Introduction

Raising one's voice to “articulate” oneself by speaking, singing, whispering, murmuring, crying, shouting, or screaming seems to be among the most natural and widely established forms of expression humans are capable of. The way in which these articulations are used in social interaction or communication as well as in musical forms, however, is highly dependent on their historical, social, and cultural context. In the West, the rise of the individual since the age of Enlightenment has placed the metaphors of “finding one's voice” or “speaking with one's own voice” at the core of social relations and self-realization, a condition closely connected with liberation from imposed authority: “This view identifies singing or vocal expression as the shared source of human community, on the one hand, and of music's significance, on the other. It says that the inexpressible moral or passionate basis of expression that inspires acts of singing is commensurate with the inspiration behind public speaking within which lies the potential for human freedom” (Goehr 1998, 89).