How Do They Do That?

This week on ProetryPlace: at richardandersonblogs.blogspot.com:  About composers and the writers.

Blog 7: How Do They Do That?

     I popped a CD into my Bose music system a few days ago while attacking the ever mounting clutter in my home-office. I thought it might be relaxing and it was. But listening to solo pianist, Jim McDonough, play songs from the silver screen—Ice Castles, Evergreen, Brian’s Song, A Time for Us to name a few—a question hit me. How is it possible, from a collection of roughly 100 pitches, to derive a seemingly infinite variety of melodies?

     Then I did the math. Depending on how one chooses to define melody—say a group of four or five pitches in any order from the total of 100—one calculates that tens of millions of such groups  are possible. Having put our minds at ease on that matter we may ponder a more mysterious issue: the creativity of composers who conceive these melodies, counter melodies and harmonies to invent music that delights our ears, challenges our minds and touches our souls. How does their muse sing to them? I cannot calculate an answer.

     A few days later I listened to an audio-tape while I hurried my daily walk in advance of an approaching thunderstorm.  The short story, Voluptuary, by Peter DeVries came up first. From the first sentence  DeVries had me hooked, and on through the story of a teenage lesson learned he kept me amused and interested. It was not just the unusual plot but his delightful use of the language that kept me nodding and smiling through the brief 26 minute read. How did he manage to invariably select exactly the right words?

     There are about 250,000 words in the English language. About half are nouns, and one quarter are adjectives, that part of speech that some writers avoid like pariah. Surprisingly, verbs, the energizers of engaging writing make up only 15 percent, while the remaining 10 percent comprises conjunctions, prepositions and all the rest. How does the writer select just the choice morsels and most satisfying combinations from this vast smorgasbord?

     Rather than a concern for too few possible permutations as arose regarding the composers’ choice, perhaps we might worry about the writer having too vast a selection. Writing can instruct, persuade, inspire, enrage, sadden, elate and on and on. In the best written or spoken works, the essayist, the fiction writer, the poet or politician (think Gettysburg Address) favor us always with le mots justes, the right words or phrases at just the right time and place. With never a sour note.

Richard Allen Anderson      < :- (     ProetryPlace Blog 7     http://richardandersonblogs.blogspot.com

The poetry of Richard Allen Anderson, Another Season Spent, is available at Underground Books in Carrollton Georgia and online at Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Vabella Publishing.

     

The Language of Song

Blog 6: The Language of Song

   I do not intend this blog to be about me, except to address why I initiated a course of self-study from The Teaching Company entitled Understanding the Fundamentals of Music and then described it in previous blogs as the study of a new language.

    Although I studied the sciences for ten years of combined undergraduate and graduate course work and research and earned my living for over 30 years as an industrial research scientist, I have always had a love of the arts in all its forms. Now I have found a niche in the language arts, but sometimes wonder whether I might have become a musician instead of a writer if I had any inherent musical talent or received any musical training as a child. Sadly, I do not and did not.        

     In spite of its ability to entertain and move me emotionally as much or more than the written word, music has remained a magical mystery to me. I do not expect my current study to impart any musical talent where none now exists, merely to strip away some of the esotericism of the art form. I want to learn the language of song.

    Years back, I strummed chords on my acoustical guitar and sang to my young children. I learned the basic guitar tuning but never understood it. The piano keyboard was more logical, the linear (in space) progression of 88 pitches from low on the left to high on the right, though I never learned to play the instrument. I held season tickets to the symphony for several years and got to appreciate the live performances. Still, I did not learn exactly when to applaud and when not to. My collection of tapes, CDs and digital recordings grew to include samples of operatic and instrumental music from the Baroque through the romantic and modern eras. Jazz is an equal favorite. But I do not understand the language of song.

    How does one define language? I’ll list a few select examples to illustrate the scope, complexity and difficulty of comprehensive and exact definition.

• Audible, articulate, meaningful sound as produced by vocal organs
• A formal system of signs and symbols including rules for the formation of admissible expressions (how completely different from the first definition)
• The vocabulary and phraseology belonging to an art or department of knowledge

    (and one I particularly like)

• Human capacity to acquire and use complex systems of communication

    None of these definitions captures the full concept of language, nor do they all combined. Conversely, not all forms of language comply with any of the definitions. The language of song, music, certainly fits multiple definitions with its own vocabulary, rules or conventions of construction of phrases and more complex assemblages and its globular alphabet of signs and symbols. Most significantly, music communicates in ways words alone cannot.

    The development of languages is a fundamental part of human development (see blog 5) enabling not only precise communications but our ability to organize complex thought. Vocal music and possibly primitive instrumental music may have predated the spoken word as forms of communication. In any case, the history of music is rooted in these primal forms of human expression and interaction that seem universally present in ancient societies. The interweaving of musical and human development forms a fascinating backdrop to the fundamental lexicon, syntax, esoterica and idiosyncrasies of modern musical language that you will see in future blogs.

Richard Allen Anderson < :-(      ProetryPlace Blog 6

Blog 5: Learning Language

My newest ProetryPlace blog finds me lost in linguistics.

Blog 5, 10 June, 2013:

Lost in Linguistics

    I am thoroughly immersed, i.e. way over my head, in the study of a new language that I mentioned a few weeks back. As often occurs when beginning the study of any new subject, more questions have been raised than resolved.

    Some of the questions are specific to the new language—strange concepts or constructions that are only vaguely understood from the text material and DVD presentation. Others involve more general aspects of language and learning.

    Think of how you first learned language. It was an oral language that started with unintelligible (to adult humans) sounds, perhaps word fragments. Then simple words that named familiar objects—Mama, Dada—or mimicked what the ear perceived—No!

    Your baby vocabulary focused on nouns. Later, you learned some verbs and simple sentences or phrases, e.g. “I want.” Gradually, quite complex aspects of oral expression (as well as facial expressions and body language) were added. You learned sentence structure, other parts of speech—articles, adjectives, adverbs, etc. “I want that now!” not “That want now, I,” without even knowing that subjects like syntax and semantics existed.

    My point is that we become proficient in language and oral expression long before we study anything about language—grammar, vocabulary, punctuation and spelling, the latter two being manifestations of the written word. Learning a language as an adult takes different, more varied, forms unless one takes a crash course from Primsleur or Berlitz or Rosetta Stone expressly to be able to ask how much a glass of wine costs while vacationing in Romania or Hong Kong.

    To learn to write and to understand the written language requires a different approach, an expanded set of cognitive skills and abilities. Words are still the basis of most language, so we start with building a lexicon or a vocabulary of words. Soon after that relatively painless launch, we are adrift on an ocean of grammatical waves and syntactical seaweed. Occasional bouts of mal de mer are relieved by sightings of the distant shore—new knowledge, new appreciations.

    

    It may seem that I have wandered off the trail to the new language I am studying, and true enough, I will delay details of that specific study to a future blog. But language and writing is the primary subject matter of ProetryPlace, so I offer no apology for the brief detour.

    Indeed, it is difficult to bypass some still more esoteric aspects of linguistics. The field is amazingly complex and interesting, comprising a multitude of branches such as phonology and psycholinguistics and involving other fields of study such as anthropology and ancient history. And about those questions that continue to arise, here is one that language experts still argue: What is the purpose of language?

    The two main answers are communication and enabling thought process. I subscribe easily to both of these, but the question leads only deeper into more questions. When and how did human language come into being, what were its origins? This issue may never be fully resolved, but I believe a fortuitous juxtaposition of anatomical, social and biological evolution made speech possible if not essential. While humans evolved several million years ago, language is likely to have emerged over the relatively recent history of 50,000 to 200,000 years, for whatever reasons.

And the earliest known written language, cuneiform, was set forth a mere 6000 years ago. Today, over 6000 languages are in use. It is projected that 50 to 90 percent of them will become extinct during this century. Progress?

Next blog: My new language study. I promise. (Fingers crossed)

Richard Allen Anderson   < :- (

3 June 2013  Blog 4:

A Good Time Was Had by All--Especially Me

    I hope all who attended my book signing last Friday night at Underground Books in Carrollton, Georgia enjoyed it at least half as much as I did. Several of my wonderful neighbors dropped by and listened attentively while I described the making of a poet (me) and my volume of poetry, Another Season Spent. A number of members from the Carrollton Creative Writers Club also attended to applaud or heckle as appropriate and drink a little cheap wine. Thanks, guys and gals.

    My good wife asked if everyone read as much as I did at these affairs. Being deaf, my presentation was somewhat wasted on her, but I showed her my notes later, which she then approved.  My grandson, Andy, was there with his mom and younger sister and brother. Andy, now in 7th grade, provided some lively entertainment by reading his fully illustrated (in color) and hardbound graphic novel, The Blue Knight. Thanks, Andy.

    My narrative included some of my prose works that contributed to my development as a writer, starting when I was ten and spanning 60 years.  My readings comprised single examples of form poetry (a villanelle), free verse and haiku from the book, published this January and available from Vabella Publishing, Amazon and Barnes and Noble at their websites. Here is a sample haiku for you:

southern voices

wet vowels and soft consonants

a cotton mouth strikes

      A few of the small crowd lingered for writerly discussions and wine before we left our host, Josh Niese, Underground proprietor, to close up shop for the night. Thanks, Josh.

    I wish all those who purchased books a happy read, and thanks again for coming.

Next blog, I hope to pick up again on the new language I have been studying. See you then.

RAA < :- (