to be altered by technological mediation and thus shape their artistic footprint.
The aim of this study is to investigate digital processing of the acoustic recorded voice through a practice-based inquiry, and I have therefore chosen to conduct a research-creation project where I combine qualitative interviews and a reversed interview with myself (Røshol, in press). Through qualitative interviews with five Norwegian artist-topliners I seek to unpack some of the artistic choices behind vocal processing, and its relation to the artistic footprint in recorded music. Through a reversed interview with myself I seek to combine artistic approaches on vocal processing from an insider perspective with technical and personal reflections on the subject. The overall aim for the thesis is to explore how digital processing of the recorded acoustic voice correlates with artistic identity, and how the processed voice both can shape, change and challenge the perception of the artistic identity. | |