Ter voz, até sangrar: do que ressoa no canto de Áurea Martins

Abstract

This dissertation examines the notion of voice in popular singing through conceptual contributions from psychoanalysis and literary theory. The corpus analyzed is the album Até sangrar (2008) by singer Áurea Martins, from which seven musical scenes were selected and described through a commented listening approach. The methodological proposal consists in seeking ways to translate into words an experience that belongs to the sonic realm, articulating, for each musical scene, a conceptual scene. The central question guiding the study — what does it mean to have a voice? — is mobilized by an episode reported by the singer early in her career. In 1969, while preparing to appear on the television program A Grande Chance, broadcast by the now-defunct TV Tupi, a producer remarked that she “had no voice,” questioning her participation. The comment, made prior to her victorious performance, is taken as a starting point for examining processes of silencing and vocal affirmation. The dissertation is divided into two main parts: a politics of voice and a poetics of voice, structured in chapters and sections organized around the musical scenes analyzed. The first situates silencing in relation to structural mechanisms, emphasizing the act of taking the floor, while the second locates silence as a condition of listening. The study is grounded on the hypothesis that one must leave silence in order to hear it in its resonant potential beyond intelligible meaning. Throughout the investigation, conceptual pairs are mobilized, such as voice–listening, sound–meaning, landscape–noise, performance–resonance, and voice–language. The dissertation concludes that rhythm constitutes the articulating axis between voice and language, allowing the sonic dimension to emerge in its materiality.