{"id":55733,"date":"2016-09-15T13:00:16","date_gmt":"2016-09-15T18:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.toiletovhell.com\/?p=55733"},"modified":"2016-09-15T13:07:20","modified_gmt":"2016-09-15T18:07:20","slug":"on-tolkien-music-as-language-and-microtonality-a-guest-post-from-dave-tremblay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/on-tolkien-music-as-language-and-microtonality-a-guest-post-from-dave-tremblay\/","title":{"rendered":"On Tolkien, Music as Language, and Microtonality: A Guest Post from Dave Tremblay"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"fb-root\"><\/div>\n<p>In early August, I published a premiere of Dave Tremblay&#8217;s Tolkien-themed, xenharmonic black metal project\u00a0<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.toiletovhell.com\/nerds-rejoice-melopoeias-xenharmonic-tolkien-inspired-black-metal-album-gets-release-date-new-single\/\" target=\"_blank\">Melop\u0153ia<\/a><\/strong>. Realizing I was a bit limited in my ability to accurately convey the means by which Dave composed his paean to the lord of fantasy, I asked the mad musician if he wouldn&#8217;t mind sharing a few words with our readers about the alchemy at work on\u00a0<em>Tolkien&#8217;s Ainulindal\u00eb<\/em>. So grab your copy of the\u00a0<em>Silmarillion<\/em> and take a look under the hood with us. What better way to celebrate the release of that book on the day of its 39th anniversary!<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<h1 style=\"text-align: center;\">What Is Melop\u0153ia?<\/h1>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Foreword<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>We often talk of music as being a language. Music is, in fact, a form of communication, just like any verbal or written language. It has cadence, intonation, meaning, and is made from building blocks; instead of being letters and words, they are notes and chords. Therefore, music is not much different than English, or French, or Klingon.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.treknews.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/speak-klingon.jpg?resize=640%2C350\" width=\"640\" height=\"350\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Someday, I had a wild idea, of transcribing a text into music. I have been reading, from time to time, on microtonality, so it quickly came to mind that each of the letters of the English alphabet \u2013 26 in total, if I remember correctly &#8211; could be assigned to a note in the octave. The resulting tuning system would be, in technical terms, a 26-EDO (equal divisions of the octave) system.<\/p>\n<p>Thus began Melop\u0153ia, long before I named the project, or even knew it was a project on its own. After a few failed attempts at finding a collaborator on the project, I resigned to make it a solo project \u2013 yet again &#8211; and decided to borrow the voice of Brian Leong, from black metal band <a href=\"https:\/\/apathybm.bandcamp.com\/\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Apathy<\/strong><\/a>, for this first foray into what I later decided to call scriptophony: the creation of music from text.<\/p>\n<div align=\"center\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"400\" height=\"100\" src=\"http:\/\/bandcamp.com\/EmbeddedPlayer\/v=2\/album=3797750550\/size=venti\/bgcol=0D0C0C\/linkcol=BB7F42\/\" style=\"position:relative;display:block;width:400px;height:100px;\" allowtransparency=\"true\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>On the English Mean Relative Consonant Tuning System<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>At first, the notes in the octave followed the same order as the letters in the alphabet: A, B, C, D, E\u2026 Until, someday, someone suggested that I shuffle this order \u2013 it\u2019s already a pretty subjective order, isn\u2019t it? And, thanks to that person, I began to rearrange the attribution of the letters in the octave. Any order I chose would basically be quasi-random, based on my preferences, perhaps, so I decided to base the order of the letters on facts, or, rather, statistics.<\/p>\n<p>I spent a few days researching the most common two- and three-letter combinations in the English language\u00a0and decided to place these letters at the most consonant distances within the octave. This means the intervals that are closer to perfect or major ones. The most common letter pairs being a perfect fifth or fourth apart, and the least common ones being put next to one another.<\/p>\n<p>Thus, the translation from English will, on average, be more consonant and feel less random in its musical form. Future systems might instead make an emphasis on minor-sounding intervals, or more dissonant ones like the tritone or the minor second, or still the major third and minor seventh to make a procedural microtonal jazz album.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>On Choosing <em>Tolkien\u2019s Ainulindal\u00eb<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>J.R.R. Tolkien is an author that I like to read. His texts are beautifully written and he\u2019s at the source of much of today\u2019s fantasy world &#8211; thanks to Germanic folklore and Richard Wagner as well. The <em>Silmarillion<\/em> was released much later than his most popular books, like <em>The Hobbit<\/em> or <em>The Lord of the Rings<\/em>, posthumously. It\u2019s pretty much the book of all the lore behind his world, religions, and species.<\/p>\n<p>The Ainulindal\u00eb is interesting because it\u2019s the beginning of the world, the Genesis. I found it particularly fitting because it will be the first procedurally generated microtonal scriptophonic piece \u2013 at least to my knowledge! Moreover, the Ainur are deities that play music in order to create the world, and I more or less assigned instruments to one or many of them, depending on their personality or attributes.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/36.media.tumblr.com\/6af069c5c02f7f84d75e2326c2e57d2e\/tumblr_mop1dqBdRO1qkcklio1_500.png?resize=500%2C673&#038;ssl=1\" width=\"500\" height=\"673\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>On Choosing Black Metal<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The genre could\u2019ve been anything, really. At the time, I guess I was just very inspired by <strong>Jute Gyte<\/strong>, which is another microtonal experimentalist, and they <strong>[Ed: He]\u00a0<\/strong>mostly play black metal. I think the genre is a very fertile ground for experimentation and microtonality in general.<\/p>\n<div align=\"center\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"400\" height=\"100\" src=\"http:\/\/bandcamp.com\/EmbeddedPlayer\/v=2\/album=279249914\/size=venti\/bgcol=0D0C0C\/linkcol=BB9042\/\" style=\"position:relative;display:block;width:400px;height:100px;\" allowtransparency=\"true\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>I unfortunately don\u2019t have microtonal guitars (yet!), so I had to completely rely on VSTs to complete this project. This is a considerable flaw of the project, right now, but I wanted to put this out now, as a proof of concept if you will. The guitars you hear are actually distorted piano samples. I guess this makes the project a bit closer to <strong>Botanist<\/strong> as well.<\/p>\n<div align=\"center\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"400\" height=\"100\" src=\"http:\/\/bandcamp.com\/EmbeddedPlayer\/v=2\/album=2496016542\/size=venti\/bgcol=0D0C0C\/linkcol=BB9042\/\" style=\"position:relative;display:block;width:400px;height:100px;\" allowtransparency=\"true\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p>I added a lot of orchestration, thanks to sforzando, and some pieces are entirely orchestral. There are also a few other genres that have been put there; especially striking are the chiptune moments. They do seem out of place in a landscape dominated by violins, wind instruments, blast beats, and harsh singing. This is, however, to demonstrate the power of the Ainur, especially Eru, but also serves as bits of fresh air in this rather long and exhausting musical experience.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Some Words on the Translation System<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In order to make music, I decided to create a system that would give off three different tracks when reading text. The first one is the melody track: it only gives a string of short notes taken from the sequence of letters in the text.<\/p>\n<p>The second one creates chords: words in text equal chords in music. I assigned each letter a musical value of an eighth note. Therefore, a word with two letters will be a chord \u2013 technically, an interval \u2013 lasting one quarter note, and a word with eight letters will last a full four times. The number of different letters in the word only impacts the complexity of the chord. For example, the chord \u201cthat\u201d is less complex than \u201cthan\u201d because it has three different letters instead of four.<\/p>\n<p>The third one is the bass. I decided that the tonic of a chord is the first letter of its corresponding word. So, for example, the tonic of \u201cthat\u201d is the note corresponding to t, while the tonic of \u201chath\u201d is h. These two words\u2019 chord is the same, save for its tonal centre.<\/p>\n<p>And finally, punctuation is also taken into account. The spaces between the words are unaccounted for, but a comma will translate into a quaver rest (an eighth rest), a dot into a crotchet rest (a quarter rest), and a change in paragraph will result in a semibreve rest (a whole rest). That\u2019s why it was impossible to transition seamlessly from one song to the next.<\/p>\n<p>I used the microtonal music notation software Mus2 to write the music and to create MIDI files to import into Reaper. This was a manual \u2013 and very laborious \u2013 process that would be easily automated, given the right knowledge of programming languages. It took me months just to create the Mus2 files for the paragraphs of the first chapter of the Silmarillion. I would never do that again. Thankfully, a friend and colleague of mine volunteered to create a small software in his spare time that would do just that.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>Some Words on Artistic Input<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Most of the artistic aspect of the music comes from the writer of the text it comes from, even if Mr. Tolkien is totally unaware of it. The notes cannot be changed, but I allowed myself to cherry-pick some notes in a chord and not play the others. The bass and melody lines\u00a0and the chords can be distributed to any instrument without regard to its register. I was able to change the octave of some parts to make them higher- or lower-pitched.<\/p>\n<p>I was also allowed to modify the tempo at will. This meant that I could make some parts evenly spaced, rhythmically, even if the words counted an uneven number of letters. I agree that this is a bit stretching the rules, but the whole things\u2019 an experiment, so let\u2019s try to bend them a little.<\/p>\n<p>For percussions, I had to completely write them from scratch. I kept the default 4\/4 time signature in Reaper but I followed the chords and melodies, most of the time. It\u2019s the only thing that I really wrote for this project.<\/p>\n<p>In the end, my artistic input was more as arranger of the raw music files. It\u2019s like receiving a three-voice sheet music for piano and being told: \u201cMake an album out of that.\u201d Making the whole thing entirely on piano, at 120 BPM, would be clear and interesting on its own, but it would be far from an enjoyable musical experience.<\/p>\n<p>In further experiments, I think it would be interesting to write a text specifically meant to be translated into music. Choosing words based on their length, sequence of letters and letter diversity would be a pretty steep challenge for an uneducated fool such as me, but I hope some literate person does that, some day. It could go as far as creating a custom-made arrangement of the notes in the octave to fit the aim of the text.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thelandofshadow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/10\/jrr-tolkien-reading.jpg?resize=451%2C594\" width=\"451\" height=\"594\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>On the Album<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>Tolkien\u2019s Ainulindal\u00eb<\/em> wasn\u2019t taken as a whole for composition \u2013 or, rather, arrangement. I instead took each paragraph as its own miniature world, and arranged the music so that it reflects what\u2019s written or conveyed in the text. I think that\u2019s one of the shortcomings of the album because the songs are rather short, and it would be more appealing to have them segue into each other. I think that, in order to fix this issue, I will have to take shorter texts and let go of the paragraph rest, or maybe the punctuation rests entirely.<\/p>\n<p>It also ended up being much longer than expected. When it came out, as a default 120 BPM, 4\/4-time MIDI file, it lasted around 60 minutes. I thought that, with the arrangement and everything, this number would shrink, but it expanded instead, and even surpassed the 80-minute limit of a regular compact disc, making the thing effectively a double album! That\u2019s funny because it will probably never be pressed on disc. Such a length for microtonal black metal makes so it can be quite difficult to assimilate, even daunting to listen to. This will be something to think about, next time around.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m proud of the experiment, and I hope to see other people try to make music out of writings in the future. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s a technique that will ever catch on and become popular, but it can be a fun challenge for any musician. If anyone reading this has questions about the process or technique, feel free <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/voddoom\/?fref=ts\" target=\"_blank\">to reach out to me<\/a>, and I\u2019ll gladly give you everything I know.<\/p>\n<div align=\"center\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"400\" height=\"100\" src=\"http:\/\/bandcamp.com\/EmbeddedPlayer\/v=2\/album=4140647052\/size=venti\/bgcol=0D0C0C\/linkcol=BB9042\/\" style=\"position:relative;display:block;width:400px;height:100px;\" allowtransparency=\"true\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>On Melop\u0153ia<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/melopoeia.bandcamp.com\/album\/tolkiens-ainulindal\" target=\"_blank\">Melop\u0153ia<\/a> is a project in which I will try to experiment as much as possible with scriptophony: creating music from text. It\u2019s not meant to be enjoyable to a wide audience: it\u2019s irregular, it sounds very unlike anything else, it\u2019s poorly produced, and procedural (remember <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ibtimes.com\/no-mans-sky-5-lessons-indie-devs-can-learn-its-mixed-reviews-post-release-drama-2415229\" target=\"_blank\"><em>No Man\u2019s Sky<\/em><\/a>?)<\/p>\n<p>Future plans would be, first, creating a stretched-out ambient piece out of a Zen poem, or some short thing like that. That idea came from another friend and colleague, and I feel it\u2019s worth a try! After that, it\u2019ll be time to try and fix some of the issues that this iteration bears. I will try to get microtonal instruments in a reasonable time and a real-life drummer \u2013 synthetic drums are often a deal-breaker in music for me, and still I rely on them. I was thinking of something more in the vein of <strong>Gorguts<\/strong>, <strong>Ulcerate<\/strong>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.toiletovhell.com\/review-dysrhythmia-lift-the-veil-of-control\/\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Dysrhythmia<\/strong><\/a>, and <strong>Nero di Marte<\/strong> based on some classics of horror fiction, and then maybe something off of science-fiction works with a more electronic type of music, but this is pretty far ahead so it\u2019s still quite unclear.<\/p>\n<p>Putting together a band that plays microtonal music drawn from texts would be amazingly interesting so, if you\u2019re interested, please contact me!<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><em>A big thanks to Dave for putting together this supremely interesting guest post. I&#8217;ve quite enjoyed my experience with\u00a0<\/em>Tolkien\u2019s Ainulindal\u00eb,\u00a0<em>so it&#8217;s been fascinating to learn more about how such a bizarre and unique creation came to be. Dave is right about one thing: the album is not for everyone. However, if you&#8217;re an intrepid listener, you must check it out.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>The album spans a diverse sonic territory loosely rooted in black metal. Some tracks, like &#8220;Harmony,&#8221; when taken alone, come across as chaotic tangles of snarling, electronic drums and concussive words smashing and scattering against a cracked, jagged window. It&#8217;s disorienting, yet oddly compelling. In view of the whole album, though, these tracks sit perfectly adjacent to more epic pieces like &#8220;The Voices of the Ainur&#8221; that recall dauntless journies through misty realms and forgotten realities. Fans of classic video game chiptunes, high\u00a0fantasy, and adventure will find much to love. Despite its length,\u00a0<\/em>Tolkien\u2019s Ainulindal\u00eb<em> is utterly captivating, telling a fascinating tale from start to finish while exploring a sonic world as rich as the Middle Earth conjured by Tolkien himself.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Albums like this are a rare treasure bringing an unconventional, otherworldy light, not unlike the Silmarils themselves, into the dark realm of heavy metal, and this world is a richer place for Dave&#8217;s efforts.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>You can check out\u00a0Melop\u0153ia on <a href=\"https:\/\/melopoeia.bandcamp.com\/album\/tolkiens-ainulindal\" target=\"_blank\">Bandcamp<\/a>. If you&#8217;re interested in Dave&#8217;s process, reach out to him on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Melopoeia\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook<\/a>! You should also check out Dave&#8217;s other experimental project, <a href=\"https:\/\/vodmusic.bandcamp.com\/\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Vod<\/strong><\/a>. Until next time, remember,\u00a0<\/em><br \/>\n(Photos<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>All that is gold does not glitter,<br \/>\nNot all those who wander are lost;<br \/>\nThe old that is strong does not wither,<br \/>\nDeep roots are not reached by the frost.<br \/>\nFrom the ashes a fire shall be woken,<br \/>\nA light from the shadows shall spring;<br \/>\nRenewed shall be blade that was broken,<br \/>\nThe crownless again shall be king<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>(Photos <a href=\"http:\/\/www.treknews.net\/tag\/klingon\/\" target=\"_blank\">VIA<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tumblr.com\/search\/the%20music%20of%20the%20ainur\" target=\"_blank\">VIA<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thelandofshadow.com\/march-25th-tolkien-reading-day\/\" target=\"_blank\">VIA<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In early August, I published a premiere of Dave Tremblay&#8217;s Tolkien-themed, xenharmonic black metal project\u00a0Melop\u0153ia. Realizing I was a bit limited in my ability to accurately convey the means by which Dave composed his paean to the lord of fantasy, I asked the mad musician if he wouldn&#8217;t mind sharing a few words with our readers about the alchemy at work on\u00a0Tolkien&#8217;s Ainulindal\u00eb. So grab your copy of the\u00a0Silmarillion and take a look under the hood with us. What better way to celebrate the release of that book on the day of its 39th anniversary!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":55734,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"In this guest post, Dave Tremblay of Vod tells us more about his fascinating Melopoeia project!","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[724,39],"tags":[8649,66,312,8648,1699,8291,1027,3658,5862,3465],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/Untitled-design-3.png?fit=700%2C460&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55733"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55733"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55733\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/toiletovhell.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}