Podcast Program of Create World 2008

Listen to the Episode: Topology: the music of speech

Topology are interested, amongst many other things, in the musicality of speech, and at Create World 2008 four members of the the group – John Babbage, Christa Powell, Bernard Hoey and Robert Davidson – rammed home to us how powerful the music-speech connection could be with a series of pieces blending video, digital speech audio and wonderfully accomplished live performance on good old fashioned analogue instruments. They started off with this number, incorporating the famous Martin Luther King speech:

Not so surprising perhaps that a great orator like Martin Luther King should be so amenable to musical interpretation (and presumably only Topology’s preference for historical rather than contemporary speech is preventing them from doing something similar with Obama). But what about something more home grown for us Australians? Gough Whitlam after the dismissal perhaps, on the steps of Parliament House? Not at all musical you think? Well, try listening to the following sample, you might change your mind. (For more of this, go to Topology’s The Big Decision website.)

Well may we say (click player buttons to play, pause or stop)

After their exhilarating Create World performance, Topology discussed their work with Allan Carrington. They talked a bit about the speech, intonation and music nexus, but they also enlarged on the role of music in human life generally, seeing music as opening us up to senses and feelings in ways that complement our thinking selves and help to make us fully human.