The Composition, ‘Life is Short’ (2019-2020) evolved from Amanda Brooks’ live experimentations and transformation and morphing techniques by using just one voice, questioning the identity of the human voice as a human instrument and its gender to liberate her stage persona from conventional vocal singing restraints. ‘Life is Short ‘(2019-2020) is a stereo audio composition written about life’s mundane distractions: housework, food shopping, laundry, which one finds at the bottom of one’s list of priorities when one desires to do something else less boring.
The transformation of the identity of Brooks’ voice played a large part in the composition and includes a wide variety of vocal morphing techniques to deliver the personalities of different characters. It was necessary for the artist to create the characters and then ‘act them out’ to bring them to life. The artist disguised her own voice in-order to portray the identities and personalities of the characters. It was crucial to acquire the correct tone, timbre and volume to exaggerate the idioms of the characters who are being emulated or created, ultimately to illustrate human style, vocal expression and psyche far removed from her own.