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Why I Write Songs with Nonsense Syllables, Part Two Originally posted 9 Nov 2009

In an earlier post, I revealed the spiritual side of why I like to write music with nonsense syllables for lyrics. For those too lazy to scroll down I will sum up: there are ways to communicate meaning and emotion beyond simple diction. But there is another reason that I enjoy singing these nonsensical phonemes: the sheer love of phonetics. But let me back up.

Oscar Wilde famously said in the prologue to The Picture of Dorian Grey that "from the point of view of form, the type of all the arts is the art of the musician." Or to rephrase, music is almost unique among the arts in that it doesn't have to be about something to be enjoyable. Many of the most famous musical works in western culture have numbers in place of names, and we think nothing of it -- Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, Brandenburg Concerto No. 3, et al. As western culture went through its romantic period, musicians went to great lengths to inject meaning into their music - with Berlioz even writing a text to accompany his magnum opus, Symphonie Fantastique. But I cannot help but notice that my favorite contemporary composer, Steve Reich, has reverted back to the masters in his nomenclature: Music for 18 Musicians, Eight Lines, Six Marimbas, Cello Counterpoint, etc.

I referred to music as being "almost unique." And believe me; it pains me to use the word "unique" in a non-absolute fashion. But it is interesting to note that in the wake of the two world wars nearly ALL the artists of all media began trying to take meaning OUT of their works. Kandinsky (arguably the first truly abstract painter) interestingly named many of his paintings with musical terms like "composition" or "improvisation."

Now, I had said something about phonetics?

My childhood utterances were riddled with me using the word that I thought fit phonetically better than the real word. I used the word "physique" when I meant "exquisite" for example -- it just sounded better. Once in the fourth grade, the teacher asked us to say what came to mind when we heard the word "tragedy." When it was my turn, I said I thought of "strategy" -- and the looks I got I will never forget! But DUUUHHHH -- the two words sound so alike, how could you NOT think of "strategy!?" Probably the most embarrassing example of this was when I made my own homemade kite (I was eight or nine) and I wanted to say something like "The Amazing Mark Allender" on it. But "amazing" didn't cut it. I needed to be better than amazing. The "EnDURing" Mark Allender?" No. Not that either. But I liked that "OOR" sound -- that was cool. Then I hit on the perfect word, and colored in big letters across my kite, "THE MANURE MARK ALLENDER." I was so proud and showed my mother, who tried not to burst into laughter as she explained to me what manure was.

Fast forward to 2004. I was playing in a band called The Brothel Brothers with my friends David Badagnani and John Kuegeler. We were a hot little trio - accordion, trumpet, and bass - and our shtick was that we would take songs from all over the world and transpose them for these three instruments. Some were easy -- such as our Cajun tune, "`Tit Galop Pour Mamou" or our Norwegian tune "Hopparen." Others were more challenging, such as our Iraqi tune "Zajal" or the Zulu pop song "Umfazi Omdala." But this was the first time that I found myself singing a vast number of songs in other languages, many of which had nothing to do with one another linguistically. It was hard to tell what the songs were about just from the music -- that Zulu tune for example has a joyful sounding major key progression, but the lyrics translate as "Old Woman, why are you beating that small child? I will chase you away!" But here's the kicker. No matter what the songs were about, they were FUN TO SING! And that was a big part of the cool of the Brothel Brothers -- pure phonetic joy unencumbered by semantics. Taken as a body of work, many of the tunes were like abstract paintings. Fun at the most aural level.

So this too is something that I want to explore further: the simple joy of phonetics in music. To sing with conviction about nothing. What I am discovering is that acappella music lends itself to this kind of thing very well. Since there is no guitar or piano undergirding the melody, phonetics are a fantastic way to provide musical texture - a technique explored in my songs "Glacitu" and "Demeda Seng Set" for example. Other tunes such "The Accuser" have the English verses as the texture with a glossolalia melody on the top.

It's still very much a work in progress. I am shooting to have this thing done by early spring. We'll see where it takes me!

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Why I Write Songs with Nonsense Syllables Originally posted 4 Oct 2009

I was raised on the mainstream fringe of a fringe movement.  Growing up, I was vaguely acquainted with the so-called "charismatic" movement of the Christian church.  For the uninitiated, Acts chapter 2 begins like this: "When the day of Pentecost came, [Jesus' former disciples] were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them." The Charismatic movement (represented these days primarily in the Assemblies Of God and Pentecostal denominations) believes that Christians still do this: speak in strange languages.  I'm not so familiar with the movement now, but at one point I seem to remember hearing in some circles that "you weren't a real Christian unless you DID speak in tongues." Now, I have never spoken in tongues in the religious sense, but not for a lack of trying.  It was experiential -- if I could be swept away with the frenzy that seemed to come over these people, it seemed to me to be proof positive that everything I had ever been taught was real.  But at the same time, I remained a bit of a pragmatist - even as a teenager;  I asked a friend, "Why does God want us to speak in tongues anyway?"  And the answer I received profoundly affected me as an artist. "How in the world are you supposed to pray for Mr. Adams?" Mr. Adams was my old next-door neighbor.  He was an old man when I was very young.  My siblings and I would go over and visit with he and his wife maybe once a week.  Mrs. Adams was very nice, very gracious, loved having us over, and ALWAYS gave us gumdrops when we left (my folks always thought we were going over there solely for the gumdrops).  But Mr. Adams was old old old.  Always sat in the same chair.  He stitched latch-hook rugs.  He created little dogs made of golf balls and golf tees.  He made toys for us out of buckeyes and string.  He taught us how to win at solitaire.  The man knew how to keep a seven-year-old enthralled.  He also smoked at least two packs of cigarettes a day and the trash can next to his chair was always full of beer bottles (Budweiser, fyi). Well, by the time I was a teenager, we had moved to the outskirts of town - but we still kept track of the Adams and how they were doing.  Mrs. Adams kept going - she was doing well, but Mr. Adams was fading away.  He refused to quit smoking even after he got lung cancer - and soon was on oxygen.  Soon after that he couldn't even summon the breath to talk. So how in the world is a good Christian supposed to pray for Mr. Adams?  I cared deeply for him, but I knew that he would not get better.  And I knew that he was suffering, but I didn't want him to die.  Which he was clearly going to.  So again, how the hell are you supposed to, as a good Christian, pray for a man like that?  And the answer of course, by the standards of the Charismatic community, was to express my sorrow for him to God while saying a bunch of nonsense syllables.  It's only logical, right? Like I said, I never actually was able to do it.  I've never really been into frenzies - or mobs - or even drugs for that matter.  But the answer I got has never left me, and the implications were clear: sometimes your deepest desires cannot be expressed in traditional language. This "speaking in tongues" is called "glossolalia" by linguists, and is usually associated with religious frenzy or ecstasy.  The Dadas from the mid 1910's famously explored glossolalia as an art form - notably with Hugo Ball's "Lautgedichte" (noise poems). His poem "Gadji Beri Bimba" is one of his most well known - it was later recorded by Talking Heads as the song "I Zimbra." Cut to early 2001.  I had since left Christianity, I had traveled to and from Korea, and was in the process of trying to build a career of some kind back here in the States with an English degree.  I also found myself in a difficult marriage with a baby on the way, and two (albeit wonderful) stepsons that I was struggling to have a relationship with.  And our lease was not being renewed -- the landlord wanted to put some family friends into our unit.  It was a high stress time not just as a family, but also for me personally since, as I said before, things with my then wife were not right.  Yet at the same time, I had moments of unexplained happiness and optimism.  I couldn't put a finger on why - it was like fifteen minutes of sun.  And I had to express it somehow.  Everything else going on (apart from the new baby of course) was pretty shitty.  To what do I owe this happiness - how do I attach any meaning to it? So I had a chorus.  "Checkle In Tow.  Ah, new medicine - Checkle in tow."  It just sounded phonetically cool.  Meant nothing.  But I couldn't get that little ditty out of my mind.  (NOTE for aspiring song writers - when you write something that you can't get out of your head, you are usually on to something).  So one day - at work - the words and music just flowed out of me.  Written to be sung around a campfire by a singer with a banjo - and it was called "Chekl Ento (Glossy Leilah)."  It's a happy little ditty.  I got to perform it with my old group The Brothel Brothers (sans banjo) as well as for a local benefit.   My wife and I split in January 2007.  I had no money, no steady job, and debt out the wazoo, so my parents thankfully took me in.  I may talk about this period in my life some other time, but suffice it to say, it was both agonizing and refreshing at the same time.  But then in April,  I got into a car accident.  My fault - luckily the no one was hurt and the other car did not sustain much damage.  But I had no collision coverage on my car, so it was a total loss and I had no insurance reimbursement to help pay for a new one.  Suddenly, all the dismal prospects of finding a new job to help get out of this rut were gone.  I sank into a deep depression and recorded several songs on my computer - among them "Glacitu," "Picture," "Psalm 23," and a drone piece that ended up being called "Drone 1."  I also recorded a take on Roger Miller's song "Hat" - which I called "Cat."  "Glacitu" in general was able to capture without intelligible words the sense of despair and hopelessness that I felt -- and if I had tried to express it in words, it would only have fallen short.  It was agitation with anxiety with a sense of impending menace. Cut again to March 2009.  A dizzying chain of events led to me having an actual breakdown on-site at work.  An attack of full-fledged paranoia.  After several hours I was able to get some hold on reality, but during that time I nearly went to the emergency room.  Some counseling began after that, followed by a small cocktail of medications.  But in the "ramping up" period for these medications to take effect, I was visited again by another rush of creativity, and a couple of my proudest moments came out of those sessions - "Demeda Seng Set," "Zinsata," and "Drone 2."  Again, I was overcome with a rush of emotion -- fear, anxiety, paranoia.  And thru the process of writing and recording, the feelings diffused, and I was left with what I feel are compelling expressions of what was going on in my head - all using the trick of praying for Mr. Adams and saying a bunch of nonsense syllables.  It's therapeutic for me and very satisfying creatively. I don't know how long I'll be in this business. Jackson Pollock was famously done with his celebrated "drip paintings" after three years, so we'll see.  At the moment, I am getting a lot out of exploring this in an acappella context. A full length recording of these will hopefull get finished soon and be available at online music distributors by spring of 2010.

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Masada tune of the day: Zera'im https://wiki.masada.world/index.php?title=Zera'im

(video sez "Leraim" but video is wrong dammit)

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Masada tune of the day: Teli https://wiki.masada.world/index.php?title=Teli

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It is nearly the end.

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Eclipse

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Shot during eclipse. Note the little crescent suns shining through the leaves onto the gravestone.

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If you end up with a boring miserable life because you listened to your mom, your dad, your teacher, your priest, or some guy on television telling you how to do your shit, then you deserve it.

Frank Zappa (via littlemiss [via acousticross])

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Main table, Penfieled House interior, Willoughby Hills, Ohio

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Insight Timer - We endorse this mobile app, available for both iOS and Android devices. Features many timing options, as well as streaming guided meditations, and access to other meditation communities. 

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