▷S1E11 Glass on the Table: the Multi-Instru-Lingualism of Ou

Ersilia Prosperi, the composer of the Modo di Bere theme music, and her illustrious producer Amy Denio play together in Ou, a band that sings in a myriad of dialects. This episode includes clips of Ersilia's compositions for Ou in Spanish, Italian, French, Sardo, and Pygmy. Ersilia, Amy and Rose Thomas swap naughty toasts and discuss the various personalities expressed through different languages and different instruments. This is the second Modo di Bere episode to date where someone (Amy) says she learned Italian so that she could understand what everyone was laughing about. Download this episode for opinions on the philosophy expressed through Italian humor, language as a compositional choice, musical responses to geopolitics, and the desires of an egg as expressed in the language of Ersilia's Sardinian homeland. Wait til the end for a new composition Ersilia made just for Modo di Bere!

You can purchase Ou's albums at oumusic.bandcamp.com!
More about Ersilia Prosperi: https://www.ersiliaprosperi.com/en/
More about Amy Denio: https://amydenio.me/

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• Expand for auto-generated transcript. (Please excuse errors.)

  This podcast episode references strong language as well as strong drink. Each language has a poetical atmosphere and sounds, so I choose what I need. Do you consider learning to play a new instrument, learning a new language? Absolutely, I really do. I feel like each instrument brings out a different aspect of my musicality. So it's like a different dialect, very much so. And it's an amazing cultural experience to begin to understand various languages and see how different cultures see the world. And I feel like that also happens. Don't you find, maybe I'm generalizing, but I think that certain instruments, certain personality types are drawn to certain instruments. Have you noticed that at all? Like trombone players? Welcome to Modo di Bere, the podcast about local drinks and local sayings. I'm your host, Rose Thomas Bannister. Today, I have a very special interview with two incredible musicians, including Ercilia Prosperi, who composed the Modo di Bere theme music. If you've been enjoying the music for this podcast as much as I have, you'll be interested to know that the theme song is called "Palle di Natale" and the incidental music you'll often here in the middle of the show, is from a song called "La Stanzetta." Both songs are from the album "Pisces Crisis" by the band "Ou," which means egg in the Sardinian dialect. As of talking with Air Celia weren't cool enough, we have a second guest today, the legendary Amy Denio, who plays in "Ou" and also produces their records. These two incredible people have juicy biographies, So, pour yourself a special drink and settle in for this introduction. "Ou" is an Italian sextet led by Arcilia and they sing in English, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, and Sardo. They'll sing in multiple languages within the same song, even at the same time. There are even more instruments involved than there are languages. Arcilia plays the trumpet and the ukulele. Her work ranges from improvisation and alt -jazz to songwriting, collaborating with artists like Meclid Hadero, Antonello Ruggero, Orchestra Lato, Jessica Luri, Emily Hay, Giancarlo Ciaffini, and many, many others. She composes and performs music for films, contemporary opera and dance, and has showcased her work in Berlin, New York, Madrid, and Seattle. And Arceli, of course, also collaborates with Amy Denaio, who is one of my favorite people I've ever met, an absolute legend of creativity, and the inspiring person who embodies the power of going for your dreams. Amy has a four octave vocal range and plays guitar, bass, alto sax, clarinet, and accordion. She composes for modern dance, film, theater, and TV. A member of Seattle Jazz Hall of Fame, she has written more than 500 works and has produced over 60 recordings solo and in collaboration with artists worldwide. She's been operating her own recording studio, record label, and publishing company Spoot Music since 1986 with the release of her first cassette No Bones. She is president of the all -women Tipton Sax Quartet, vice president of the Seattle Composers' Alliance, and has performed and recorded in the Balkan group Culture Shock since 1999. Mostly self taught, she has developed her unique musical style by collaborating with musicians and artists worldwide. Like Ursilia, Amy also speaks several languages. I cannot wait to talk to both of you about your multilingual, multi -instrumental band, OU. But first, I would love for each of you to share a local drink and a local saying that has stayed with you from your home or from anywhere your adventures have taken you. Bottom's up. [speaking Spanish] [speaking Spanish] Yes, I know way to-- [speaking Spanish] Wait, second. [speaking Spanish] Okay. This is in Spanish. When you can say Chi no polla, no polla. When you do the Brinisi, no? Yes? Cheers. Chi no polla, no polla. What does that mean in English? No, it's not very, very fine, raffinato, very elegant. It means who doesn't put the glass in the table, doesn't fuck. >> And that actually reminds me of a brain disease that I invented that probably should never be said. I learned some bad words in Italian, and one of them is Sicilian dialect, and the word is mink, yeah. And so I was in Sicily thinking, you know, probably they don't normally in Italy you say chinchin, which is the sound of the glass and chinchin, like it rings, right? Chinchin, so it's a very onomatopoetic word. And I thought, well, maybe they don't, maybe they wouldn't want to say chinchin because that's Italian and Sicilians are very proud of their unique and beautiful culture. So what rhymes with chinchin? And then remember this word mean, yeah, which is a kind of a nasty word that generally women don't say, right? Anyway, so, and I turned to my girlfriend in this bar in in Katania, and I said, mean, I will hold me like mean, and she she understood instantly, and she, she hit my glass and said, yeah. So, so it's a it's a very participatory way for two people to say a bad word at this, you know, it's a, it's a collaborative swear word that, that only I say, yes, yes, Colin, Colin response. I'm so glad that we've established that we're going to mark this episode of the podcast as explicit because I've been waiting for my chance to say the parolaccia, the bad word that I invented in Italian, which my co -workers in Italian wine thought was hilarious. So in the wine world, we spend a good part of our day taking our favorite drink and spitting it out into a spittoon, which is a word that is almost never used in English. It evokes the old west, you know, the cowboys in the movie spitting the tobacco into the large urn. There is a word for spittoon in Italian, which is sputacchiera. So I came to my boss and wanted to show off my Italian practice. And I said, I know what this is called. This is a sputacchiera. And everyone just died because this translates basically to, we decided, spitch, spit, bitch, or bitch, spit. So anyway, great. No, there's there's so many beautiful, beautiful bad words in Italian and definitely I'm always interested in them. You do have to be kind of, you kind of have to, you know, warm up to it usually. So I'm glad we just established the rapport immediately and just dove right in. As you know, I'm really interested in local languages, specifically the dialects of Italy. So I would love to hear more about why Owu chose this Sardinian word to name your band and how you came to sing in the Sardinian language. Is that where you're from originally, Ursilia? Yes, yes. The word is "O" with the article is "So" in Sardinian dialect and I love, my mother is from Sardinian So, it's my route, my spiritual and ancestral route comes from Sardinia. And in the band, we were also with Martina Fadda and Sabrina Coda that grow up in Sardinia. So we started to choose words and for the meaning That is the egg and also for the how sounds it sounds the word which was all but also for the meaning Respect to our music all our music our music We started whenever there's any you know, we whenever there's a OU in any word We use a - Yes, the court, our court. - The court. We have a royal court. 'Cause there's OU in it. - It's very useful, this name for everything. (speaking in foreign language) - At a certain point, we had a keyboard player and we still do. And he's from a noble family in Rome. And he's very noble, you know? And we noticed that he was so noble that really he didn't participate too much in the moving of equipment, or any kind of servile actions he would observe nobly. And a certain player turned to him and said, "Eh, Marquese !" And everyone laughed like, "He is, he's a Marquis, that's really great, you know, like that's actually perfect." So then we began to think, "Well, so if he's Marquis, then what is the bass player?" And he said, Well, someone's maybe Ercilia said okay. Well, he's the prince and so then the drummer said oh well if he's the prince I'm the illegitimate prince Principe legittimo and ha and so bit by bit with and then the Lisea was a Marquisina because she's about four feet tall. She's tiny and then ha and I became Regina so they don't call me in this group when we're together They never use my actual Christian name. They call me Regina. Queen. And so obviously Ercilia as the idea that the main egg behind everything, she is the king, Rex, Rexus. I call her Rexus. And it's a fake Latin, Latinification of the, you know, that's like, Sierra. So it's a world court and so anyone who gets involved with us in any manner gets nominated to, you know, on some positions. So we have a new singer and she's, she plays the theremin impeccably. She plays violin. She sings impeccably. And so she's the maga. She's the magician. Would it be okay to play a clip of the song called So, "Abattado", yes, the song also gave the name of the album, "Scramble", and it's a monologue. It's the act that speaks about its life and its desires. (upbeat music) ♪ Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh ♪ ♪ Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh ♪ - Scramble here and there. The egg doesn't understand anything anymore. It wakes up not knowing where it is, every day it is being boiled, eaten raw, braven, scrambled. Its greatest dream is to meet another egg that is hoping for a better future. With a freshly met omelet, who would like to be hard boiled. Yes, strong and stable, like a hard boiled egg. The hard boiled egg could stay Fall in water for four hours. Yes, when it faces the risk of a explode hit. However, this could be a better end than to be scrapped. And this, our scrambled egg without season, is planned. The end. The end. (upbeat music) In parte sardiniana, si dice che si vuole essere un aggato buono, perché è un aggato scrembo. E si vuole finalmente incontrare un frittata molto "frittata", "tortilla", non so il nome, "frittata", e quindi... ...è finalmente felice e... ...quieto e forte. - "To be embraced by a frittata". - Sì. "S 'ho abattato ghele di si, so a tosto, insperata in mezzo solte e "cundu una gatta", cioè "it wish an happier destiny" con "turtiglia", "turtiglia" rittata, ma beh, "it's absurd", "it's naif". Ma è un issue filosofico. There are lots of words in this song, in English, to spread the concept in the world, because Sardinian, not everybody knows Sardinian dialect. Well, I love the way that you sing in multiple different languages, even within the same song. So tell me the story of, oh, how did you form, and why did you decide to sing in so and languages. >> This is because I play trumpet and I started in my life writing composition, composing only for instruments. And at a certain point, I thought that the words in La lingua è molto importante a comunicare, a parte la musica. Quindi ho iniziato a scrivere le parole. Ma non sono un singolo, non sono attaccato. You're not attached to Italian language, to communicate. Each language has a poetical atmosphere and sounds. So I choose what I need. Choose a language for what I need. Now I'm starting a new project in Spain and new compositions. and I want to use also German. This is very difficult because the singers have many problems with different languages. So, to meet someone that joins my music and my compositions with this Le Geretza also. Yes, it's a little bit difficult, but I continue, yes. I wanted to speak to the two of you specifically about this because you're both multi -instrumentalists as well. Amy, when I met you at your house in Seattle, I remembered there was a visiting academic from Scandinavia who had come to Seattle to talk to you about your experience as a multi -instrumentalist. And as I've been studying different languages, one of the things that I observed in episode two with Dr. Rebecca Lawrence was that your voice changes, not just the word sounds, but people's voices get higher or lower in all different ways when they switch to changing different language. So, Celia, the fact that you are using it as a compositional tool is marvelous. I love this. Amy, I want to ask you, I guess, about-- you're just wildly instrumental. You play so many different instruments. Do you consider learning to play a new instrument, learning a new language? Absolutely. I really do. I feel like each Bring brings out a different aspect of my musicality. So it's like a different dialect very much So and I remember when I first started coming to Europe I had studied French in high school and when I got to France and I couldn't speak a word I was terrified and I really thought I had no capacity for language But very slowly over time. I started recognizing words in different languages like and anyway so I and now I just I love language because each one like if Celia was saying each language brings out a different filter through which people see the world and it's an amazing cultural experience to begin to to understand various languages and see how different cultures see the world and I feel like that that also happens don't Don't you find, maybe I'm generalizing, but I think that certain instruments, certain personality types are drawn to certain instruments. Have you noticed that at all? Like trombone players? - I love trombone players. My husband plays the trombone. His parents are in their 80s and they met in the trombone section in eighth grade. And we have a neighbor who we recently became friends with. Hi, John good. And he is so sweet and nice. And of course, he's a trombone player. You know, so I apparently have an affinity for them. Amy, how many languages do you speak at this point? Well, I dream in Italian. So I'd say that I speak it pretty well. And I do speak passable French and German and a lot of Spanish. I speak like like restaurant Spanish I like to say and then I like to be polite in a lot of Asian languages but just a few words. Rose I want to say that I was when I was a child a fan of Amy and her music so I have this feeling with the different using of languages because I perché io sono molto divertente. La musica che ho scoperto, quando era un figlio, era completamente in lingua. La lavoro con Città Invisibile, Ditalo Calvino, e Amber Bacicicocco, Salvatore... Questo approccio, questo uso of the languages with the lightness, yes, without a verguenza, without a vergoña. Without shame. Yes, without shame. Yes, here's Amy. Amy having this moment thinking I have no capacity for languages. I mean, talk about a self -limiting belief that was wrong. Right? Yeah. You were wrong. It took a long time to get over it. That negative thought was completely untrue. Now you dream an Italian. Look at you. That's wonderful. But you know what I remembered later on was when I was 10 years old, there was a book fair in my elementary school and I was looking at the different books and I bought, the only book I bought was an Italian book that had the picture of La Luna. Oh, La Luna. Like, even when I was 10 years old, I was attracted to Italian. Later, I realized, oh my God, that's incredible. Amy, tell me the story of how you first came to Italy and began to learn Italian. Well, I first came to Italy playing in a group called the Tone Dogs, my trio with two basses and drums. And we had been already touring in Europe a little bit, mostly in France and Germany and for some reason a lot in Central Europe and Eastern Europe. And then finally this postman from Mont Falcone said, "I am Julio." And he sent a fax to my day job at Muzak. I quickly grabbed it so no one could see. And he's like, "I am a postman in Italy, and I invite you to a festival in a castle in Novogorica, you know, Nuova Gorica, and right on the Slovenian border. So for the first time, we were going to go to Italy, and we had just been kind of suffering. We're vegetarians, and it's hard to find vegetarian food in 1990 in the former Eastern Bloc, right? And the coffee was terrible and everyone was kind of depressed. And, you know, we came to Italy, and here's Tulio, he brought us to lunch and the sun was shining and the sea was shining and the atmosphere was beautiful and the food was amazing and the coffee was incredible. And everyone was laughing. It was just like this entering heaven. I was like, what is this place? I've never been to Italy and here, I just felt this sense of being alive. And so I wanted to know what people were laughing at, you know, what was this sense of humor, you know, that was so attractive to me. And so I began to study the language and I discovered that I share the same very dark sense of humor, which is that we try to control things, maybe, but inevitably things go wrong and ultimately we don't have control over everything. And so what do you do? You have to laugh. You have to just let go and just be and move forward and flow. And so I realized this is exactly my nature is this this kind of cultural attitude of You know that you look at other cultures like for example in Germany things are so well organized and everything is precise and The most common word that this is something that really was an insight for me Like the first word I recognized in German was again now and so I was like what I heard everyone's again now now. And people were so excited when they would say this word, get out. And I said, what does it mean? I said, well, it means exactly. That's so perfect. That's so perfect for German, like it reflects the German culture and the end this dedication to technique and an order and all those things that they you find in. So in Italian culture, I don't know what the I actually did a survey and someone said, "Well, you know, I think Magadi could be the most common word." And that's something like one hopes, if only, you know, or hopefully, you know, right? Magadi, right? And so it says, "You dream." You're like, "I have this vision and maybe it'll happen." Most likely not, but, you know, with any luck, we'll have dinner tonight, you know? I love this. You know, this makes, I completely relate. Obviously, I'm now very devoted to my own Italian -inspired project. This makes me think of one of my favorite Italian sayings that I use all the time, especially when I'm traveling and things go wrong, which is, "Una Gatta Fretolosa, Fa 'i Gattini Chechi." So the stressed cat gives birth to blind kittens. And I know it's sad, but the funny thing about it. It's sad, but it's dark, but it's funny. And I've heard it in several different dialects. Actually, at this point, it's a little mini, mini collection in my lexicon of, of Moto G. Deer Day. And it, what I like about it is I actually think I misunderstood it a little bit. Because I think it would just translate to haste makes waste, we say in English, if you hurry, if you hurry, you know, the result is not good. But I just used it more widely to connect to this aspect of Italian character like you were describing. It's just like, you know, and it's not that Italians don't get stressed out in the mad, they do, just whoom, you know, red face, steam blowing out the ears, and then everything's fine. You know, there's this release of the stress, but as far as, you know, and generally when things go wrong, you can't get too upset. It's not gonna help. And you know, when I'm missing a plane or something, especially when I'm traveling to or from Italy, I try to get into that mindset and just like, you know, and I got to Fratulosa, it's like, don't, it's not going to help. You could get really upset, but it's not going to help. Let me ask this question. As you move from culture to culture with each of these languages in which you're composing, are there kind of windows into the soul of a certain locality. >> Okay. For example, there is this song in the album "Scramble" and the name is Yenji. And Yenji is the spirit of the forest for the pygmy people, Aka. And the song speaks about crisis, as many songs, as many compositions. And at the end, there is this long, long chorus, chorus, chorus in Pygmy. So I studied for a few months the ethnographic dictionary from French to Pygmy, to looking for some little words, for words, to write this a choice, okay, choir. And also there is, I want to say this, there is a political song also because the "Vuvvvvvfe" is the world, what's it called? - World Wildlife Fund. - Yes, push out the pygmy people from the forest to protect the nature, try to protect the nature and the forest, they push out the pygmy people. And to me, this is a very heavy, very heavy. And so we use this song to speak about pygmies. Yes, we use the music in a political way, but it's a spiritual song also. But it's in Spanish and pygmies. It's in two languages. Arriba y abajo y a tu lado, se acerca y está allá, desapareces. Ella no crea fácil, total cuando se va de ti. Vuelves, viene y va Un juego agradable, un infantil juego Proceso simple que escuchar, pararse y observar Hueve más alegre Bien y va Viene y va, marear, que y va, me alejan. (upbeat music) This is so marvelous and interesting and it also ties into a lot of what this project is about because the connections that I'm making between local drinks and local language, when I realized that I wanted to bring them together, it wasn't just, "Oh, I like both of these things. I'll make a show about them." I was really beginning to see, especially in Italy, where there are so many different indigenous grape varieties, hundreds of them, and also such an amazing diversity of local languages. I saw these connections a lot of times in preservation efforts, right, with grapes that are going to go extinct because they became less popular and everyone pulled them up to plant Merlot. And then the same thing happens, you know, with a lot of political connections, usually with dialect, you know, people are assimilating into a different culture. And they're, you know, the children, you know, they're told not to learn the parent's language in immigration scenarios. Or, you or certainly there are many examples through history where people's dialects are suppressed for many different political reasons or to lose a plant, a whole history of winemaking because of the vagaries of whatever. There's another song I really love because it uses more than one language. If you don't mind me playing lots of your music on the show so that people can hear it, I particularly love nonce niente da lavare, and I wonder if you could talk to me a little bit the story of the song. Now this song, yes, was Monique Mizrahi wrote the words of this song and started from a family, problem in my family, but is a metaphor about the world that is very, very, very dirty. - Corrupt. - Corrupt. Yes, but at the end, speaks about cigarettes. - That's an, of course, non -Chinese, non -Chinese, it means there's nothing to wash. - Non -Chinese, it means there's nothing to wash. - Everything's clean, nothing to wash. - Everything's fine, nothing to see here. (upbeat music) musique Mais c 'est important de le voir quand j 'en manue ou quand je vois beaucoup d 'écoute de gêne Mais essayez, mais ce n 'est pas possible Qu 'est -ce que je fais sur mon cigarette? musique Voi ne compri Non c 'è niente da lavare It's very ironic you know so what Amy what's next for you can you tell us a little bit about your maybe your your latest album? Well the the newest exciting thing is that I recently was in Rome working with O on their third album and I'm really excited because we're almost finished mixing it and I'm going to be putting it out on my record label in collaboration with a fantastic label from Rome "Volderoll Records" Marco Contini and so This is super exciting because, again, Ercilia, I have to say, is my very favorite composer in the entire world. What she does, I'm serious, so serious. So she reaches this level of beauty, playfulness, depth, political, relativity, everything. I mean, there's so many levels of this music that just resonate deeply with me and have for a long time so I am really thrilled to be putting out this record it'll be at least on my end it will be digitally available on the band camp through the O site and also through spute music and so I look forward to promoting it. Do we have a title? Maybe you say the uranio maybe. Uranio. You maybe uranio uranio uranio yeah yeah yeah yeah that's true that's right okay so it might be called uranium um uranium because nato has a huge military base in sardinia and there's awful awful um with a lot of nuclear fallout i mean they're just doing war games all the time and the local population is starting to get sick. Will we ever learn? And Torio also Torio. Yes, also from Metallipesanti, heavy metals. Yeah, heavy metals. Yeah, yeah, radioactive metals from the army, army, US army also a lot, but also German and Israel, army are two times a here are there and they are doing war games in the water and there in the ground. Speaking of language, what a horrible phrase, war games, right, yeah, right. So I want to make sure to let our listeners know how to purchase OU's recordings at oumusic bancamp .com. Amy Denio is also on Bancamp. Amy Denio .Bancamp .com. You can find out more about her work at AmyDenio .me and more about Ercilia's projects at ErciliaProsperi .com. I'll include all these links in the notes for the show. Now, as I was recording the Italian language trailer for the podcast, it was very stiff and slow because I was trying so hard to be correct and I listened back to it, just sounded terrible. I recorded it again and it sounded great and I was trying to figure out what had changed besides having a chance to practice a little bit and I realized I was moving my hands and I was making this these gestures and I thought I had this revelation actually that the reason the Italian speakers, you can't pronounce it Without making some of those movements, it's so beautiful to me, so I felt very Italian in this moment. But I also, I put something in there which was, I was saying in Italian, you might be, I really do live in New York. You might be hearing my neighbor upstairs playing the saxophone. Now, I took it out because the recording was great and you couldn't hear in the background music. But I have this little clip of me saying in Italian, you know I live in New York because you can hear my upstairs neighbor playing the saxophone. And I kind of, I didn't have time, but I wanted to send it before this interview. I wondered if that little audio clip might spark some composition. So I was wondering if I could commission a short compositional positional idea around this little clip of sound. Yes, so in music, I just, you know, mother was the answer. No, no, no, no. Dopa, dopa. That's it. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. Thanks for your time. Yeah. I hope to see you soon. You are on there. Sure enough, a few weeks later, after requesting this commission from Air Celia, I was on a plane in Milan, and I received an email just before the plane took off, which was the song that you're about to hear, a little piece that Ursula composed just for us here at Moto di Berre, with the audio from the outtake from the Italian trailer. This podcast, if you hadn't quite realized, is available also in Italian. You can listen to it in English and Italian. It's called Moto di Berre Italiano. It's a separate podcast. You can find it wherever you listen to podcasts. If you speak Italian, if you want to speak Italian, you can listen to the episodes back to back. I have the same guests. Usually they're not an exact direct translation unless the person isn't bilingual in these two languages. In that case, I translate the episode and recreate those interviews with a voice actor. but in any case, it might be a fun language learning tool. So if you're interested, if you're an English speaker who's interested in learning Italian, you can check that podcast out. And so here's a little lesson for you right now, the text of the song that you're about to hear without further ado, composed by Ursulia. The meaning in English is I really do live in New York. Perhaps you can hear my upstairs neighbor who plays the saxophone. Vivo davvero a New York. For se puoi sentire il mio vicino di sopra. Che suona il saxofono. Vivo davvero a New York. Vivo davvero a New York. Vivo davvero [MUSIC] [FOREIGN] Is suana is suana is suana is suana, is suana is suana I really hope that you enjoyed this interview with OU. I hope you go to OUMusic .bancant .com and buy all of their records, every song is a completely new adventure. Thank you so much for listening. And wherever you go, whatever you like to drink, always remember to enjoy your life and to never stop learning. Follow MotoDBerry on YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok for even more unique and encouraging drinks and language content. If you'd love for the show to continue and grow, support Motodiberia on Patreon and unlock bonus episodes. Find out more at Motodiberia .com, where you can also read the blog. Music for the podcast was composed by Ercilia Prosperi and performed by the band OU. You can purchase their recordings at oumusic .vancamp .com Que permanece dejándose llevar Un otro, se engañando Se dejan separarse mismo  

Music composed by Ersilia Prosperi for the band Ou: www.oumusic.bandcamp.com

Produced, recorded and edited by Rose Thomas Bannister

Audio assistance by Steve Silverstein