“It is this shift that I should like to sketch here, not with regard to all music, but only with regard to a portion of voice music (art song, lied, or me’lodie); a very specific space (genre) in which a language encounters a voice. I shall immediately give a name to this signifier on the level of which, I believe, the temptation of ethos can be liquidated – and the adjective therefore dismissed: this name will be the grain: the grain of the voice, when the voice is double posture, a double production: of language of music”
-Roland Barthes, “The Grain of the Voice”, (p. 269)
“The “grain” of the voice is not – or not only – its timbre; the signifying it affords cannot be better defined by the friction between music and something else, which is the language (and not the message at all).”
-Roland Barthes, “The Grain of the Voice”, (p. 273)
Music is given a voice when it encounters an artist singer. The voice of the song or the artist voice is very unique and can form identification or trademark that work well with the star’s image. There are few voices that you encounter that have this signature sound. One of the most distinctive voices in the industry is that of Aretha Franklin. Barthes theory of the “Grain of the Voice” can be related to this. He sees the singing voice as an expressive instrument and therefore able to make associations of its own.
For my posting I have chosen one song, “The Prayer” sung by two sets of artist, Celine Dion & Andrea Bocelli and Yolanda Adams & Donnie McClurkin. These artist represent three different genres of music (Classical, Pop and Gospel). This demonstrates the distinctive sound of each artist as they inte
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