AMV Contest Intrumental Question

[Anonymous]

Greetings:

I received a couple of questions about 'Instrumental' works for the AMV Contest.
For further information, here are some remarks about non-sense lyrics and languages:

Bands like See-Saw (Madlax, Noir, and Aquarian Age OST's, iirc) sing nonsense syllable songs which, because of their talent, often sound like REAL (yet exotic) languages. These sorts of "songs" are allowed under Instrumental because technically the larynx is being used as an instrument - the meaning and emotional impact depend on the listener's interpretation of the implied culture, which because it is imaginary, can be as broad and diverse as listening to a melody played on any other sort of instrument. ("What does the trumper line 'mean?'") The same goes for 'scat' lyrics.

But See Saw often drives me batty because they sound CONVINCINGLY like 'real' languages. On the other hand, knowing a bit of Latin, I was able to follow along with some of the Mai HIME and Elfin Leid lyrics. Elfin Leid would be a 'real' song in Latin, (so, -not- and Instrumental) but the music of Mai Hime, especially 'Duran Shoukan' would be a tough call because they are using a mix of actual Latin words mixed in with Latin-sounding collections of prefixes and suffixes (example: "archangibus.")

Another hair-line split comes within types of CONSTRUCTED languages (which include a lexicon and a set of grammar rules) and which can actually be used to transmit meaning. My opinion here is that if the intended application of the language was for a work of ENTERTAINMENT (examples: Tolkein's 'elvish' and 'dwarvish' languages, Mark Okrand's Klingon language) then those would count as Instrumental, but languages made up with the intent that they be adopted by a large base of speakers are 'real' languages and would -not- count as Instrumental (examples: Esperanto and Volapuk.)

Your thoughts?

- G

[Anonymous]

My straight answer would be to not allow it if they end up sounding like actual languages, despite the fact that they might not be. If the words/noises lean towards more sounding like sound effects or instruments then it'd fall more towards instrumental than lyrical.

What are you personal thoughts Guy?

[Anonymous]

This can really be a tough call and that is why I use a judges panel to sort this out.

My own opinion (which has no bearing on the contest rules  - they are already written and the judges, not I, will make the final determinations ..) is that if a fake language simply sounds like some identifiable CLASS of languages, plus its instrumental accompaniment is all composed so that you strongly think of  something SPECIFIC, like "Wow, a traditional Faeroese sea shanty!" or "this singing plus that percussion REALLY reminds me of the beaches of Bali"  --- BUT --- you the listener are not acutally processing sylables into possible meanings - THEN personally I'd still call it Instrumantal and that would be OK.

I had someone ask me about game music (Suikoden, I think?) and my research network could not pin it down, so I said OK. One or two people thought it was Tibetan, but they could not CONFIRM it, and I am pretty liberal in that regard - if there was no conlcusinve evidence, then "OK by me."

BUT: in the example above, the fake word "Archangibus" would (for me) actually start my grammar codecs working in Latin, and it would actually change the meaning of that moment - so I'd be more reluctant to call it 'instrumental.' The same thing happens with the fake prefix 'ur-' in Tolkein's made-up languages; it works exactly like the Latin prefix 'arch-' or the German prefix 'uber-' or 'ober-' and therefore it can create a meaning: such as geeks vs. ur-geeks. (I found about 506 hits for 'ur-geek,' btw. See how that works? It's turning into a 'real' word in English and in German.)

So, I guess I'd say, absent a specific example, that if individual syllables actually start connoting specific meanings, then it's no longer 'instrumental.'

But still a damn tough call especially with music like See-Saw!

- G!