Australian Vowel Harmony Archive - Backyard Notes

İlk Dombıra'nın Geldiği Qün | Marɉ ~ The Reigns Are Comin' !

click on the picture to watch it on youtube

SONGLINE: Dombıra, GökTürk, McCain, Bridge to Kazak

YER: Wombatistan

aus terör, language recovery

259_dombira_arrival2 | 1:15 | 14 Sept 2022

Captain's Log, Post Mortem Report [20240921_2201]

Exploring Australian Vowel Harmony
There was a need to take a break from the primary indexing and start branching out into the department of Australian Vowel Harmonics. This area hasn't been the core focus of my work, though it remains a crucial part of the whole package that shaped my voice on this land.

The Concept of Vowel Harmonics
Who decided that [the noises coming out of my mouth sound uygun, suitable, palatable, or right]? I never meshed with the term [vowel harmony] as a concept. For me, the constraints felt more akin to playing within a musical key, where the scale imposed restrictions on the types of notes you could play. Expected chord progressions, such as the forms of music I grew up with, also shaped the flow, which often dictated how a passage of musical sound should unfold.

Understanding Harmonics
As for harmonics, I understood them as the combination of notes that often produced chords ...or the frequency of sounds associated with tuning a stringed instrument like guitar or violin. However, for me, it felt like the primary driver was shaped by other foundations, such as the scale/key, along with elements like tempo and time signature. My only reason for using the term "vowel harmony" in my notes was due to how others had mapped the meaning and chose to define it. It doesn't sit comfortably for me, because I always felt it was a term that originated a long time ago, long before people could precisely articulate the equivalent in English. In the meanwhile, this is my journey to find ways to communicate and capture the nuances with greater detail.

The Discordance of Accents
Australian English & Türkiyenli Türk`ish were two different forms of singing & not of the same scale/key/mode. I never thought the two soundscapes were compatible or complementary. I often describe my discomfort (or cringe) with both throughout my work as being a form of [vowel discordance].

The Bilingual Challenge
The bi-lingual experience has felt like the perplexing challenge of trying to make a minor and major key work together in unison. To me, both accents trying to speak the other language will sound awful. I've heard a 2 Americans express they find the Türk'ic accent sexy. I can't understand how that's possible, because I find it acutely embarrassing, the same way I'm not fond of Australian accents either. [Why is that so? (I still don't know!)] My only remote parallel is my love for the thick Scottish accent---especially the kind that's extremely difficult to understand. [Why is that so? (I still don't know!)] ...but I had a Scottish friend who felt the same kind of cringe and embarrassment about his own voice. He often apologised and expressed profuse shame, but I never had a problem with it because I absolutely adored it, inside-out, black & blue & until death! From the experience so far, if there's cringe in the sound of someone's voice, it's not going to be universal, because other cultures will be indifferent or even love it.

The Influence of Remote Scottish Heritage
Scottish culture was the second-remote home that shaped my voice. It served as my safe haven and sanctuary for vocal respite, woven with a penchant for tartan. The thread of that influence comes from somewhere distinctly north or far north of Dublin, suggesting it must have blended with Irish nuances at some point. That expression flowed through my mother's side of the family. Her maternal lineage featured raven-black hair and green eyes, while her paternal side was predominantly blonde and blue-eyed. The fabric of my maternal ancestry included many redheads and carriers of the ORHneg. They were tall individuals with large feet. It was common for some to reach centenarian status, while others succumbed to early heart failure. The influence on the shaping of my tongue however, was also formed (from-of) this land. My voice, is the outcome of the people & environment(s) I grew up with.

Navigating the Australian-Türk'ic Intersection
The Australian-Türk'ic transmission is not a comfortable space for me because it's an intersection of two distinct soundscapes, akin to the collision of minor and major scales that switch mid-sentence within a song. It's not a standard key change that just transposes the notes; it's an outright modal shift. I lack the musical background to determine what kind of [Hijaz, Uşşak, or Kurdî] modes it might be swimming in and out of, the same way I don't inherently understand and can't articulate what a [Mixoly-Phryg-Lydian] scale could be ...but the experience is very similar to how I tried to mush 3 different musical modes [Mixolydian+Phrygian+Lydian] into one. This type of technical musical jargon is not self-explanatory-enough for me.

Discordance Through Chords
When I try to communicate about discordance through the lens of chords, it feels similar to the discomfort I experience with "that one off note I don't like" in Gmaj7, or with other strange, rarely used chords that exist on the exotic side of the spectrum. Given the type of music I grew up with, I will struggle to recognise or perceive unusual chords as pleasant. It's akin to the chaotic keyboard bashing of composers like Bach (or was that Beethoven?“”but definitely not Ravel or Brahms), where manic classical music sounds as if it must have drowned in water. For me, it feels like whatever is now identified as "The Works of Bach (or was that Beethoven?)" ~ was something that must've been lost in transcription, because of how it sounds like people attempted to decipher notes from music sheets that were damaged by water. To my ear, a lot of classical music will sound similar to genres like Black or Death Metal.

Struggles with Modal Transition
The discomfort I experience with Australian-Türk'ic transmission is evident in one traditional Türk'ish song, Nasıl Geçti Habersiz. I struggle to discern the scale properly and often feel confused about which notes to use, making it difficult for me to play this song on the piano. The shift in mode is challenging, because I perceive a melancholic minor tone trying to transition into a major style of key that I associate with 'happy happy joy joy' feelings. However, I suppose it does a fantastic job of expressing melancholy interwoven with sporadic moments of joy. Perhaps some people love it precisely because of how the shifting modal scales can change the mood. As a kid, I didn't overtly dislike it, but it always sounded 'wonky,' and I repeatedly experienced relief when the song returned to the consistency of its baseline melancholy.

Performance of this song by Zeki Müren - offers a clear example.


Performance by Tarkan offers a modern production.

The Challenge of Octave Jumps
From a singing perspective, the frustration I feel with this 'wonky-wonking' sensation is akin to songs that require significant octave jumps, where reaching a higher note accurately, is very difficult. In this case, however, the struggle lies in determining which note to aim for within the short range a single octave! Lacking the experiential background with the scale and any awareness of commonly shifting modes, I'm left with no preconceived pathway to guide me. This lack of direction“”navigating unknown terrain without any solid guideposts“”mirrors how my Türk'ish was influenced by the dynamics of my environment (and vice versa).

Vowel Harmonics Down Under
This example showcases a piece where the Türk'ic stream is processed using Australian Vowel Harmonics in several sentences, followed by the same sentences pronounced in standard Türk'ic. The term [RECOG] refers to the ability to recognize and identify sounds as a form of 'knowing' based on prior exposure. For Australian speakers and other English speakers familiar with identifying the Australian accent, RECOG is the point of experiencing “œHey! That sounds Australian, but I can't quite grasp the meanings“”what language is this?!!“�. It's an Australian transmission of a Türk'ic language.

click on the picture to watch it on youtube

Çılgın Sürüş | MRI Tripping | SONGLINE: MRI, gadolinium | YER: Miranda, Bathurst

3208_christmas-at-miranda | 2:00 | 20 Apr 2023

Focus on Sound Rather Than Meaning
In the video sample (above), I won't specify which parts use Australian Vowel Harmonics, although they are predominantly featured in the first half of the sample. It's essential to let go of our attachment to meaning. The subtitles only serve as reference notes to assist others with Türk'ic(other) language calibrations. Initially, it's important to focus on the sound itself. If the experience of listening feels like tuning into a radio station, where you can hear an Australian signal oscillating in and out, the moment you recognise the sound as familiar(known), is a RECOG event.

RECOG ('the hearing'; recognition) - is the ability to identify and recognise sounds as being [from-of-your-own-place-of-familiarity-or-home]. In my language, this quality acts as a geographical or regional marker, providing a foundational framework for navigation.

Navigating Uncharted Terrain
Despite being born on this land, my experience of it felt like uncharted terrain without any tour guides. I was forced to navigate it on my own, feeling my way through. This work explores that journey as I attempt to draw my own maps of the experience.

click on the picture to watch it on youtube

MAAT 00 - [ iNiTiAL PRiMARY MUTATED VOWEL CONSOLiDATiON ]
SONGLINE: Barış Manço - Dönence | YER: Wombatistan
MAAT00_VC01-vowelconsolidation | 1:05 | 7 Aug 2021

Mapping the Unknown: My Journey Through The Land
This video (above) summarises my initial draft map created after processing the Türk'ic vowel mutations necessary for communicating my Türk'ic language through an Australian transmission. I don't consider it a comprehensive map of everything, as capturing that has not been the core focus of my studies. The need to capture and preserve what remains of my dormant Türk'ish was more critical. However, I recognise this as an area I would like to refine during my twilight years.

click on the thumbnails above to watch it on youtube

Documenting Vowel Mutations
I couldn't create this summary until I processed all of the vowel mutations I needed to work with first  (linked samples above). Documenting the passage of vowel mutations across the entire alphabet was crucial, as the combinations with different consonants can vary significantly. Despite the use of Latin typeform for transcription, which may suggest uniformity, the actual nuances are not always the same.

Limitations of Analysis Tools
In this analysis, I was limited by the Spectral Frequency Display in Audition and didn't have the time or resources to document every single sound bite. The best I could do was to loosely scan and document the dominant shapes observed as a visual record of the transmutations. A more thorough analysis for every combination (for starting and ending consonants) is necessary, but I decided it would be better to save that for another day when I might gain access to better tools that can provide more detailed zooms, as well as video capture and 3D mapping of tongue, mouth, and throat (vocalisation) movements.

Acknowledging Core Fundamentals
Despite my reservations and the awareness that I haven't captured absolutely everything in this draft, it's still managed to retain many of the core fundamentals.

Organising Sound Samples
For now, I need to partition my work to begin organising the sound samples related to this topic, particularly those that showcase Australian vowel harmonics. Instances where the register of Australian sound was communicated only through the pronunciation of place or personal names will be included“”serving as a library for Australian tones, to facilitate further study, and provide learning opportunities for language calibration. I need this space to function as an initial landing page for my notes about the category, but can see the need to initiate a dedicated library for it after I finish processing my primary compilation. I'll just start with a few samples here in the interim: 

Hardcore Australian`ificationment - Initial Vowel Calibration Samples
Here, have some non-cube-shaped wombat poo, fresh from the paddock at Wombatistan.....

click on the picture to watch the play-list on youtube

The Wombat Poo Bok Haber  is a collection of samples from the journey of trying to find my Türk'ic voice within the Australian harmonic soundscape. It was a challenging process, navigating many unknown territories, due to not carrying any pre-configured dogma sitting inside my mouth - but the exercise demonstrated how the Australian soundscape constrains my vocalisation. This series managed to capture my voice at a developmental stage, akin to a toddler just learning to walk“”full of wavering wobbles, falls, and plonks. These initial vocalisations are crude and unrefined, lacking sophistication in structure or execution, yet this exercise still successfully captured many of the core fundamentals that exist on this land.

Rekindling My Türk'ic Expression
It's important to note that during this time, I had never vocalised any solid or extended form of Türk'ish for most of my life. Although I could sort-of pronounce-read the language due to the seemingly transparent nature of how Latin was adopted for Türk'ish, I couldn't comprehensively read or write with it. I grew up as a passive recipient of the language, able to understand broken chunks of it, but I hadn't actively spoken it since the age of four. After that, my responses to any incoming Türk'ish from my mother became predominantly English-only, while the relationship with my father progressively shifted exclusively into English-only communication.

The dominant Türk'ic mapping imprint - has come from my mother. I'm aware there is also a latent lateral connection, that was shaped through the brief contact I had with my paternal grandmother. I carry no visceral Türk'ic mapping from my father through Türk'ish. However, the imprint of his Türk'ic mapping was conveyed to me through English. The echo of his Türk'ic influence emerges whenever my Australian tone begins to swing. Most of the time, I am not overtly conscious of it. I've only become more aware of it while reviewing recordings in post-production. I can identify certain conditions that trigger the swing. Some are directly connected to phonetic structures, others are linked to performance/modal types of functions connected to delivery or analytical type of thinking processes, but I lack the linguistic background to adequately label them.

Waking Up from a 40-Year Coma
While likening my journey to a toddler learning to walk offers one perspective, my experience of physically reconnecting with the Türk'ic language through my voice feels like waking up from a 40-year coma. I am acutely aware of the physical atrophy“”like a child who's been bedridden for so long that it never had the chance to learn how to run, let alone cartwheel. At times, I feel crippled, quadriplegic, or wheelchair-bound by the disconnect.

Remote Cervical Threads
The sense of injury feels cervical, mirrored through my experience with MS, with lesions located at C2 and C4. I'm also aware of a tendril pathway extending towards T2, which seems connected to my processing of vision. I don't know if this is a quirk caused by how the body tried to repair and re-map itself during the healing process, but it has made me conscious of signals connected to my processing of vision, that do extend into my neck. The connection to what remains of my Türk'ish feels akin to how I perceive my spine's linking to vision; it's like a tendril representing the remote influence of my late paternal grandmother, functioning as a critical thread, keeping my ability to connect with Türk'ish alive.

click on the picture to watch it on youtube

Babanneyin Portresi ~ Ağlayan Kanguru | Portrait Of My Grandmother ~ The Crying Kangaroo
SONGLINE: redheads, kibrit avukat
YER: Wombatistan, Northern Territory, Sydney Airport
3293_noel_advocate | 1:08 | 14 Jul 2023

~ My Name Is Ayça, get used to it

TAKE ME HOME ~ COUNTRY ROAD