ABSTRACT
Ethnomusicologists have been concerned with the broad category of voice and the even more capacious category of sound since the early days of the discipline. More recently, and with increasing frequency, ethnomusicologists have begun undertaking serious, sustained investigations that refuse to privilege the musical over the non-musical and that actively participate in broader interdisciplinary conversations about the cultural histories, social dynamics, and corporeal effects of vocal expressions and the audible. In no small measure, we argue, contemporary ethnomusicology can be characterized by its tendency to decenter music in favor of the more expansive terrains of sound and voice. This chapter offers overviews of sound studies and voice studies and their relationships to ethnomusicology, and presents one case study relevant to each. Author Martin Daughtry details his work on listening to the sounds of war, and Katherine Meizel discusses her research on d/Deaf singers. Together, the authors emphasize the interdisciplinary advantages and imperatives generated by the intersection of ethnomusicology, sound studies, and voice studies.
