A Fake Musical Autobiography

During the 2022 spring Music History class, we have to write an imaginary autobiography to show that we understand part of the study materials. So I wrote a fake scenario that weaves the Huns and the Francophones together. Writing imaginary fake scenarios was fun, which I am relatively good at, and I also encrypted some of the real stuffs there. Here we go!

A Fake Musical Autobiography.

The Fake Scenario happened in the 14th century.

My name was William Nardasdy, one of the Huns from the Far East, then ended up in the Kingdom of Hungary. Pope Sylvester II of the Franks baptized 108 tribes of Magyars which led Hungary into a Christian kingdom, followed by Francophones and Germanophones who migrated to the Kingdom of Hungary. A new culture zone was born in the middle ages. That’s how my great-grandfather moved to France, and I became a French composer who witnessed musical style changes through the early 14th century.

Music has always been essential to my life because the steppe communities have been musically expressive since birth. We have many types of musical forms, musical instruments from long tones to double beats Steppe chanting. We traveled from the Far East to the Far West. We absorbed many different musical styles and modified many musical instruments such as the string instrument Morin Khuur, bagpipes, and most importantly, cimbalom, a Hungarian national percussion instrument modified from the eastern and the western instruments. However, we are not good at musical notation or analysis skills. Thus our music mostly didn’t survive other than community elders who were skillful instrumentalists, and they frequently played for us by ear while we sat in a circle.

I love France so far since there are so many educated people from all over the world to study music, art, and science. That’s how I got the education in Burgundian schools. Unfortunately, I was born at a time when the black death broke out, and many people died. Fortunately, I am one of the survivors and continue to live to this day while studying music. I lived in a monastery where there were many friendly monks there. I learned old Gregorian chant with them, and I learned basic notations. However, there have been political shifts inside out since the break out of the pandemic. New protesting forms of music have been circling for quite a while. I was so interested in this kind of music.

I learned that Roman de Fauvel, a French allegorical verse full of satirical romance bend, was produced. Gervais du Bus was one of the leading figures of this collection. The poem was about a foolish horse called Fauvel. The book criticizes clergy and society in a satirical way. I am interested in this type of art, so I started to adopt this musical form in my composition. Then I knew Guillaume de Machaut through an event. Interestingly, my birth name in the Steppe language, or ancient Hunic language, starts with G, and my father was an Orthodox convert, so my Orthodox name was Gavrill. Therefore I adopted my new French name Guillaume to preserve the letter G. When people called Guillaume de Machaut, I thought they called me. That’s when Guillaume smiled at me, and we became friends. I learned a lot from Guillaume de Machaut. Guillaume’s styles have helped me develop my music composition style. I also learned a new musical style called Ars Nova. It is interesting how musical styles changed so fast in just decades. Rhythmic modes are no longer limited as more independent rhythmic developments emerge. New techniques such as isorhythm and isorhythmic motet suddenly became the latest trends. You can repeat a pattern and make the music sounds so harmonic while changing the original style of the music. I composed a whole book on this new kind of music. However, I preserved some of the old Gregorian chant technics while adopting this new way of writing music. The new motet helped me develop my ideas and kept my musical motifs safe in case I forgot them the next day. Those color bars are exciting and unique, and it also helps with anti-depression.

My music portrayed all prospects of life—the courts, the public places, and the daily life of ordinary folks. At the time, a great schism was going on, and many people felt frustrated for many reasons. Musical secularism was growing. Meanwhile, traditionalism is also strong in the Church. My music occasionally received hate comments. I enjoyed those new musical styles and the freedom of expressing music without worrying about Church judgments. However, I also felt nostalgic about the old musical forms since I grew up in religious communities where I always heard music from traditional Monks in France. I had always listened to the stories of how great grandfathers became Christians from Shamans and how we exchanged ideas with progressive Turkic Muslims when slightly more progressive Steppe Turkic Muslims liberated old corrupted caliphates. Despite the disfavouring views on the Turks and the Huns at the time, deep down I know the Steppe communities are progressing in building bridges between the new and the old worlds. The new generation of revolutionists will eventually tear down the ignorance of the Great Wall again, and reasoning will liberate people’s minds from the cult of tyrannies. Music and art became effective tools for such enlightenment causes. Also, I have met many great monks fighting for similar causes. So, I guess I will have to stay neutral and promote a crypto style of Ars Nova, secularism with a sacred heart. My music compositions shall one day build bridges between genuinely religious communities and the new moderate libertines!