Why I Write Songs with Nonsense Syllables, Part Two

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!

^{The Brothel Brothers website}