language

B. posted a poem, I think a poem, in Vietnamese. I wish I could read it.

I used B.'s voice, speaking Vietnamese, in a piece, part of my series of Flea Tales. Check it out.

As a musician I have always been fascinated with the sound of different languages. As a kid I would pretend I could speak languages that I only recognized as sounds, the words empty of meaning. Vietnamese is unusual in that it seems to lack hard consonants, and this gives it a softness and gentleness, similar in feel to the kind of Portuguese that is spoken in Rio de Janiero (although one would never confuse the two).