1. INTRODUCTION
This paper is a collection of tools and mechanisms which have derived from my interest in the first stages of children’s language and aphasic disorders. It also describes my attitude towards both the material and the process of composing itself.
It is important to me that nothing in this paper remains on a theoretical level. Everything results in a practical application, or is, at least, of practical interest as well. After all, the common ground, the red thread that connects all the information, is my own music and this is the common arc, under which everything will be examined.
The course of this research is a bit paradoxical. Its roots go back to 2016, when I started composing my first systematically organized vocal piece “Grey earth, serpent”. I engaged in rough text deconstruction and reconstruction. The second main impulse came many years later, in summer 2023, while working with the chorus of the ancient tragedy “Hecuba” by Euripides. This process opened up the window to prelinguistic language. When reading about it, I traced many connections to my practice. This path soon led me to aphasic disorders (disorders that affect the areas of the brain which control speech), and the realization that I was already creating relevant material since 2020, for the piece “Eve's Lament”.
The paper follows the course of “general – specific – general”. It starts with theoretical background, giving information on the prelinguistic stage and aphasic disorders. What follows is a collection of tools-terms which I have extracted from these fields, all related to my vocal work. All these become part of one diagram. In the next chapter I analyze six different pieces, in relation to this concepts’ collection. It is important to say that the connection of certain pieces to these concepts is a posteriori.
The final chapter of the paper opens up the subject of text and language use, inspired by the writings of Carl Jung.
1.1. Why vocal music
After many years of composition practice, I can safely recognize that I have an inclination towards vocal-based music. My origins possibly throw some light on this matter. Theatre and ancient Greek tragedy, Byzantine music and ancient acapella traditions of the Greek mountains, are all genres we grow up with. Each one of them has its own peculiarities and is accessible in feasts, churches and theatres.
Especially in the mountains of Epiros, the Epirotic song - an ancient pentatonic-based polyphonic acapella style – still survives. It shares a lot of common information with other Balkan acapella vocal traditions, but it has unique characteristics and specific singing roles (see chapter 6).
Byzantine music is all around Greek everyday life, in churches. Its roots are multiple, found also in ancient Greek music. There are various stylistic approaches, the common element, though, is that it always remained acapella.
Greece is also the birth-place of ancient tragedy, with many open-air ancient theatres still surviving. The ancient theatre of Epidaurus, the biggest surviving ancient theatre of the ancient Greek world, with capacity of approximately 14.000, hosts about 7 productions every summer. Ancient tragedy remains a field of artistic experimentation, taking into account its vast publicity and the fact that these performances are exportable. Apart from ancient tragedy, new (and old) theatre is also flourishing, with more than 500 productions per year taking place, only in Athens.
All these triggers have played an important role in my early engagement with vocal music. I am actively engaged in composing music for ancient tragedies, theatrical productions and I admire the Epirotic song and Byzantine music, incorporating parts of their conception in my music.
1.2. The idea of the “natural gesture”
When I first decided to be engaged with composition professionally, I created the arbitrary term “natural gesture”. Even though the conversation about what “natural” is, can be endless, to my understanding, natural connects to an instinctive way of moving, speaking, thinking and being. It is a behaviour free of social filters. At that point I was looking for sound tools, music traditions, styles and rules that could stand for this approach, and this is the reason why I more consciously approached Byzantine music.
Byzantine music chanters use the so-called “quality characters”, originating from “cheironomic” gestures of the ecclesiastic chorus leaders, in order to interpret the music according to their understanding and experience. It is an open way of approaching sound, which then fitted to my idea for the natural gesture.
Some years later I discovered the case of “whistling languages” (discussed later), a special “musical” communication code which is not meant to be music at all. It was a further step towards the discovery of music systems which are as “natural” as possible.
Eventually, looking back, the idea of the “natural gesture” was the path that would set me free from the old usual tools I was composing with. It was a step towards my intuition. It is not a concrete concept and was never meant to be. What it served for was this “kick” towards a brave new world I was not familiar with, but was eager to discover.
Eventually, the fields of prelinguistic language and aphasic disorders, especially as extra-musical fields, serve as metaphors for the stable and open ground I have been looking for. Especially because of my interest in vocal music and their relation to speech, they invite us to revisit our whole sound conception, especially when it comes to vocal-based music.