What Did It Sound Like? - To Play the Oldest Known Music Notation in the World

As a writer of stories, long and short, in the genre of historical fantasy I am fascinated by all the facets I need to create a world for my characters which seduces my readers. And more ... which bedazzles and successfully invites them inside. One of these facets is music. Music is integral to the world in my novel Alba - not only is it integral, it is a 'shamanic' doorway. Thus essential.

The oldest currently-known notated music in the world (or, this set of civilizations upon the breast of Mother EAerth) comes from Ugarit, on the coast of present-day Syria, and is dated around 1400 BCE. Acknowledging that there may well be older music currently played, today and even tomorrow, that was transmitted by lineage of teacher/pupil learning ... This music, known today as the Hurrian songs, was inscribed onto clay tablets. What has so far been discovered is incomplete - clay is a fragle material.

What did it sound like?

Well ... here would be no elements of today. No technobeats ... no sampling ... no overdubbing and multi-tracking ... no electronic instruments. The 'true' tones of Western music not at all necessary. Voices and ... handsonics ... and ... reeds, strings, skins and metals, No recordings. No greatest hits. No accompanying twerking (I strongly intuit/suspect, but cannot be certain). Optional hotpants very unlikely.

What did it sound like?

Well ... we will never know. But that does not stop us from enjoying the joyful wonder of the fact that way back then, in that tribe, musicians composed and notated their music so that is could be shared and so that it could endure, at least for as long as the culture did endure.

Malek Jandali

There are some inspirational extrapolations from these Hurrian songs. The Syrian-born Malek Jandali has an album called Echoes from Ugarit released a couple of years ago written for piano and Western orchestra.

Why is this important to writers?

Why is this important?

Well ... It is important to be able to access a state of 'personal' wonder about this creation upon this planet and these experiences that 'we' have. It is right and natural to have wonder about these ancient civilizations - that in the galactic scheme of time are just the last heartbeat away. A sense of wonder is natural. A lack of a sense of wonder is not.

Why is this important to writers?

Music is a huge part of every culture, down through all of 'history'. Sure, we can all write stories that don't need the facet of music to create the world in which the story takes place. However, for myself, the more I want to incorporate the essence of a culture in a story setting the more likely I will introduce music into that world. Of course, if I want to introduce any facet that is the slightest 'shamanic' then I likely need music.

For writers of historical fantasy and historical fiction it depends how far back in time you are setting your story. If you have gone back as far as the Baroque Period - 1600-1750, or so - then you are in reasonably well-documented territory. Though bear in mind that there are periodic huge controversies in the early music communities about what early music actually sounded like.

Once we are in historical settings that are way back, like the Dark Ages and before in Europe, and their equivalent periods in other parts of this world, then where are we going to find inspiration to be able to write and create the musical backdrops in our stories?

Over the next few months I will share some of the music I have listened to, and become drunk upon, in the quest to meet inspiration for the musical facets of my ancient worlds.

Malek Jandali is currently giving great Service to the world through activist work on behalf of all children caught up in the current conflict in Syria. You can read more about his work here

Namaste! I bow to and honor the light with you!

Soundless Music and Storyless Story: Yves Klein's Symphony and Idries Shah's The Book of the Book

Nothing quite says something as much as nothing does, sometimes.

There was a performance of Yves Klein’s Monotone Symphony in New York last month. Klein is a fascinating and disruptive artist. His Symphony is in two movements. The first movement is a sustained D major chord that lasts 20 minutes. The second movement is a 20 minute period of 'silence' - i.e. no musicians playing but just ambient sound.

The Beginning of the NY Concert

And ... In France they Kiss on Main Street

And here is a video of a 'Happening' with Yves Klein, the musicians, blue paint, the artist's models and audience. Quite different from 2013 ... hmm ...

You can also listen to the performance of March 9, 1960 here.

The Book of the Book by Idries Shah

Stories without story? Now THAT is hard to do!

I bought The Book of the Book in the late seventies (I was buying all of Idries Shah's books available at that time in my life). It was 'controversial'. The first 16 pages of the book has text - story within story without story about story - and the rest of the book was blank paper. Not even page numbers. Interestingly, and as an artist I am so grateful for this, you can read the complete The Book of the Book on googlebooks. It will take you about five minutes. Hah! Five minutes to read. But ... how long to digest?

I recommend The Book of the Book to all writers in the genres of magical realism and speculative fiction. In fact, I wholeheartedly recommend all of Shah's books to writers of magical realism and SF. For ... there is much there about 'causality', in both its hidden and obvious elements. For ... there is much in his books about building worlds. For ... there is much there about how observers (unknowing) create worlds and hide worlds from themselves purely by deciding what their perceptions 'mean'. For ... there is much there about the 'real' and the 'really real'. And, on a personal note, I take inspiration from his work to write to 'change the cultural world' by inviting my readers to think about what kind of life they really want to live in the really real world.

Stories are healing. This is the way it is. Stories are also, manifestly, the opposite. Readers are there for stories that heal. Something different this way comes.

Namaste! I bow to and honor the light within you!

What Did Dialogue Sound Like Back Then?

We will never know how Handel's music sounded when conducted by Handel himself. Similarly we will never know how the soldiers in both armies talked to each other on the day before the Battle of Hastings in 1066. Or, what two senators sounded like as they walked together through Rome in 44 BCE; or indeed, what Latin sounded like in any regions of the Roman Empire. Same is true for the Picts, who halted the Roman invasion into what became Scotland. Same is true for Troy. What did Helen sound like when she spoke to Paris?

And going back ... and back ... and back ... into the little 'history' we really have. Buddha. And back ...

What if ... Well ...

"By the 19th century, linguists knew that all modern Indo-European languages descended from a single tongue. Called Proto-Indo-European, or PIE, it was spoken by a people who lived from roughly 4500 to 2500 B.C., and left no written texts. The question became, what did PIE sound like?"

There are two brief recordings of Proto-Indo-European, just published. Reconstructed by Dr. Andrew Bird, and for all to listen to at Archaeology magazine.

Here is one, a fable called 'The Sheep and the Horses' -

Both this fable and one called 'King and God' are described and can be heard at Archeaology magazine.

We write and read stories set 'back then' - before we have recordings. I write stories in the English language - it's what I know. I make my characters, 'back then', talk in a kindaEnglish. I do some technical stuff around dialogue. Change the names of concepts that we know and use. Introduce new psychological concepts. Play with spelling. Make dialogue more like the way we speak - breaks and repitations and non-semantic sounds and pauses ... and so on. It is still basically English. I can declare that the psychology, the very mind, of my characters is radically different. Which I believe to be both true and inevitable. I try and change the music of the language and dialogue in my stories so that it does not sound like what I hear around me in everyday life; so that it expresses more of what I believe minds were like 'back' then' in my stories.

And then the same is true for music that 'they' played 'back then'. What did the music of those who built Stonehenge sound like? I would love, just love, to hear it. Of course, for telling stories it only matters that we get to a sense of it imaginally, a sense that we can tell into the fabric of our story.

I'm writing a story about Stonehenge right now. And I am listening, amongst others, to Meredith Monk. She makes music with voices that is not of our everyday here-and-now time. And then I take off imaginally from herThere.

Namaste! I bw to and honor the Light within you!