From rob@twcny.rr.com Fri Jun 08 18:09:54 2001 Return-Path: X-Sender: rob@twcny.rr.com X-Apparently-To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Received: (EGP: mail-7_1_3); 9 Jun 2001 01:09:54 -0000 Received: (qmail 43099 invoked from network); 9 Jun 2001 01:09:54 -0000 Received: from unknown (10.1.10.142) by l10.egroups.com with QMQP; 9 Jun 2001 01:09:54 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO mailout3-0.nyroc.rr.com) (24.92.226.118) by mta3 with SMTP; 9 Jun 2001 01:09:54 -0000 Received: from mail1.twcny.rr.com (mail1-1 [24.92.226.139]) by mailout3-0.nyroc.rr.com (8.11.2/RoadRunner 1.03) with ESMTP id f5918NA26113 for ; Fri, 8 Jun 2001 21:08:23 -0400 (EDT) Received: from riff ([24.95.175.101]) by mail1.twcny.rr.com (Post.Office MTA v3.5.3 release 223 ID# 0-59787U250000L250000S0V35) with ESMTP id com for ; Fri, 8 Jun 2001 21:08:26 -0400 Received: from rob by riff with local (Exim 3.22 #1 (Debian)) id 158XCO-0000OL-00 for ; Fri, 08 Jun 2001 21:05:56 -0400 Date: Fri, 8 Jun 2001 21:05:56 -0400 To: lojban@yahoogroups.com Subject: le jbozgi Message-ID: <20010608210556.A1207@twcny.rr.com> Reply-To: rob@twcny.rr.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.3.18i X-Is-It-Not-Nifty: www.sluggy.com From: Rob Speer X-Yahoo-Message-Num: 7679 The idea of inventing Lojbanic culture (such as with new forms of poetry) helped prompt this idea: what if the sounds of Lojbanic words were expressed as music in a specific way? There are 12 notes in the chromatic scale, but only 10 of them are used in either the major or minor scale of any given key. There are also 10 vowels/dipthongs in Lojban: a e i o u y ai ei oi au. So what if each vowel represents a note? Here comes a long part where I justify the way I assign each vowel to each note. You can skip this if you want - I wouldn't want anyone to lose interest before getting to the song at the bottom. --- Of those vowels, the most prominent are "a e i o u". Similarly, there are traditionally five prominent notes of a scale - the pentatonic scale: "Do Re Mi So La". Music from many different cultures is written on the pentatonic scale, including traditional Japanese music and American folk music. The vowels "a i u" are the most common, and the fundamental notes of the scale are those of the major triad, "Do Mi So". Now, the do-re-mi notation is a pain, so I'll set Do to be C. So we're in the key of C. The major triad is C E G. Assign the vowels like this: C E G u a i and then the rest of the pentatonic scale can be filled in with e and o: C D E G A u e a i o Let the dipthongs ending in 'i' be a half-step above their initial vowel, and put 'au' above 'i' just because: C D Eb E F G Ab A Bb u e ei a ai i au o oi All that's left is 'y', which can get the rather weak note B. C D Eb E F G Ab A Bb B u e ei a ai i au o oi y --- So now every syllable of Lojban text can be sung as a note. (Put syllabic consonants on the same note as the last syllable, and sweep between notes for the odd dipthongs like .ui.) Various Lojban phrases end up sounding very pleasant this way. But that's not all. Now Lojban poetry can automatically have a tune. Also, it's possible to write poetry in such a way that it matches a tune. Here's some Lojban to the tune of "Simple Gifts" / "Lord of the Dance". (The lyrics don't make all that much sense and I had to insert two notes which weren't there in the tune, but hey, it's a first attempt.) (lowercase = lower octave) .i mi muvdu je dansu janai rimni bai ma | g g C C D E C E F G G F E [.i] le nungleki .e le zenba xedydji | (g) D C D g D C D E D b g .i ti kulnu je .a'u.uacai rilti .ai ca | g g C C D E C E F G G F E lenu le selsanga [le] selsku cu du | D C D D E E (D) D C C C -- Rob Speer