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Following the steps of François Sudre (who created a musical language - called "Solresol" - in XIX century), the MediaGlyphs ("MG") language can also be rendered in music.
Words, concepts, sentences, texts can be sang or played instead than being displayed on a screen, printed on paper or read aloud.
This is accomplished by a simple translation of the existing pronunciation of the Glyphs in music.
Every glyph in the basic vocabulary has a short sequence of notes attached. These notes can be sung, hummed, played on any instrument.
Why bothering with music?
People who cannot see the glyphs can still communicate using MG. Learning the simple scheme they would be able to listen and understand text written in MG and input words by the use of a keyboard or with voice, whistling, humming.
This allows blind people from all different linguistic backgrounds to input and listen text even when speech recognition&synthesis programs are not available for their own mother tongue.
It is a way to communicate without words and without images, as neutral as the visual counterpart of MG, but without any equipment needed.
For example, instead than saying "baby", "yīng ér" (婴儿), "bimbo" or "akachan" (あかちゃん), you could hum or sing:
What if I don't have any musical skill? What if I am tone-deaf?
The musical scheme is extremely simple and uses only 4 notes, well separated and distinguishable from each other. It doesn't require any musical skill and can be perceived and used by anybody with very little effort.
What if I cannot hear?
The glyphs are mainly visual, so it's possible to communicate without any sound. Anyway it's straightforward to convert the musical pronunciations into sign language (for example raising one of four fingers for each of the four notes and keeping the same rhythm) or touching different parts of the hand/body of the other person. This would enable MG to be used in communication with everybody, even with people who are blind-deaf-mutes.
Why didn't you use the existing Solresol instead than inventing a new scheme?
One of the main difficulties with Solresol lies in the fact that it uses 7 notes, while the MG musical scheme employs only 4 notes, exploiting rhythms. Our scheme thus allows, in our opinion, easier use and understanding of words even for people with absolutely no musical background.
In addition there is a very close correspondence between the musical scheme and the glyphs, which constitute the core of the MG system, that would be absent if we decided to adopt Solresol.
How can I learn it?
Clicking on any glyph you'll find on these webpages, you will access a page with explanation and translations. At the bottom you'll notice two icons made with coloured shapes and some text on it. They also have the musical score of the music correspondence. But you don't need to be able to read music, just click on them and then on the note icon and you'll be able to listen it.
Every glyph becomes a 2/4 music bar, each of those coloured icons represent 1/4, a quarter, one music unit. Each music unit holds two or three consecutive notes. Hence every single glyph can be expressed in music by two music units, for a total of 4 to 6 consecutive notes.
First appearance:
Mon May 6 20:00:02 BST 2002
- | - Last modified:
Fri Mar 12 09:43:23 CET 2010