= Institute Z

Usually, what is mysterious, unknown, as well as what is going to stay unknown, and we only guess it can exist, is called, or labelled, X. It is not clear why, but that's the way we do. As if X was the most mysterious letter in the alphabet. Maybe it is so, because its position in the alphabet is not special at all, and it wants this not-special-ness to be recompensed somehow. Just a small, stupid X, full of complexes. While Z needs no redress, for its position is absolutely special.
The end is the beginning of something new – this opinion is quite common. If it is so, then the beginning is the end of something old. However this opinion seems rather a metaphor, an idea, an expectation, not a real observation. This opinion seems true in the case of phenomena, events, or even in the case of their parts, and because of some unclear reasons it has been extended for things, objects, constructs. Let's take an example of Z. It is the end of alphabet, but it is not the beginning, neither of the alphabet whose end Z is, nor of any other. Of course, it we turned the alphabet upside down then we would have zetypsilon, or zyplsilon, or zetypsil, and then Z would be the beginning (but it would not be the end). Telling and writing the truth, every letter could be the beginning or the end or the middle of the alphabet (or third but last). For some reasons, which are as usual misty and unclear, the order of letters is as we know it, not the other one. Nevertheless the Institute will not study this problem – the main subject of researches will be different, and it can be really the beginning or the end of something...
Of what?
This is hidden under the Z code name.

There are alphabets where letters are also digits. Such a solution is the source of endless and tangled speculations often considered the essence of knowledge. It is not clear whether the speculation itself, this ceaseless mind gymnastics, intellectual acrobatics, or the results of this speculation, are considered so. It seems that knowledge should be only what those well trained minds could found and have found within domains not considered speculations. Letter-digital systems can be numerous. In fact every alphabet for every language can be transformed into such system, and this is nothing really complicated, as it was proved by a serious mathematician in a very serious scientific monthly; creating various mysterious links, associations, relations and merging structures is more complicated, and first of all, more time consuming.... Well, deciphering those mysterious relations can be great fun, indeed!
If we can create a letter-digital system, it may be possible to create a letter-note system, too.

A tale which is also a score.
A score which is also a tale.
A beautiful text which is also a beautiful music.
A beautiful music which is also a beautiful text.
Not metaphorically, absolutely not. Really, yes, absolutely yes...
And if it were also a beautiful picture?

The beginning of this system we have already created. Nothing but germs. Something that does not deserve to be called a sketch. It's just a doodle. However even in the biggest chaos traces of order can be noticed.
A sound of 440Hz frequency was called A. For any reason – I don't mean the name but the frequency. And it was decided that this very sound would be the beginning of a sequence of sounds, which were called B, C, D, E, F, G. Due to some strange reasons A lost its leadership for C and now everybody think C is the first, the beginning. B has been replaced with H (though not everywhere), while B is used as a name of H lowered by half step, which made this sound unique among the others whose flat names are generated regularly with -es ending. Why Hes turned into B is not so important now.... Oh no! It's very important! It's essential! We need neither Heses nor Fises. Nothing can be composed of them....
Thus we have only seven letters. Not much can be composed of them. While there are twelve sounds in an octave, and there are.... How many octaves are there?
How can we write down rests? How legato and staccato? How long and short sounds? What can various typefaces be used for? How can we use italics, bolds, capitals? And how about punctuation marks? Oh, so many questions, so many problems, so many issues.
This is what Z Institute will work on.
Is working.
All the time has been working. Breaklessly, though secretly, unnoticeably, inaudibly.
On two levels. On the system and on the compositions-tales. For example on sonnet-sonata. Or on sonneta. Or on sonnat.
However, before such composition will be completed, the following short poem, slightly dada-childish in character, can be played:

BAD CAB
BAD HAG
BAD BAG
BAD CHACHA

AGED BACH
FEED BEAD
DEAD HE
BE BE BEE

It's not a rousing composition, like the text does not touch the deepest and most vulnerable strings of human soul (why am I so sure? human souls are different and different strings vibrates in them). But it's not the musical mumbling either. I can say the lyrics, the text, is more a mumble than the music is.
Let's try something opposite, reverse – let's check what text, what tale is written by the simple melody of the children song about a cat who climbed a fence.

GEE FDD CEG GEE FDD CEC

Nonsense and bullshit. Absolutely accidental sequence of letters. Probably in any language. Someone brave can try to find a language where this string of letters would mean something. What a challenge! Travels around the world. Hundreds of hours spent in libraries and archives. The whole life well organised. No boredom. Never. Endless ups and downs, depressions and euphorias.
Let's go on trying. This time a melody for adults. Though it could be a melody for kids as well. For example a lullaby. But nobody sings it for kids in the evening.

DGBAGAGAGDisGD

These are but a few beginning bars. Again mumbling. Even replacing Dis with Es doesn't help. It could be a code for Papa's Corleone save, supposing it won't be as long as the whole composition.... We can notice at once an important problem: is D higher or lower than G, or is the melody descending or ascending, climbing up or climbing down, falling into the abyss of melancholy.
So, one take more.

GFEEDCCDEeee DDGFEEDCCDE [e means a trill – should be efefefefe, I think]
EDCCGEEGC    GGEDCCGEEGC

It looks like Domenico Scarlatti was an awful poet, or even an illiterate, or an extreme avant-guard artist whom nobody noticed that way and who was far far away in the front, overtaking not only his epoch, but all epochs which were to come. Let's pay attention to the fact, that we have here two parallel melodies-texts. Indeed, we have two hands – unfortunately we have one mouth, and one tongue in it.
Unimaginable amount of work to be done...

In the very beginning we must reject the most simple dependency which says that consecutive sounds of the keyboard are the consecutive letters of the alphabet, for this would generate incredibly large melodic jumps like in the case of RAZE or YELLOW. Coming back to the non-temperament system would be a kind of solution, for we would have many more sounds than only twelve, but I wonder if enough to capture all letters of alphabet. Even if so, then it would be impossible to play on keyboard our tale, and this complication would not be the only one – how would we mark the sounds an octave higher or lower?
All letters of alphabet.... Of which alphabet? There are many variations of alphabet since each language introduces its own signs.... How could we play the diacritic signs?
If this is a guideline for writers, the composers would have the same: while writing a composition they would have to think also of a text the sounds would compose. It won't be only melodies, harmony and rhythm, but also words, phrases, sentences..... How should we read accords? Which elements or syntax or morphology or lexis would be the counterparts of rhythm patterns and meter?

Which sound would the letter Z be: the first, the last, the middle?


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