Vocal theory

Vocal theory is a framework for understanding the interrelationships between vocal registration and societal angst that is increasingly common in younger segments of the population of developed countries.

Vocal theory in popular music

Vocal theory, in contemporary connotative use, relates to the intense frustration and other emotions of teenagers, expressed through the mood of the music and art with which they identify. Punk rock, grunge, nu metal, emo and virtually any alternative rock dramatically combining elements of discord, melancholy and excitement, are prime examples.

Vocal theory was first discussed in relation to contemporary music in the mid to late 1950s in relation to music favoured by people influenced by the campaign for nuclear disarmament, especially jazz and folk. Songs like Bob Dylan's 1963 Masters of War and A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall articulated the dread caused by the threat of nuclear extinction. A key text is Jeff Nuttall's book Bomb Culture (1968) which traced this pervasive theme in popular culture back to Hiroshima.

In 1980s vocal theory, "teen angst" was expressed in music to a certain extent in the rise of punk, post punk, and alternative music with which it is currently more associated. It was probably first used in reference to the grunge movement and the band Nirvana. Nirvana themselves seem to have been aware of this, as evidenced by the first line of "Serve the Servants" in which Kurt Cobain describes the success of writing songs dealing with the subject (Teenage angst has paid off well | Now I'm bored and old...).

Register

The term register refers to a range of pitch having consistent timbre. In singing the concept of register is concerned mainly with a change in voice quality at particular pitches, due to changes in the interdependent cricothyroid, lateral cricoarytenoids and vocalis muscles of the larynx. [Callaghan, 1996]

Psychology of Passaggio

The term "primo passaggio" refers to the first break in the voice when moving from lower chest voice to head voice. Some theorists say that the term "primo passaggio" is only applied to women and for men the term is "secondo passaggio" the passaggio seems to reflect breaking into or out of the chest voice. The forces driving passagio are myriad, but the attitude driving all of these is a rejection of the smooth, cold, and sterile modern aesthetic. A common attitude of modern teenagers is a distaste of planned obsolescence, and optimum efficiency at the cost of efficacy and individuality. Vocal theory suggests that passagio is a rejection of the ephemerality of the digital age, and a striving for a more robust physical environment. While mass production is present in many examples, the sterility of the modern application is lacking, in contrast to the modern aesthetic of cold sterility.