Palinsong
We strive to keep things utterly apolitical around here, but as the U.S. nears the peak of election fever, it gets harder and harder to pretend the outside world doesn’t exist. You know it’s getting bad when you open the New York Times homepage and find yourself confronted with the question: “Could obesity in a pregnant woman influence the eventual political outlook of her child?”
Nonetheless, this just had to be posted, as it is basically the most spectacular example of contemporary art song I’ve heard in years. What we’re looking at here is sprechstimme, or speech-song….a musical tradition with a rich history. 20th-century Czech composer Leos Janacek looked to the rhythms and patterns of everyday speech for his groundbreaking opera Jenufa, attempting to ground opera in a new language of naturalism. The way we stumble over thoughts, repeat phrases in loops as we search for the words to match our next thought, circled around the same basic premise, accentuate a point once we think we have found our groove — all of this makes for rich musical raw material.
What’s amazing to me about this clip — completely sidestepping political opinions — is how well it does all of this. “Health care reform that is needed”: I bet you never thought that phrase could sound like a lilting Mary Poppins number. Or “ill about this position” — I had no idea how groovily syncopated Gov. Palin’s delivery was here.
Enough. Watch and let us know what you think:
The pianist’s name, by the way, is Henry Hey. Major, major kudos to him.
Nice find, Jayson. Speech song is a totally fascinating tradition. Blue Note Records pianist Jason Moran experimented with it on his record ‘Artist In Residence’ (check out the track “Artists Ought to Be Writing”). His source material (philosopher/conceptual artist Adrian Piper) was a bit more lucid, which I suppose doesn’t necessarily make for a more interesting ride.
Steve Reich’s “Different Trains” is another great example of sprechstimme — he sampled spoken phrases, notated them musically, and used them as motifs for a string quartet; then the samples are played along with the music.
(eMusic has an orchestrated version, which I haven’t heard; the original recording played by the Kronos Quartet is amazing.)
Jens,
Absolutely, Steve Reich is a great example — his early work “Come Out” is a particularly mindbending example of finding music in speech. Good call on Different Trains!
Brilliant. It’s like an intentional Dark Side of the Rainbow.
Another interesting contemporary example is Kyle Gann’s Custer and Sitting Bull.
(h/t SEK at EOTAW)
I would watch the video but that would mean gazing at that horrific shrew for more than 1 second, which is unacceptable to me. Sorry no clicky.
I give him kudos for being able to watch her speak enough to actually be able to set that to music. Like poriex, though, I have to say that chick gives me freaking nightmares.
Don’t forget Scott Johnson as a precursor. He’s been doing similar stuff since the late ’70s, and his 1982 work *John Somebody* (reissued by Tzadik a few years ago) absolutely must be heard.
porieux, you have to at least listen. you don’t have to watch, just listen. absolutely fantastic.
Jayson, great find. That is totally freaky. I was expecting some kind of manipulation rather than piano accompaniment. Political skat, or scat? Not sure…