Re: Musical conlangs (was: Poetique)

--- Tommie L Powell <tommiepowell@...>
wrote:
> Costentin Cornomorus wrote:
> > Of course, I'm not sure why Solresol is
> > restricted to three note words either.
>
> I know why I would restrict it to 3-note words
> (plus 1-note and 2-note words).  Here's why:
>
> First, 1-note plus 2-note plus 3-note words
> total 7+49+343=399 words, which is enough
> for general purposes (as in trade languages).
Quite. And while I have no doubts about the
maths, I have grave doubts about basing the
number of letters per words on strictly
mathematical terms. This seems to be a problem
with Solresol to begin with - why reinvent that
particular square wheel?

I also think that such limitations could only
lead to an unmusical sounding language like
Solresol apparently is!

> Second, using only such words lets Solresol be
> played in 3/4 time, with each word occupying
> one measure, like so: In a 1-note word, the
> note
> would be held for 3 beats, and in a 2-note
> word,
> the second note would be held for 2 beats, and
> in a 3-note word, each note would last 1 beat.
But "measures" are a purely, mm, musicographical
(orthographical) phenomenon. That is, measures
aren't heard in the music (the same way Upper
Case Letters are not heard in speech (EXCEPT
DEATH'S)), they're just convenient constructs to
divide and sort of categorise written music.

Personally, I like the idea of using longer, well
crafted musical phrases. I mean look at opera. It
takes em 20 minutes to say half a dozen words,
it's done beautifully and musically, and twenty
people can all talk at once harmoniously. If a
conlang based on music is the order of the day,
I'd rather it BE music and not just words that
can be equated to random notes via some formula.

No one said this had to be a logical or auxiliary
language after all! I don't see why we'd have to
restrict the thing to what is minimally required
for efficient communication. I see no problem
with a bit o baroquerie here.

Padraic.


=====
la cieurgeourea provoer mal trasfu ast meiyoer ke 'l andrext ben trasfu.


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