Cacophony?

The word ‘Cacophony' conjures a kaleidoscope of sounds and colours, disparate voices competing and battling in a babel of sounds. In its role as title of this endeavour, it serves a dual purpose, both as representative of current discourses on historical understandings of vocal practices and as a comment on said practices themselves. This page offers an opportunity to explore a wide variety of hypotheticals when it comes to historical performance practices, as well as an effort to render central pedagogical materials as available as possible to the interested reader. Above all, the aim of this platform is to continue challenging traditional narratives concerning the history of Western vocal aesthetics and to reframe our aural imaginations of the musical past.