Vocoder

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Voice of the Artist through the Vocoder and Abstract Art

While the vocoder machine was originally used in telecommunications, it's best known for its contribution to modern music. In this article, I will take this concept further to show the link between the musical elements of the vocoder and abstract art. Let me first take you on a brief journey through the history of the machine and its connection with the human voice.

The term “vocoder” originated as an abbreviation of “voice coder.” The machine can be generally described as a voice analyzer and synthesizer that examines speech finds the parameters of interest, and measures changes in spectral characteristics over time while recording. In doing this, the vocoder considerably reduces the amount of information needed to store the voice. To recreate speech, the vocoder simply reverses this process.

Essentially, the vocoder began as a voice coder for telecommunications. Signals were encrypted when transmitted, meaning that receivers had to decode them to understand the message. The high-security nature of encrypted signals drew much attention to the encoder during WWII.

Developed in the 1930s by Homer Dudley at the Bell Telephone Laboratories, the motivation for its conception arose from the need to transmit voices over telegraphy cables with small bandwidths for easier long-distance signal transport. Later on, Dudley added two keyboards to the vocoder machine that made it possible to create spoken or sung timbres. The two keyboards were able to reconstruct various consonances with a pedal to control the oscillator frequency and a lever to change vocal sounds for intervals.[1]

The various timbral possibilities of the vocoder machine captivated many composers of the time. In the late 1940s, for example, German composer Werner Meyer-Eppler recognized the importance of machines for electronic music and used the vocoder as the base for his works, which eventually became the inspiration for the German Elektronische Musik movement. From these experiments, the Siemens synthesizer was developed in Munich in the 1960s. 

At the end of 1960, the vocoder machine experienced a significant advancement. The American company Sylvannia decided to produce some experimental machines to decode voice messages that used digital electronics, instead of the analog electronics previously used. 

Up to that point, the vocoder had only been used by more experimental musicians. However, beginning in the 1970s, electronic music pioneers Robert Moog and Wendy Carlos modified various synthesizer modules to create their own vocoder that was specifically designed for music. Its most significant appearance was on the soundtrack of Stanley Kubrick’s 1971 A Clockwork Orange. This work marked a turning point in the use of the vocoder and positioned it as a precedent for later widely-used synthesizers.

Instrument manufacturers were now becoming interested in developing vocoder machines exclusively for music and the first commercial vocoder designed by Tim Orr was released in 1976, the EMS Studio Vocoder, and later called EMS 5000. While it targeted a very niche market, the first steps to make it accessible to the broader public were made by KORG and ELECTRO-HARMONIX brands in 1979.

The vocoder began to be more widely used in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s in diverse genres and musical styles to achieve innovative sonorities and enable different sound effects, all linked to the human voice. The use of the vocoder is particularly prominent in disco music, pop, experimental electronic composers’ works, rock, and hip-hop. Among the many musicians who most frequently use the vocoder machine in their compositions are the German group Kraftwerk, the jazzist Herbie Hancock, the funk band Zapp, the composer Karlheinz Stockhausen, DJs like Jessie J, and especially Afrika Bambaataa.

This brings me to abstract art. While figurative art arguably puts less of a demand on the viewer’s imagination and follows the innate traditional rules of the art world, abstract art’s lack of identifiable forms and liberation of form and color give the viewer a transcendent experience. Much like the vocoder, abstract art—including painting, sculpture, and even graphic design—portrays elements of the tangible world in a manner that leaves extensive room for interpretation. Several layers separate the resulting sound or aesthetic from the source, making the outcome undeniably personal and intimate, yet drawn from reality. 

So, while the vocoder recreates speech, nonrepresentational or abstract art reconfigures the world as the artist experiences it subjectively, allowing the viewer to draw their own conclusions based on the creator’s subtle—or not so subtle, albeit ambiguous—interpretation. In this way, the artist serves as a pseudo-vocoder of sorts, employing abstract elements through their own curated lens to reconfigure the world around them.

And, just as the vocoder machine analyzes and synthesizes the human voice, abstract artists have analyzed and synthesized the human experience. With an emphasis on spontaneity and improvisation, they create a new and striking dimension. Consider the work of Spanish painter Joan Miro, whose surrealist approach blends spontaneous forms and improvisational compositions to illustrate the undercurrents of the subconscious mind.[2]

Abstract artists might also play off of one another, the same way a vocoder might be used to unpin layers of voice and synth, producing increasingly abstract versions of the source material. The parallel in the visual arts, is the totality of the human experience—the real world if you will—rather than the discrete recognizable sounds of one’s own voice.

Abstract art, therefore, gives voice to artists who choose to redefine reality and to abandon the figure. Just as the vocoder machine adds nuance to human communication, both the visual and the vocal abandon realism for a more ambiguous yet equally compelling approach. 

To this end, it’s worth noting that abstract art has played an integral role in bringing into prominence new voices depicting reality. Megan O’Grady, of The New York Times wrote The Black contemporary art realm is no exception, with pioneers like Norman Lewis shedding light on the hypocrisy of American Civil Rights ideology in works like Alabama (1960), and Howardina Pindell taking a multimedia approach to visually contrasting pain and pleasure.

Ultimately, the parallels between the vocoder and abstract art reference the shifting social norms of contemporary society. While initially the utilitarian nature of the vocoder machine to decode voice messages and the artistic confines of western realism up to the 20th century served a rather narrow purpose, both have yielded a powerful impact in creative spaces, leaving a lasting mark on contemporary art and music. Both point to an alternative vision of reality, serving as a vehicle for cultural transformation. 

Where a vocoder requires the user’s voice and a carrier as inputs, abstract art incorporates the artist’s voice and an underlying message depicted in the piece to communicate their soul. Both reference a spiritual realm or message is hidden in the work, boundless yet open to spiritual and artistic interpretation, and subject to evolution as we continue to move through a transitioning world. Culturally, the vocoder and the abstract arts have brought about great change, evolving from their political origins while underpinning a collective shift in the human experience of their cultural history.

[1] One of the first vocoder machines (film). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSdFu1xdoZk

[2] What Abstract Art Achieved (article). https://www.nytimes.com/1985/09/29/magazine/what-abstract-art-achieved.html