“Multiple Voices” by Cavarero and “Aristotle on Voice” both touch on the idea of voice and what one should take away from it. From the story of the king and the palace we learn that, “words… do not count for their semantic valence but only for their phonic substance” (Cavarero, 520). To me, this means that one should just listen and not always try to interpret. In other words, ignore the semantic and concentrate on the vocal. Looking back at Lucier’s written text and performance from this perspective might give us the idea to simply listen. In a way, the performance forces us to do this because as the recording goes on, the words go away. Though it is still the recording of Lucier’s voice playing, all we begin to hear is just a sound. This connects to Aristotle’s idea that “the sound we hear is always the sounding of something else, not the origin itself”. Lucier said it himself when he spoke about playing the recording so many times that the semblance of his speech is destroyed, but something else can come out of it. Maybe we can’t hear the words of Lucier as the recording goes on, but it is still his voice. From Aristotle’s perspective, Lucier’s voice has soul. They suggest that we should pay more attention to the soul of the voice, than the actual words, as it could lead us to find the “hidden and most genuine part of the person” (Cavarero, 522).
