Altered speech states with Amazonian musical instruments

Discover the seventh session of the 2024-2025 Americanist Anthropology Seminar: “Altered speech states with Amazonian musical instruments: masks, charms and sound propellers".

"Many rural populations speaking Amazonian languages still use a variety of traditional sound techniques to imitate speech, including musical instruments. Fingers, hands, leaves, bamboo reeds, flutes, mouth bows, drums made from hollowed-out trunks... the alternative ways of expressing oneself are varied. The aim is to use sound sources other than the vocal chords to open up perspectives that complement spoken communication. Melodies and rhythms played in this way are based on a similarity between music and speech - a relationship of acoustic iconicity - to preserve a few linguistic features that enable messages to be understood/recognized. Some practices serve as “sound masks” to conceal the identity of the voice, while others are “speech propellers” enabling us to speak to each other from afar (whistles, drums); not forgetting “sound charms” conveying either onomatopoeic imitations of animals, or love songs... In some cases, the aim is to express ancient oral literature in the form of poems, proverbs or songs."

• Julien Meyer – CNRS, GIPSA-lab (Grenoble)
• Discussant: Aurore Monod Becquelin – CNRS, LESC