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I just finished up my Christmas composition project. Here's a two minute piece on the topic of "you need to define a thing to be able to think about a thing, so that you have a word to attach your thoughts to." Apparently blue is the last color to gain a word in any language. There are still languages that haven't evolved a word for the concept of "blueness" yet. One theory is that color words appear as we need to be able to distinguish between things that we want to buy, sell, or trade: "Yeah, I can make you a new deer skinning knife. What color do you want the handle to be?" "Blue." Because blue paints and dyes are relatively difficult to produce, compared with other colors, cultures don't develop a word for "blue" until they are pretty advanced. The cultures that don't have a word for it, interestingly have a hard time seeing and thinking about it as well. Scientists have done experiments where they have say, three green squares and one blue one, and ask these language users to pick out the square that is not like the others, and people have a very difficult time with the task. It seems that our brains need a word to attach a concept to in order to think about the concept. We need to think using our interior monologue. Actual language has to be running inside or outside of our heads in order for us to think in any meaningful way. It's an explanation for why you can't do basic math and listen to someone having a conversation involving numbers at the same time. So get out there and learn the names of things, any kinds of things, and your basic thought processes will deepen. I'd suggest that you open the score while you listen so you can see how the text fits the notes, or click the youtube link below. It has the score scrolling along behind the music. And I used a harp sound instead of piano, because all the piano sound fonts that come with my composition software are pretty clunky, but I do intend this to be piano accompaniment. Thanks for listening and I'd love to hear any thoughts about this piece! Furtak-Semantic.mid

Very recently I have been exploring vocal music, figuring out how it differs from instrumental music and how it similar. It took me some time, but I've started to get the hang of writing semi-acceptable vocal music. A couple of days ago an idea popped into my head. "What if I wrote a piece of music for a choir, but had multiple languages being sung by different sections of the group." I suggested it to some of my "non-musician friends" (of which I have plenty), but they immediately shot the idea down claiming that it would sound too strange and jumbled. This leads me to my questions: 1. Is it acceptable to write a work like this. My worry is that it may be messy, but I also would enjoy exploring the boundaries of vocal music. 2. Has such a piece been written before? I have searched for such a piece, but have come up empty handed. If you know of one, I would love to hear from you! 3. Can exploration go too far? Is there a point when music becomes more of a science than an art, and is that okay? Obviously creating a balance between chaos and order between the languages will be one of the most difficult things to achieve, and it may become "scientific" in a way. I would love to hear your opinions on this topic Thanks! Charlie Carroll