Speech transcriptions

[Ugh]

In 2003-2004 (when was it?) I included a minute transcription of a speech in my Assemblages work - coupling speech and piano performance of the musical values of the speech (a news transmission announcing the death of JFK)

In 2009 Peter Ablinger's Voice and Piano was premiered in NYC, based on piano performances of speeches of famous people, including Gertrude Stein, Mao Tzedong and Cecil Taylor. I am not sure how well I think those transcriptions worked, at least in the performances I've heard.

But I am sure there must be many more examples of transcribing human speech for instruments in classical music. I mean literally though, not in the sense that Mussorgsky portrayed the conversation between a rich and poor person in one of the Pictures at an Exhibition.

Any input on this?

[Luke]

Well, of course there are Janacek's speech melodies - although in practise these are hardly ever found transported wholesale into his instrumental music; the opening melody of Mladi is the only one I can think of, actually. But to Janacek these speech melodies, which he notated furiously and passionately and quasi-scientifically, were of fundamental importance to his musical-psychological beliefs.

[Franco]

Schoenberg's Sprechstimme (speech-song) is what I thought of, but that may be too stylized for what you are thinking of.

[listener]

try Robert ERICKSON    General Speech
Stuart Dempster, trombone
     "...Based not merely on a text of General Douglas MacArthur's but as much on his persona or, one might say, the myth he consciously lived and exemplified, the piece uses speech as a bridge between music and theater.  The trrombonist is required to merge his playing of precisely notated (and often difficult) musical events with the verbal articulation into the instrument of a phoneticized version of MacArthur's retirement speech at West Point..."   (from the note to the LP release   NeW World NW 254)
CD   NWR 80541
http://www.hbdirect.com/album_detail.php?pid=282804
or mp3 from http://www.amazon.com/New-Music-Virtuosos-Donald-Palma/dp/B000009N8X/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1273635307&sr=1-10

[springrite]

Cantonese music IS speech music. Because of the intonation of Cantonese, the lyrics determines the musical notes. If you change on single word, you have to change the music, or it can not be sung. That is why for Chinese, Cantonese music is always considered beautiful while at the same time weird. It is weird because the words (lyrics) are often strange, awkward, because it has to be so that the music can be reasonable. That is why you don't set a poem to song in Cantonese. You either set the song to words, or, in many cases, the song writer has to write his own lyrics. The two kind of come out together, each making necessary concessions.

[Ugh]

Cantonese music IS speech music. Because of the intonation of Cantonese, the lyrics determines the musical notes. If you change on single word, you have to change the music, or it can not be sung. That is why for Chinese, Cantonese music is always considered beautiful while at the same time weird. It is weird because the words (lyrics) are often strange, awkward, because it has to be so that the music can be reasonable. That is why you don't set a poem to song in Cantonese. You either set the song to words, or, in many cases, the song writer has to write his own lyrics. The two kind of come out together, each making necessary concessions.

Very good point. I once did some research on tonal languages and whistle language, drum-messages, etc. I was intrigued about the notion that the nature of the local languages allowed them to transmit verbal content between large distances by translating the content into musical values and using a drum or high-pitched whistle as a transmitter. No surprise, perhaps, that the monotonous sound of the telegraph was conceived in the setting of non-tonal languages...

[Ugh]

Well, of course there are Janacek's speech melodies - although in practise these are hardly ever found transported wholesale into his instrumental music; the opening melody of Mladi is the only one I can think of, actually. But to Janacek these speech melodies, which he notated furiously and passionately and quasi-scientifically, were of fundamental importance to his musical-psychological beliefs.

That sounds like something I want to dwelve into, Luke I must admit my knowledge about Janacek remains abysmal even though I should have realized that your interest in this composer is a sure sign of his greatness

[jimmosk]

In 1982 Scott Johnson released an album of music based on the natural melodies in spoken words, John Somebody. It affected me a lot when I first heard it, played on some NPR program. You can listen to clips at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00063UECU -- the first two will give you the idea: it begins just with a snippet of conversational speech, then loops it to emphasize that there was a melodic component to the speaking, and adds instruments mimicking that music, eventually dropping the voice and having the instruments develop the music on their own. Also try track 6 for an example of his "Involuntary Songs" built out of laughter.

Not too long after, Steve Reich composed Different Trains, which does very similar things, though in my opinion less interestingly. You can listen to part of it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYnAQ-lK74A

[listener]

Robert Ashley:  He Was a Visitor   might be a propos this topic.   I'll look for my recording.

[Ugh]

In 1982 Scott Johnson released an album of music based on the natural melodies in spoken words, John Somebody. It affected me a lot when I first heard it, played on some NPR program. You can listen to clips at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00063UECU -- the first two will give you the idea: it begins just with a snippet of conversational speech, then loops it to emphasize that there was a melodic component to the speaking, and adds instruments mimicking that music, eventually dropping the voice and having the instruments develop the music on their own. Also try track 6 for an example of his "Involuntary Songs" built out of laughter.

Not too long after, Steve Reich composed Different Trains, which does very similar things, though in my opinion less interestingly. You can listen to part of it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYnAQ-lK74A

Thanks for the input. Your description of Scott Johnson's project was far more interesting than the actual tracks

My own inspiration actually came from Jazz as well. I recall attending a jazz concert in 2001 with a NY jazz quartet whose name escapes me. I was very impressed with a track that started with a fairly long sample of somebody talking for a couple of minutes. The sample was subsequently repeated, only this time with the quartet emulating the voice note-by-note. Very impressing how they had rehearsed this without any synchronization problems. It must have been quite a task to remember the excact pauses between sentences, etc....

This was partly the approach I used in 2003 with the JFK newscast transcribed for piano in "Assemblages". However, I also replaced certain words with their symbolical counterpart - for instance the word "shot" with the sound of gun fire, etc, as always deeply inspired by cartoon music

[jimmosk]

I have another one for you, Ugh. I just encountered Jacob ter Veldhuis' 2001 oratorio Paradisio, which includes audio samples from astronauts and Mission Control during the Apollo XII mission, and some particularly melodic fire-and-brimstone preachers. The speech is imitated and taken up by the orchestra.