Storytelling

Once upon a time, songs were meant to tell stories. Rarely are they of this nature now. To understand better what was behind all this, I suggest that we take a trip back in time to where it all started. (Don’t ask me why I’m into history these days, I’ve no idea.)

Note: If you don’t want to read through this column, I suggest you read the last paragraph. It has nothing to do with Storytelling, but is very important.

From the Dawn of Humanity

The first inklings toward music were probably when some guy, in the early days of societal living, long before speech came about, banged a bone or a stick on a dead tree trunk. Drums were at the beginning of it all. Which is not surprising.

The human machine has all sorts of natural rhythms. From heartbeat to internal clock, not much is random. So creating artificial rhythms was a… natural thing to do.

From the drums came dancing. According to Desmond Morris, in his well-done series The Human Animal, dancing was done for sexual reasons. Apparently, only the men would dance. And the purpose was to show off their bodies and athletic abilities. This way, they could show the women that they made good progenitors.

By going into any club and watching people dance, this makes too much sense!

Stringed Instruments and Woodwinds

These were the next in line. Woodwinds probably came into being after some people noticed the sound the wind did by blowing into hollow reeds.

Animal gut was dried and stringed to serve as string. Someone probably noticed that by twanging these, they could make nice sounds. The lyre was born. It’s interesting to note that bows also use gut for the string, but they came into being only several thousand years later…

The First Songs

It’s obviously impossible to know what these are as they probably predate the invention of writing. But we can imagine some musicians playing drums, woodwinds and lyres getting together and jamming. But that probably never happened.

Music was more of a one person thing and it had reasons beyond art.

It’s likely that the Sumerians and the ancient Egyptians had musicians and songwriters, but no records remain of them.

For the first records, we must go to the Classical Greeks.

The Minstrels

The Greeks had a different background than the rest of the Western Europeans. For one thing, they arrived in Europe several thousand years later. And no-one knows for sure where they came from. However, they did have a society that was different than the rest of Europeans. They were a largely patriarchal society, very chauvinistic. Women didn’t serve much use to them except for procreation.

As the Romans were largely evolved from the Greeks and that they dominated a large part of the world, this is where sexism really evolved and found its way even in today’s society.

Yet, we would not be where we are today without them. (Do not read that last line as an approval of sexism!)

What was different in Greek society than in Egyptian and Sumerian societies is that the Greeks had a whole bunch of cities and these were all independent, non-aligned states. Usually they fought each other while learning from each other. On only two occasions did the City-states ally against a common foe. Once was under Alexander the Great. The other, we’ll talk about in a few moments.

Historians often talk about Minstrels, but they tend to not properly explain what they were. Minstrels were men (not women, of course), who traveled from city to city bringing news from the previous cities they’d been too, and singing stories. More than just artists, they were also the first journalists.

The arrival of a minstrel was always a great event. Minstrels were welcome everywhere and were off-limits to thieves. They never carried anything of value anyway as they were poor. (Well, they were musicians…) Their instrument was the Kithara. A lot of Historians get a bit confused with this instrument. It has, very often, and very mistakenly, been called the first guitar.

The Kithara is a stringed instrument, but more like the lyre. Historians usually make the mistake solely on the resemblance between the words Kithara and guitar. The guitar was invented in France and is a descendant of the lute and the Vihuela.

Of the Minstrels, one stands out. Well, maybe. I’m talking about Homer (not Simpson). Homer, according to the legend, was an old blind Minstrel who traveled with a scribe. (Braile not having been conceived of, someone had to write what he said…)

Several stories have been attributed to him. Among them, the Homeric Hymns. Although it’s now known that these are a compilation of stories from several Minstrels. What we’re interested in now is The Iliad and Odyssey.

A word of caution: If you’ve seen these in Television versions, disconnect with what they showed. The last version of The Odyssey in particular… Only 20 minutes were spent on The Iliad and they were nowhere near the actual story.

Now these two books are particularly important in many ways. Forget about the Bible being the all-time bestseller, that’s propaganda. These two books, which predate the Bible by several centuries, are the most-read books of all time.

If you’ve read them, have you ever realized that these books are actually song lyrics? Tabbing, yes tabbing, was the method of writing down notes at the time. However, these tabs were only used by musicians. And that’s when they bothered to write them. Therefore, only the lyrics to the songs remain.

It’s more than likely that the two stories are also a combination of the work of several Minstrels. But until someone comes up with a time machine, we’ll never know.

The Iliad is the story of the battle of Troy. Briefly, Helen, the most beautiful woman in the world (the world meaning Greece…), had to choose a husband. All the kings and princes in the land wanted her. So they got together and agreed that they would let her chose who she wanted and that they would respect her choice. Also, the pact included a clause where, if anyone ever took her away from her chosen one, they would all ally and bring her back.

She chose Menelaos, King of Sparta and they lived happily for a while. A beauty contest among the gods resulted in a human being chosen as a judge. They chose a shepherd by the name of Paris. He chose Aphrodite, goddess of love, as she bribed him by offering that the most beautiful woman in the world would be his.

Paris was then told about the truth of his birth. This part is very common in Greek mythology and plays. An Oracle (fortune-teller) told Priam, King of Troy, that his newborn son would bring the downfall of the city, so Priam ordered that he be killed.

The method was to place the baby in a sac and throw him off a cliff onto some rocks.

The mother, not wanting her son dead, had the baby, in the sac, replaced with a rock. Of course, the father (always a King) never notices… I guess this says a lot about what people thought of royalty… Then the child is given away to some shepherds and asked that he be raised as one of their own.

As an adult, the victim always comes back and is usually welcomed by a father in tears realizing how happy he is that his son is alive. Of course, the son always brings misfortune…

In Paris’ case, he was made an Ambassador and immediately set sail for Sparta. There he sought Helen who, under Aphrodite’s spell (hey, it wasn’t her fault…) became madly in love with him and they set sail in the night back to Troy.

True to their pact, the Greeks ally and lay siege to Troy. Historically, this did happen. The siege lasts for ten years. The stories about the combat are all fascinating. Suffice it to say that at the end of the ten years, as the Greeks just want to go home, a minor prince who’s rather lazy and physically inferior to most soldiers, but quite witty, comes up with a plan. Armand Assante should not have been chosen to play an accurate Odysseus (no reflection on his acting abilities, but only on his physique), the role should have been given to an actor with a build like Alexander Siddig (Deep Space Nine’s Doctor Bashir): lanky. Odysseus never uses brawn to help him out, he always uses brains.

The Greeks pretend to leave. They’ve left behind a huge wooden horse on wheels in which this prince, Odysseus (also called Ulysses), and a few other soldiers are hidden. A note is pinned to it saying: “A gift to the victors”. The horse is rolled inside the city.

The Trojans (honestly, that’s what they’re called) spend the day and the night partying. Once everybody is passed-out, Odysseus and his men come out of the horse, kill the few sentries and open the doors to the city. The Greek army had been approaching silently all this time.

The city is destroyed and only the old, the women and the children are spared. And Aeneas. He was also a prince. During the fight, he ran into a burning house to save an old man. The Greeks were so impressed that they let him live. They shoved him on a ship with the other survivors and set him off.

Now you know the origin of the saying: “Beware of Greeks bearing gifts”.

According to Roman mythology, Aeneas’ ship settled in Italy. Aeneas fathered twins, Remus and Romulus, who founded Rome. The Romans conquered the Greeks, so in the end, the Trojans actually won.

Anyway, this is just a brief resumé of the story. It’s well-worth reading. As is the Odyssey. This one is about Odysseus’ seven year trip back home. An adventure book.

As you can see these two songs, the first ones we know of, are all about storytelling. Plus, the Iliad is a love story.

These two books also gave birth to poetry. Not everyone realized that these stories were songs, so poetry came out of it. Therefore, poetry is derived from song lyrics. Not the other way around. So if you don’t want to use rhyme in your lyrics, don’t.

Through the Centuries

Minstrels continued to exist over the centuries. Communications were much less than instantaneous, therefore, Minstrels had their use. Instruments changed, the Kithara was now replaced by the lute, but essentially, Minstrels did the same thing.

Then the Renaissance came. Things changed. Communications were becoming more and more rapid, new instruments were invented.

Minstrels were disappearing and being gradually replaced by bands who got together at parties for dancing. And some who toured much in the same way as bands do today, and as the Minstrels used to do. Only they did it to play their material.

Classical music also came about during this time period.

Instant Communications

This was a real time of change. Storytelling was really not necessary anymore. That’s when lyrics started becoming different. Instead of telling stories, lyricists would tell of a moment. Or they would tell a story, but without embellishing it as the Minstrels did.

Unfortunately, today this is still what most lyricists do. Modern examples of storytelling are rare. Chris De Burgh used to excel at storytelling. His earlier albums, Spanish Train & Other Stories, Crusader, etc, are filled with interesting stories. Nowadays, he does very little of that.

Genesis also did quite a lot of storytelling. The Fountain of Salmacis from their album Nursery Cryme is a good example. As is the whole The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway album. But they couldn’t do it without Peter Gabriel. Anyway, it wouldn’t have fitted too well in Phil Collins’ view of “art”. (Gabriel once said in an interview that if they had known at the time what Phil Collins was to become, Genesis would have had another drummer…)

Get to the Point, Already

So, once again, I write several pages and just go on and on and by now you might be wondering what the point is…

To explain all the intricacies of Storytelling, it’s important to know the background. I apologize to those of you who hate serials, but I really wanted to explore the background. Next week we’ll look at the elements of Storytelling and at how to embellish a story.

Meanwhile, I suggest you read the Iliad. It’s also available in a novelized version which has all the important details. Although this version starts at the beginning of the story while the Iliad starts towards the end and goes back in time, steadily before coming back to finish. This version is simply called The Trojan War and you should be able to find it in any library or book store. And it’s only about 200 pages long rather than the 600 of the Iliad. Yet the Iliad is better.

It would also be a good idea to listen and to study songs like the ones I mentioned. If you don’t have the albums, or don’t know anyone who does, you can probably find a lot of these on Napster.

Finally, and thanks to Dan Lasley for pointing this out to me, as I was completely unaware. If you’re American, it’s imperative that you visit this link. If you aren’t American, I strongly suggest you have a look anyway. If it happened there, it will probably happen elsewhere. More about the Major Labels taking over the art. More to rant about… Next week!