Writing Workshop #32: Intro to Invented Words & Artlang
February 12, 2021
An update from our thirty-second Writing Workshop!
A summary of the workshop held on Saturday February 6, plus some of the output published below
This week we talked about language: non-English language. Participants shared the various languages they know, and we went on to explore some invented languages used in fiction, such as J.R.R Tolkein s Elfin and Klingon, used in
Star Trek. William played a number of readings, songs and film clips asking us to focus on how the sounds of the languages convey meaning, character and culture, even when we don t know the words.
An update from our thirty-first Writing Workshop (and the first of 2021)!
A summary of the workshop held on Saturday January 23, plus some of the output published below
To start our first season of classes in 2021, William focused on the idea of chance: the idea–or even the fact–that life and art is filled with twists and turns, and we don t know the whole story until it s over. He used several examples from the work of composer John Cage to explore the idea of chance in composition, the idea that the composer decides on a range of permutations that the performers and audience then use to produce the piece. Similarly, he talked about change ringing, the British tradition of church bell-ringing in repeating yet varied patterns, where mathematics chooses the notes, but the musicians choose how the pattern is heard and Maddie (piano) and William (clarinet) played some patterns. We developed some random word lists, and a numeric system for choosing 6 at random from them, and then e