ABSTRACT
During the five days of the summer school three females and two males from different cultural backgrounds and scholastic traditions listened attentively to Bjork's 'Crystalline' for the purpose of analysis. The persistence of the gameleste motif with its reiteration of the metallic tactus could be interpreted as the sonic principle governing the entire song. This is an instantiation of the way in which the sonic materiality of 'Crystalline' evokes the coexistence of both nature and technology. The 'nature/technology', namely the gameleste motif, pitch organisation, song structure, Bjork's vocal performance, and recording techniques. Guided by our common formation as music analysts, we identified chorus sections, and we discussed the surprising and intensive coda-like drum and bass part at the end of the piece. Contesting the naturalisation of race-based interpretations of vocal performances, Eidsheim has argued that, regardless of the singer's phenotypical constitution, vocal timbre results from active choices on the performer's part.
