Recording Orality: Vocalization as Ephemerality, Materialization and Meaning
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14195/2182-8830_6-2_6Keywords:
sound studies, genealogies of e-literature, new materialism, ephemerality, yoikAbstract
In my paper, I aim at exploring specific materializations of ephemerality and meaning through the recording of vocal expression. A case study is supplied by joik and joiking, a traditional form of singing by the Sami people of northern Scandinavia and Kola Peninsula. Believed to be one of the oldest music traditions of Europe, joik is not so much a way of “singing about” as it is rather the form of embodying a landscape, a person or an animal through vocally evoking their most specific characteristics thus binding the performer and his/her environment (both in terms of that which particular song is referring to and the immediate situation of the performance where the joiker relies on the ability of the audience to decipher the meaning). A focus on the particular joik, Renhjorden på Oulavuolie (Reindeers from Oulavuolie) by Nils Mattias Andersson shows the specificity of recorded vocalization as the practice of ambivalent materialization of meaning — elusive yet tangible enough to let the audience grasp the sense of place.
Downloads
Download data is not yet available.
References
ARNSBERG, Matts, Ruong I., Unsgaard, H. (1969). Joik - yoik. Stockholm: Sveriges Radio förlag. LP with liner notes and book.
BEACH, Hugh (1993). A Year in Lapland: Guest of the Reindeer Herders. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institute.
BRADY, Erika (2004). A Spiral Way: How Phonograph Changed Ethnography. Jackson, MS: University of Mississippi Press.
COLEBROOK, Claire (2008). “On Not Becoming Man: The Materialist Politics of Unactualized Potential.” Material Feminisms. Ed. Stacy Alaimo and Susan Hekman. Bloomington & Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. 52-84.
Electronic Literature Organization, Call for Contributions: ELO 2015 Conference – Bergen, Norway, The End(s) of Electronic Literature, http://eliterature.org/2014/09/2676 2 Aug 2017.
GASKI, Harald (1999). “The Secretive Text: Yoik Lyrics as Literature and Tradition.” Nordlit: Tidsskrift i litteratur og kultur 3.1: 3-27. http://septentrio.uit.no/index.php/nordlit/article/view/2142 3 Aug 2017.
GRIGAR, Dene (2008). “The Present [Future] of Electronic Literature.” Transdisciplinary Digital Art: Sound, Vision and the New Screen. Ed. Adams, Randy Adams, Steve Gibson, and Stefan Müller Arisona. New York: Springer Science and Business Media. 127-142.
GRIGAR, Dene (2017). “Rhapsodic Textualities.” Digital Media and Textuality: From Creation to Archiving. Ed. Daniela Côrtes Maduro. Bielefeld: Transcript. 15-21.
HILDER, Thomas R. (2015). Sami Musical Performance and the Politics of Indigeneity in Northern Europe. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
“Joik.” Wikipedia (2017) [last edited June 25]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joik 3Aug 2017.
JONES-BAMMAN, Richard Wiren (1993). “As Long As We Continue To Joik, We’ll Remember Who We Are.” Negotiating Identity and the Performance of Culture. Ph.D. Dissertation, Ethnomusicology Department, University of Washington. https://digital.lib.washington.edu/researchworks/handle/1773/11250. 4 Aug 2017.
KAHN, Douglas (2013). Earth Sound Earth Signal: Energies and Earth Magnitude in the Arts. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
KATZ, Mark (2004). Capturing the Sound: How Technology Has Changed Music. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
LÄNSMAN, Ursula. (1999). “Sami Culture and the Yoik”, FolkWorld 9. http://www.folkworld.de/9/e/sami.html. 2 Aug 2017.
LEHTOLA, Veli-Pekka. (2004). The Sami People: Traditions in Transition. Fairbanks, AK: University of Alaska Press.
MCLUHAN, Marshall (1962). The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
MCLUHAN, Marshall (1964). Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. New York: McGraw-Hill.
MOISALA, Pirkko (2011). “From Traditional Yoik (Joiku) Transmission towards Formal Education.” Yoik: Aspects of Performing, Collecting, Interpreting. Ed. Dan Lundberg, Gunnar Ternhag. Uppsala: The Center for Swedish Folk Music and Jazz Research.
SOLBAKK, John Trygve (2006). The Sami People. A Handbook. Karasjok: Davvi Girji OS.
SOMBY, Ánde (1995). “Yoik and the Theory of Knowledge.” (archive at WayBack Machine) http://www.uit.no/ssweb/dok/Somby/Ande/95.htm. 2 Aug 2017.
ZAREMBA, Maciej (1999). De rena och de andra: om tvångssteriliseringar, rashygien och arvsynd. Stockholm: Dagens Nyheter.
ZAREMBA-BIELAWSKI, Maciej (2011). Higieniści. Z dziejów eugeniki. Wołowiec: Czarne.
BEACH, Hugh (1993). A Year in Lapland: Guest of the Reindeer Herders. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institute.
BRADY, Erika (2004). A Spiral Way: How Phonograph Changed Ethnography. Jackson, MS: University of Mississippi Press.
COLEBROOK, Claire (2008). “On Not Becoming Man: The Materialist Politics of Unactualized Potential.” Material Feminisms. Ed. Stacy Alaimo and Susan Hekman. Bloomington & Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. 52-84.
Electronic Literature Organization, Call for Contributions: ELO 2015 Conference – Bergen, Norway, The End(s) of Electronic Literature, http://eliterature.org/2014/09/2676 2 Aug 2017.
GASKI, Harald (1999). “The Secretive Text: Yoik Lyrics as Literature and Tradition.” Nordlit: Tidsskrift i litteratur og kultur 3.1: 3-27. http://septentrio.uit.no/index.php/nordlit/article/view/2142 3 Aug 2017.
GRIGAR, Dene (2008). “The Present [Future] of Electronic Literature.” Transdisciplinary Digital Art: Sound, Vision and the New Screen. Ed. Adams, Randy Adams, Steve Gibson, and Stefan Müller Arisona. New York: Springer Science and Business Media. 127-142.
GRIGAR, Dene (2017). “Rhapsodic Textualities.” Digital Media and Textuality: From Creation to Archiving. Ed. Daniela Côrtes Maduro. Bielefeld: Transcript. 15-21.
HILDER, Thomas R. (2015). Sami Musical Performance and the Politics of Indigeneity in Northern Europe. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.
“Joik.” Wikipedia (2017) [last edited June 25]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joik 3Aug 2017.
JONES-BAMMAN, Richard Wiren (1993). “As Long As We Continue To Joik, We’ll Remember Who We Are.” Negotiating Identity and the Performance of Culture. Ph.D. Dissertation, Ethnomusicology Department, University of Washington. https://digital.lib.washington.edu/researchworks/handle/1773/11250. 4 Aug 2017.
KAHN, Douglas (2013). Earth Sound Earth Signal: Energies and Earth Magnitude in the Arts. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
KATZ, Mark (2004). Capturing the Sound: How Technology Has Changed Music. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
LÄNSMAN, Ursula. (1999). “Sami Culture and the Yoik”, FolkWorld 9. http://www.folkworld.de/9/e/sami.html. 2 Aug 2017.
LEHTOLA, Veli-Pekka. (2004). The Sami People: Traditions in Transition. Fairbanks, AK: University of Alaska Press.
MCLUHAN, Marshall (1962). The Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
MCLUHAN, Marshall (1964). Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. New York: McGraw-Hill.
MOISALA, Pirkko (2011). “From Traditional Yoik (Joiku) Transmission towards Formal Education.” Yoik: Aspects of Performing, Collecting, Interpreting. Ed. Dan Lundberg, Gunnar Ternhag. Uppsala: The Center for Swedish Folk Music and Jazz Research.
SOLBAKK, John Trygve (2006). The Sami People. A Handbook. Karasjok: Davvi Girji OS.
SOMBY, Ánde (1995). “Yoik and the Theory of Knowledge.” (archive at WayBack Machine) http://www.uit.no/ssweb/dok/Somby/Ande/95.htm. 2 Aug 2017.
ZAREMBA, Maciej (1999). De rena och de andra: om tvångssteriliseringar, rashygien och arvsynd. Stockholm: Dagens Nyheter.
ZAREMBA-BIELAWSKI, Maciej (2011). Higieniści. Z dziejów eugeniki. Wołowiec: Czarne.
Published
2018-08-10
How to Cite
Nacher, Anna. 2018. “Recording Orality: Vocalization As Ephemerality, Materialization and Meaning”. MATLIT: Materialities of Literature 6 (2):75-85. https://doi.org/10.14195/2182-8830_6-2_6.
Issue
Section
Secção Temática | Thematic Section
License
MATLIT embraces full open access to all issues. Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution- 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
- A CC licensing information in a machine-readable format is embedded in all articles published by MATLIT.
- Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
- No additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.
Notices:
- You do not have to comply with the license for elements of the material in the public domain or where your use is permitted by an applicable exception or limitation.
- No warranties are given. The license may not give you all of the permissions necessary for your intended use. For example, other rights such as publicity, privacy, or moral rights may limit how you use the material.
