Once again I must start my exploration of artistic voice from my own experience. I am first a singer, second I have a strong ability to identify others by voice (an asset on the phone, where I make some of my living) and finally I have been trained in music arts and as a singer.
Voices produced by human and other acoustic instruments, violins, guitars, drums etc. (let's rule out electronic instruments for now) can be analyzed from an acoustic perspective, or through the physics of sound. The first striking element is the presence of overtones to differentiate one voice from another. Two bass drums made with, say wood, string and a skin will produce different voices, even if drawing from the same pieces of wood, skin and string. One of those drums might get played every day, the other one stays in the hallway, looking great but making nary a sound. The one that gets played changes timbre over time. The changes can be heard or they can be notated through analysis of overtones, which ones and how many are present.
The artist playing the instrument (or singing) will choose over time to make adjustments to her sound. The same is true for an artist composing a piece of music, a photograph or a painting or movie. In performative media (singing, dancing, any live performance) each performance is the instance of the art piece. With plastic arts, each produced piece is also an instance. Some artists like Van Gogh might produce more than 50 pieces that all contain the same basic content, yet each piece is different. And Van Gogh and Gaugin also tried painting the same subject, multiple times in the presence of each other, yet all the pieces produced were different. I would again point to use of overtone for differentiation.
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There is so much potential in this post for me that the best place to begin is with the question that is the title: "What makes up the artistic 'voice'? Given today's art scene, this is a significant question since there are legions of different voices vying with each other, voices both interesting and commonplace, effective and ineffective.
Answers to the title question lie close to the heart of philosophy [aesthetics]--a discipline that pursues an even larger related notion, namely, "What is art?" To tie these two questions together seems a reasonable thing to do, given that in this post one is after "artistic" voice and not just voice in general.
One of the challenges inherent in exploring both of these questions is the need for vigilant definition plus careful assessment of personal/collective assumptions. Without attention to both of these hinges on reality, discourse turns muddy, even as mental streams tend to dry up.
To talk about "voice" within the context of the post's title is at the same time to talk [directly or indirectly] about artists--those who generate content housing voice, which they then "project" via some instrument of choice. This angle on the artist includes what he or she thinks, how he or she feels, what special gifts he or she has, what physical materials he or she uses, what actions he or she "performs," what "adjustments" he or she makes, what "overtones" accrue as the result of all these operations. Said differently, all of the preceding goes into the making/projecting of voice. Given such knowledge, one is then in a position to use the summary phrase "artistic voice" as an inter-disciplinary idea/concept/tool--one that can be used as a springboard to linking elements within a variety of both complicated and diverse art forms. Having the preceding knowledge also helps to explain how a given "voice" takes on its distinguishable character.
A note on "Overtones." It too has assumptions and definitions built into it, and this stuff needs to be clarified if the word is to be used with some precision yet also circulated generally, that is, used outside musical contexts.
The same also holds for "performance." Since all artists perform in some way, performance could be one of the inclusive bridge words among artistic disciplines and therefore an important subject for future blog discussions--but all of that needs to be carefully explored and fleshed out. "Performance" remains a very fluid notion.
Performitivity anyone?
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