Miika Hyytiäinen
Memories of the Songs My Granfather Could Have Sung to Me
for electronic organ with enharmonic keys
Background and tex
The title of this piece is based on a double lie. My grandfather never sang to me (although he came from Karelia, an area known for songs). I compose 2024-25, a song cycle for Fokker Organ and Vokalprojekt 31. These songs are called "31 Songs My Grandfather Used to Sing to Me," and they use 31 equal temperament. When I composed this piece for electronic organ, these songs hadn't been composed yet, so I tried to remember a piece that I would actually create in the future. The songs have distinctive materials: text, consonant harmonic sevenths and different scales. They area somehow part of this organ piece: morphed because of my limited memory and the differences between the tuning systems: that of the enharmonic organ, 31 equal temperament and the voice of my grandfather.
The songs are written in Toki Pona It is a language invented in 2001 by Songa Lang (when my grandfather was dead), and the speciality is that it only has 137 words. Hence, the sentences typically have many different interpretations. I wrote the texts myself (according to my memories). The pronunciation is like in Spanish or Esperanto. Here is the full text used in this organ piece and a rough translation of each word, based on Sonja Lang's books Toki Pona, The Language of Good:
palisa long hard thing; branch, rod, stick ali all; abundant, countless li [particle between subject and verb] pali to do, take action on, work on e [particle before direct object] moli dead, dying lili little, small, short; few; a bit; young
The sentence could be translated as "Many countless sticks kill a little." But my grandfather's generation sometimes also had a rather rough sense of humour, so maybe "long things are always working for little death" is more accurate.
Notation
Senza misura sections have short ornaments, neutral lengths and long notes written like this: Each senza misura system has a duration of 12 to 15 seconds.
Accidentals apply for the duration of the measure
This piece is written for an enharmonic organ with 1/4 comma temperament. If required by the instrument, transposing sections by an octave or two is possible. The instrumentalist also reads or recites the indicated text. It can be whispered loudly, spoken neutrally or as sprechgesan with melodic lines somewhat resembling the played melodies.
Duration of the piece: 5 minutes