Tracing the Development of Extended Vocal Techniques in ...

epeated, gradually accelerating single-note embellishment which Caccini uses
primarily at cadences in his musical examples... The trillo is similar to a type of
ululation, or interrupted sound (literally “howling” or “wailing”), found in other
musical cultures.... The ululation has entered the vocabulary of latter twentiethcentury
practitioners of extended vocal techniques.... 12
Michael Edward Edgerton offered yet another starting point, preceding that of
Kavasch, for what he calls “extra-normal voice.” According to his perspective of the
extra-normal voice, history included “at various times the Sumerian hymn (-800 B.C.),
Grecian Odes (600 B.C.), Judaic responsorial and antiphonal psalms (+500 B.C,),
Christian plainchant (A.D.), organum (9 th c.), Ars Nova (14 th c.), and later the nuove
musiche of the baroque.” 13 Independent of a specific historically based referential point,
the evolution of the singing voice throughout music’s history never experienced as drastic
a shift as it did in the musical culture of twentieth-century America.
Although it was not until later in the twentieth century that many composers
began consciously exploiting the voice for its sonic capabilities, German composer
Engelbert Humperdinck (1854-1921) began the foundation upon which EVTs could be
built. While he initially used what would later be known as Sprechgesang 14 in his opera
Der Königskinder (1897), he replaced it with conventional singing practices in the 1910
edition of his work. However, most scholars believed that Austrian composer Arnold
12 In September of 1999, Dr. Deborah Kavasch presented a paper for the 4 th International
Symposium and Festival “Donne in Musica Gli Incotri Al Borgo” in Fiuggi Città, Italy entitled, “Extended
Vocal Techniques: Then and Now.” Her work served as a wonderful tool, corroborating my own research. I
was grateful for her willingness to further my project, as she was a pioneer of extended vocal techniques as
a doctoral student of the 1970s.
13 Michael Edward Edgerton, The 21 st -Century Voice Contemporary and Traditional Extra-
Normal Voice (Lanham: The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 2004), Preface, xv.
14 Paul Griffiths, “Sprechgesang,” Grove Music Online, ed. L. Macy; accessed October 25, 2007.
14