Music

Music is often referred to as a language. As a musician I feel this is an accurate analogy.

When you first start to learn a new language you translate each word into your language before extracting meaning. Once you gain fluency you can read or hear a word in another language and instantly grasp the meaning without going through the intermediate step of referring back to your mother tongue.

When you first lean to read music, you learn that each note on the staff has a letter name. You also learn that the keys/strings/pitches of your instrument have corresponding letter names. You begin to play by seeing the note on the page, recognizing it as middle C, then finding middle C on your instrument. When you become fluent, you go from note on the page to note on the instrument without thinking about note name.

This is the most obvious way in which spoken language and music are similar. But I have been thinking that music, like spoken language, consists of three parts: written form, spoken/played form, and meaning. The thing is that with music sound and sense are intricately connected. You may be able to have sound without sense, but you can't have sense without sound. People don't go around silently reading books of music the way we might read a book of poetry. And this makes me wonder (poetry is a good example since rhythm and rhyme live in the world of sound) why we are so willing to do without the sound element of language.

Music could be our guide. Writing music down preserves it and allows many people to have access to it. But it isn't really music until it is performed.

Dirty Words

Now that I have a child I've been thinking of all kinds of parenting things, like what I'll do when Virginia comes out with her first "bad word."

I would love to take the approach of saying that "bad words" don't exist. Words can't hurt you and they only have the weight that you let them have. Why should someone exclaiming "shit" be any worse than someone exclaiming "poop." (I've actually heard a pretty good defense of "shit" as the best curse word to use if you must.)

But the thing is that all words have the value society has assigned to them. For language to work we can't be like Humpty Dumpty and insist that words can mean whatever we want them to mean. And I know that as much as I would like to, I don't really not believe in "bad words."

The real problem with "bad words" isn't that they mean nothing. It is that each has a very specific meaning and too often people don't actually think about what they are saying. Yeah, if you stub your toe and you just have to shout something, maybe "shit" isn't so bad. But if you are cursing at someone - well, you are cursing them. You are wishing something bad upon them or calling them a name. Now we aren't talking about the word anymore. We are talking about intent. This is the heart of the problem.

Here sound and sense are closely united and the word itself is almost completely bypassed. We speak these words with venom and mean them to sting. But do we always mean what the words themselves are supposed to mean?

In pondering all this I have determined I should try and turn potential cursings into blessings. That person in the next lane committing X, Y, or Z driving sin? Bless his heart. Yeah, we in the South know the connotations of that phrase, but maybe if I say it enough I'll mean it.

Sound and Sense in Alice in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass

Carroll, L. (1992). Alice in wonderland. Gray, D. J. (Ed.), New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company

From Alice in Wonderland:

The Hatter opened his eyes very wide on hearing this; but all he said was “Why is a raven like a writing-desk?”

“Come, we shall have some fun now!” thought Alice. “I’m glad they’ve begun asking riddles – I believe I can guess that,” she added aloud.

“Do you mean that you think you can find out the answer to it?” said the March Hare.

“Exactly so,” said Alice.

“Then you should say what you mean,” the March Hare went on.

“I do.” Alice hastily replied; “at least – at least I mean what I say – that’s the same thing, you know.”

“Not the same thing a bit!” said the Hatter. “Why, you might just as well say that ‘I see what I eat’ is the same thing as ‘I eat what I see’!”

“You might just as well say,” added the March Hare, “that ‘I like what I get’ is the same thing as ‘I get what I like’!”

“You might just as well say,” added the Dormouse, which seemed to be talking in its sleep, “that ‘I breathe when I sleep’ is the same thing as ‘I sleep when I breathe’!”

“It is the same thing with you,” said the Hatter, and here the conversation dropped, and the party sat silent for a minute, while Alice thought over all she could remember about ravens and writing-desks, which wasn’t much. (p. 55)

“Ah well! It means much the same thing,” said the Duchess, digging her sharp little chin into Alice’s shoulder as she added “and the moral of that is – ‘Take care of the sense, and the sounds will take care of themselves.’” (pp. 70-71)

Footnote: The proverb is “Take care of the pence, and the pounds will take care of themselves.” (p. 71)

From Alice Through the Looking Glass:

After reading Jabberwocky –

“It seems very pretty,” she said when she had finished it, “but it’s rather hard to understand!” (You see she didn’t like to confess even to herself, that she couldn’t make it out at all.) “Somehow it seems to fill my head with ideas – only I don’t exactly know what they are! However, somebody killed something; that’s clear, at any rate-” (p. 118)

Alice didn’t like being criticized, so she began asking questions. “Aren’t you sometimes frightened at being planted out here, with nobody to take care of you?”

“There’s the tree in the middle,” said the Rose. “What else is it good for?”

“But what could it do, if any danger came?” Alice asked.

“It could bark,” said the Rose.

“It says ‘Bough-wough!’” cried a Daisy. “That’s why its branches are called boughs!” (pp. 121-122)

Footnote: This is the first of several passages in the book that play with the question of whether words are entirely arbitrary signs or whether, as the Daisy here suggests, the name of a thing is somehow intrinsically connected with its nature. (p. 122)

“I don’t rejoice in insects at all,” Alice explained, “because I’m rather afraid of them – at least the large kinds. But I can tell you the names of some of them.”

“Of course they answer to their names?” the Gnat remarked carelessly.

“I never knew them do it.”

“What’s the use of their having names,” the Gnat said, “if they wo’n’t answer to them?”

“No use to them,” said Alice; “but it’s useful to the people that name them, I suppose. If not, why do things have names at all?”

“I ca’n’t say,” the Gnat replied. “Further on, in the wood down there, they’ve got no names – however, go on with your list of insects: you’re wasting time.” (p. 132)

Footnote: Alice here plays with another theory of language, later to be developed by Humpty Dumpty: that names are arbitrary designations imposed on things for the convenience of humans. (p. 132)

Just then a Fawn came wandering by: it looked at Alice with its large gentle eyes, but didn’t seem at all frightened. “Here then! Here then!” Alice said, as she held out her hand and tried to stroke it; but it only started back a little, and then stood looking at her again.

“What do you call yourself?” the Fawn said at last. Such a soft sweet voice it had!

“I wish I knew!” thought poor Alice. She answered, rather sadly, “Nothing, just now.”

“Think again,” it said: “that wo’n’t do.”

Alice thought, but nothing came of it. “Please, would you tell me what you call yourself?” she said timidly. “I think that might help a little.”

“I’ll tell you, if you’ll come a little further on,” the Fawn said. “I can’n’t remember here.”

So they walked on together through the wood, Alice with her arms clasped lovingly round the soft neck of the Fawn, till they came out into another open field, and here the Fawn gave a sudden bound into the air, and shook itself free from Alice’s arm. “I’m a Fawn!” it cried out in a voice of delight. “And, dear me! you’re a human child!” A sudden look of alarm came into its beautiful brown eyes, and in another moment it had darted away at full speed. (pp. 136-137)

“Don’t stand chattering to yourself like that,” Humpty Dumpty said, looking at her for the first time, “but tell me your name and your business.”

“My name is Alice, but – “

“It’s a stupid name enough!” Humpty Dumpty interrupted impatiently. “What does it mean?”

“Must a name mean something?” Alice asked doubtfully.

“Of course it must,” Humpty Dumpty said with a short laugh: “my name means the shape I am – and a good handsome shape it is, too. With a name like yours, you might be any shape, almost.” (p. 160)

Footnote: Humpty Dumpty here advances the theory that names have something to do with the nature of the thing they name. Later, in his remarks about “glory,” he picks up the other theory Dodgson plays with in this book, that words are wholly arbitrary signs. (p. 160)

“In that case we start afresh,” said Humpty Dumpty, “and it’s my turn to choose a subject-” (“He talks about it just as if it was a game!” thought Alice.) “So here’s a question for you. How old did you say you were?”

Alice made a short calculation, and said “Seven years and six months.”

“Wrong!” Humpty Dumpty exclaimed triumphantly. “You never said a word like it!”

“I thought you meant ‘How old are you?’” Alice explained.

“If I’d meant that, I’d have said it,” said Humpty Dumpty. (p. 161)

“And only one for birthday presents, you know. There’s glory for you!”

“I don’t know what you mean by ‘glory,’” Alice said.

Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. “Of course you don’t – till I tell you. I meant ‘there’s a nice knock-down argument for you!’”

“But ‘glory’ doesn’t mean ‘a nice knock-down argument,’” Alice objected.

“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.”

“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”

“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master – that’s all.” (p. 163)

(Shortly after this, Humpty Dumpty explicates the first stanza of Jabberwocky by giving meanings for the nonsense words.)

The Place of the Spoken Word in the Information Age

I've started the School Library Media program at the University of Georgia with the aim of becoming a Media Specialist. One of the classes I am taking this semester is on technology and relies heavily on online discussion and short written assignments.

In an assignment I am working on I found myself thinking about Ong's claim that people from literate cultures think differently than people from primary oral cultures. I began to realize that, in all likelihood, the Internet (and all that comes with it) is rewiring our minds again. Knowing that we can get information instantly. Knowing that we can disseminate information instantly. Connecting with people anywhere in the world with video conferencing. These things change the way we communicate and the way we solve problems.

Writing provides us with external storage space. We don't have to keep all of our thoughts and computations in our brain. The paper is an extension of our brain. Now the Internet is one big brain extension shared by the world. When the external component of our brain has changed so drastically, the brains inside our heads must be changing to keep up.

Then the question becomes, if our brains are actually changing to better interface with advanced information technology, where does the spoken word fit in? Is there still a place for face to face conversations and live performances in the information age?

The goal of this post is to pose the question, not to answer it. I would like to do some more investigations, but I suspect I will be answering this question for the rest of my professional life. I believe the spoken word does have a place - not just because I want to, but because I still witness it's power on a daily basis. But there is no doubt that, like so many things, how the spoken word serves us today is changing and will continue to change.

Who is Listening?

In the flurry of personal life I have been a little lax about my blogging. But at least one of my personal distractions may have something to teach us about sound and sense.

I am pregnant!

Obviously I am filled with all kinds of feelings about being a mother and my identity in general. And I strive to fully comprehend what my body and my baby are going through by paying close attention to everything I can sense. My pregnancy calendar tells me that my baby can sense me, too! About midway through pregnancy the baby can hear the mother's heart, stomach, and her voice.

I have become very aware of how I use my voice and what my tone conveys. When I yell at my cats (sometimes they deserve it) I feel a little bad. But when I sing while I am doing chores, I imagine that I am bonding with my baby. I am telling it something about myself.

Sometimes it's not about what you are saying, it's about how you say it. And sometimes the only way to say something is out loud.

Things That Aren't There

I have been thinking about how words can be more meaningful than the things they describe.

The human mind has some clever little things called "memory" and "imagination." Because of this we think about things that are either not in existence any more or possibly don't exist at all. Now maybe this is a "tree falls in the forest" question, but do those ideas even exist if we can't talk about them? Maybe or maybe not, but certainly the ideas take off and gain corporeality through discussion.

Think of a person you have lost. That person has a name, a word used to describe him. You can still talk about that person by name, remember your time together, and in many ways, keep him with you through shared memories. The person the name belongs to no longer exists, but the name continues to mean everything it did when the person was alive. The word is now more real than the thing it describes.

Now think of God. Some would say God is imagined. Whether He is isn't really important to this discussion. What is important is that what exactly God means is up for debate. The fact that we have a name for God allows that debate to take place. The fact that we can talk about God makes most religions what they are. Do you see how essential it is to have a word for something if we are to make it a part of our lives?

For the word to truly come to life, to create meaning, must it be spoken? Consider my examples. Remembering a lost friend is an activity normally done out loud. And although there are many persuasive religious texts, religion is also a very verbal activity.

Southwold

I recently visited Southwold, UK, which is the namesake of Southold, NY. You may notice that although one place is named for the other, the names are spelled differently.

Southwold seemingly takes its name from geography. A "wold" is a collection of hills over a chalk base and Southwold is in the southern part of East Anglia.

Southold, NY is neither located in a wold nor in a particularly southerly location.

It is likely that the spelling of the name changed because "Southold" is easier to say that "Southwold." Additionally, the geographical position described by "Southwold" is meaningless in "Southold" so there is no longer any need to strictly stick to that spelling.

The literal meaning of "Southwold" may be "a southern wold" but to the people who moved to New York it clearly meant something more. It meant "home." So they created a home away from home. They didn't move to another "southern wold" but they did move to Southold.

The sound has become the sense. The word has evolved to mean something other than what it originally meant and so spelling it the way it sounds becomes more important than spelling it in a way that illuminates the meaning.