The Hyphae
Music Experience
Read the poem in Issue 15
Conversation
BTL: What are the musical elements that go into the audio versions of your poems?
TK: These are sometimes all live instruments that I play, sometimes various different sound libraries (and synthesizers) that I employ, sometimes a combination of both live instruments and sound libraries. All voices are my own.
What all do we hear in the musical version of “The Hyphae”?
"The Hyphae" features choir, tabla, guitar. It employs the sound libraries of Spitfire Audio's Eric Whitacre Choir and Eric Whitacre Choir Evolutions, Soundiron's Tablas, and I am playing my favorite guitar, a nylon string gypsy guitar by Kremona [Lulo Reinhardt model]. The composition was inspired by this piece — "Lacrimosa" by LA-based composer Reena Esmail who set my friend William O' Daly's poem to this chorus and tabla rendition.
Have music and poetry always been entwined for you, or did one come first?
Not really entwined at first. My first two books were text only. By the third one, The String of Islands, I was beginning to incorporate music along with the text (as musical backgrounds more or less). With my fourth, Omnishambles, I began to include a CD along with the book that had about 70 minutes of music that went together with the text. The last two, California Sijo and Drips, Spills, Bursts, Tangles & Washes included companion CDs with 70+ minutes of music for each book.
I started to investigate the pairing of music and poetry as I became more interested in German lieder and Brazilian modinha. These were both traditions in other languages that had compositions tailored to the phrasing of each line of a poem, the way songs usually work. I've stuck with a more read-over-the-top approach that the Beats (and Ken Nordine) used with jazz. I often tailor each section of the musical composition (as opposed to forging a musical melody that will fit with a line) according to the emotional valence or energy of a section of a poem.
In other languages, the merging of music and poetry is not seen as unusual. In English, poetry and song seem to have diverged (at least at the level of popular music). A special category of "song lyric" emerges that operates differently than a poem. In Portuguese you can see how song and poem mirror each other as in the work of Vinicius de Moraes, the lyricist of so many Antonio Carlos Jobim songs. His poems and song lyrics are sonically the same in a lot of ways. Because his "poems" were huge international hits, it has given more credence to Musica popular brasileira [MPB] stars to cover "poems" via musical settings in a way that American pop stars don't.
I try to capture the movement of the poem musically without crafting a melodic line to each line of verse — one of the trappings of always writing free verse poems, I suppose.
Do you consider the musical composition when penning your poetry?
Yes. Sometimes I will think of what instrumentation should go with a piece as I am writing it. Or I will think of what key I want a section to be in. Or if I want to employ a mode from a style of music outside the western canon—raga, dastgah, etc. Beyond that, not so much. I'm just trying to get the words down in a manner that will sound interesting on the page.
What is your process for composing music for poetry?
Because so many of my compositions include Native American flute, I will often choose the key based on what flutes or flute pairings I want to employ. Then I will try to find instrumentation that matches the tenor of the piece and decide whether it will be a stripped-down chamber sort of setting or whether I want it to be more full-bodied as though accompanied by a full band or orchestra . . . or maybe a string section playing underneath a small ensemble.
When I do not begin with a flute, I will begin playing to look for what Paul Simon calls a "pleasing accident". Once I have found a riff or a melody or chord progression that pleases me, I will try to work up the rest of the piece by fitting in parts that complement that derived melody or riff or chord progression. In this way I like to put together one or more counterpoints to the main melody or riff or chord progression as a way to build up the sound. This is more of the approach that a string quartet or jazz combo might use where the emphasis is on fitting parts together as opposed to providing a rhythm track and then a solo instrument (like guitar) over the top like one might hear in a rock and roll band.
Do you have any certain instruments or sounds that you prefer to pair with your poetry, or does each poem ask for different instrumentation?
I have made many Native American flutes over the years and bought several others. The ones I make usually are tuned to exotic scales or modes such as mentioned below. I like to build these flutes in these modes as opposed to using cross-fingering on a standard pentatonic scale Native American flute because it allows for more fluid fingering and more natural bends in passages where I want to solo over the top of an accompaniment.
I also have a number of nylon string and steel string guitars that I play (though no electrics) and various other string instruments like ukuleles, cavaquinhos, mandolins, oud that I will plink around on to find that initial "pleasing accident" which serves as seed for the rest of the piece.
What are all the instruments you play?
I have many Native American flutes that I have built or bought which use the standard pentatonic minor scales — A, B, C, D, E, F#, G. I also have built flutes in the following ragas [Kafi, Multani, Bhairav, Jaunpuri, Purvi, Bageshri, Rastpanjgah]; Dastgahs [Shur, Mahur, Dashti]; Byzantine scale; Hungarian Gypsy in C, E Minor, A; Ethiopian Geez scale; Korean Danso scale; Japanese Ritsu, Insen, Iwato, Ryu Kyu; moseño; overtone flute.
Recorders: bass, tenor, alto, soprano, sopranino, garklein.
Guitars. 6- and 7-string nylon string guitars, ukuleles (bass, baritone, tenor, soprano), acoustic bass guitar, mandocello, weissenborn, resonator guitar, guitalele, charango.
Harps and lyres of several varieties. kantele in D and E; hognose dulcimer; mountain dulcimer; Hungarian zither; adungu harp, kalimba.
Winds. bamboo saxophone, saxophone, bawu, hulusi, djovnice, zhaleika, duduk, venova, melodica.
Drums. tombak, darbuka, djembe, bodhran, frame drum, akiko, tank drum, hand pan, janggu, udu, nada drum.
I don't want to leave the impression that I have mastery of all these instruments. For me, the fun of approaching these instruments is that I can utilize a kind of beginner's mind when I approach each one. I usually am conversant on each one so that I am not limping around. However, the guitars and flutes are where I have the most proficiency and where I settle in the quickest.
Do you make music outside the world of poetry?
Still working at the university which means I don't have much time to rehearse. I'm not a born performer (though I often do like to sing lieder or other formal poem-songs from days gone by) during readings. Perhaps in the future I will have more time to play out.
