Speaking In Tongues

Above: One of the many interesting Ghanaian Movie Posters

"God help us--help us lose our minds--these slippery people..."--David Byrne (From the Talking Heads album Speaking In Tongues)

The recent sermon by Paula White went viral and inspired many mashups--which is understandable given the prosody of her firebrand style, and consistent with Pentecostal sermons in general.

Here's my remix of one of the segments, which naturally falls in the dotted rhythm of the Italian Tarantella. 

As I said in a recent post We Did It Joe, I tend to prefer working with the natural rhythms in spoken language. Most of the mashups I have seen use the reverse approach where you map the words or syllables over beats or rhythmic structures, not unlike singing over a beat--as opposed to mapping the words according to their natural contours. The former might be more preferable, or even necessary when visuals are used. In many ways, this is how MTV had a profound influence on music.

It's interesting that MTV, Samplers, and the interest in world music converged in the early 1980s, as well as the interest in using the musicality inherent in things of mostly indeterminate pitch, such as drums and other percussion instruments, as well as voices used mostly as a rhythmic element.

"By imitating the tones and rhythms of Twi, the Akan can “speak” with their musical instruments—their horns and trumpets, their drums and bells—almost as clearly as they do with their mouths. The atumpan, which produce two distinct pitches, are particularly well suited to this task; but the bommaa can do it, too. That was why the crowd at the palace had been so quiet: They were listening to what the drums had to say. The phenomenon, widespread in both West and Central Africa, is known as surrogate speech. It can add a layer of semantic depth to even the simplest music." See: http://nautil.us/issue/30/identity/drums-lies-and-audiotape

In that same time period, a visit to Ghana by Brian Eno and David Byrne influenced the albums  Bush of Ghosts, On Land, and Remain in Light. Over the next few years, King Crimson picked up on the vibe with their album Discipline, and Peter Gabriel for most of his solo work.

Since music and language are so intertwined, it's no wonder we're so attracted to things like this.

I was also reminded of this by the recent story of the Alzheimer's patient that can still compose music. Music and language keep us together.