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NPR Plus is a new way to support

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at plus.npr.org.

0:20

How do you take something old from your past

0:23

and make it something new while staying true

0:25

to the original and to yourself?

0:29

I'm Gregory Warner, host and creator of

0:31

the podcast Rough Translation. We

0:33

just wrapped up our season, Love Commandos,

0:36

and as you may know, I am now looking for a new home

0:38

for Rough Translation, the show that's very

0:40

close to my heart.

0:42

So I've been thinking a lot about what I've done with the show that

0:44

I want to stay true to, and also

0:46

how I might change the show to fit a changing world.

0:50

That's why I'm so excited to bring you this bonus

0:52

episode, which is all about those questions

0:55

seen through the lens of music.

0:57

Because if you like podcasts, you

0:59

probably have thoughts about podcast music. Music

1:02

sets the stage for the stories we're about to hear.

1:05

It stops us in our tracks or sets

1:07

us off on a journey.

1:08

For example, you might recognize this

1:10

tune.

1:13

It was composed for Rough Translation by

1:16

John Ellis, the jazz clarinetist and

1:18

saxophonist. I love so much

1:20

about this tune, especially the way

1:22

each instrument sort of arrives

1:25

and announces itself and then joins the ensemble,

1:27

makes it something new.

1:33

It seems to fit the theme of Rough Translation,

1:35

which is about how familiar conversations

1:38

change when they enter unfamiliar territory.

1:41

For the last six years, that tune has been the

1:43

go-to theme of Rough Translation.

1:46

But for this season, for Love Commandos,

1:49

we decided to do something different. We put out

1:51

a tweet asking new composers

1:53

to reimagine that theme.

2:01

And we ended up working with Amira Gil and

2:03

Vasudhara Gupta. It goes by Vasudh.

2:09

I love this theme too. I love it

2:11

on its own. I love telling stories

2:13

against it. I mean, even now I've just

2:16

got to want to stop. I want to keep telling you stories

2:18

when I hear this music. And actually

2:21

today's conversation showed me why

2:23

I love telling stories against this theme so much. Turns

2:26

out that was all very much by

2:28

design. We're

2:31

going to get to that and to so much more in

2:33

this conversation. But first, let me just ask

2:35

our composers, John, Amira

2:37

and Vasudhara, to introduce yourself

2:40

and tell me where you're joining from.

2:42

I'm Amira Gil and

2:44

I am in New Delhi and it is an amazing 10.50

2:48

at night for me here. So I'm

2:50

the only one who's seeing darkness

2:53

outside. But I'm really happy to be

2:55

here.

2:57

I'm Vasudhara Gupta. He can call me Vasudhara.

2:59

I'm currently in Seattle, Washington. And

3:02

it's also darkness because I'm in a closed

3:04

studio space. I'm

3:07

John Ellis. I'm in the East Village,

3:09

New York City. It's

3:11

overcast, but it's very

3:14

much daytime. Great. Well, John,

3:16

let's just start right away with you. I want to take you back

3:19

to a scene that I remember at the original

3:21

recording of the

3:22

rough translation theme. So

3:25

I got to be there. I got to watch you do your thing.

3:27

You were there with a bunch of musicians. And

3:30

I have this memory of that someone brought their vibes

3:32

from home, but they didn't fit in the car.

3:35

So they had to rent a van because

3:38

it was such a huge instrument. We

3:42

tried to pull out all the stops for you. I think that was probably the marimba.

3:46

Oh, okay. Sorry. I

3:48

mean, what I remember is that it was a bit of a leap of

3:50

faith for you because we were

3:52

doing it live. We were doing it as live

3:55

musicians. And so you

3:57

were very anxious to sort of hear in advance what it was going to

3:59

be like. sound like and I had to kind of constantly

4:02

say, well, you got to trust me on this, we'll make

4:05

something that you like, which I could feel

4:08

your hesitancy and your anxiousness. So I was

4:10

trying to sort of overshoot and give you like as many

4:12

options as possible. But

4:15

we were looking for things that had a lot of mood and

4:17

my friend was playing marimba and vibes

4:20

and we had like a full-size concert in marimba.

4:22

So yeah, I think that was a bit challenging to figure out how to get all

4:24

that set up. Well, the live

4:26

instruments thing, we had a lot of discussions about

4:29

that, why we wanted to use live instruments, even

4:31

though digital is more

4:33

of the podcast norm, it's more

4:35

predictable, it's cheaper. We went

4:37

with live instruments for the human element,

4:39

I remember. That was part of the

4:42

spirit of the show. So we had a lot of discussions

4:44

about accordion or not accordion. I remember that.

4:46

I was pro accordion for sure. I am an accordion

4:49

player. Some folks may know that. And so

4:51

I'm curious, all those discussions that we

4:53

had about the spirit of the show and then

4:56

for you translating the show, which did

4:58

not have a single episode at that time. I mean, it

5:00

was a new podcast. What

5:02

was your

5:02

process of working with our ideas about

5:05

the show and translating that into a

5:07

theme, into a composition? Well,

5:10

you know, that was challenging.

5:12

There was you, there was my friend Mary Ann who had brought

5:14

me to you. Mary Ann McCune,

5:17

she was our founding editor. Right, right.

5:20

You had some kind of demo thing that you played for me that

5:22

was something that you liked, that you had gravitated

5:24

to, that was a strong kind of bass hook in

5:27

it.

5:27

I think it was Estown, which is

5:29

based in the south. There was a real

5:31

sense of place in the music.

5:41

So in creating the theme, did you

5:43

have in mind anything that was part

5:45

of the theme of the show that we were talking

5:47

about, like

5:48

the idea of translation or idea

5:50

of travel crossing borders?

5:52

Was that part of it or was that really not your process? You

5:55

know, the music that I make, especially with live instruments, there's

5:58

always like a hybrid aspect. it.

6:00

You know, these instruments have different, they come

6:02

from different countries, they have different histories. I mean,

6:04

accordion is a, that's one of the reasons we talked

6:06

about it so much. It's an instrument that has found itself

6:09

into folk musics of many different

6:11

cultures. So there's the music

6:13

itself, and then there's the story that we tell

6:15

about the music. And sometimes

6:18

we tell the story about the music often

6:20

enough that that's really mostly what we are

6:23

remembering. But the music

6:25

is also very important, just the music itself. And

6:27

I felt like if I gave you enough music to

6:29

hang your stories on,

6:32

you could make the music be what you felt

6:34

like it needed to be, if that makes sense. So

6:36

let me bring in Amira and Vasu into

6:38

this discussion because you guys have been

6:41

living with John's music for a little stretch. But

6:43

I also just want to talk about your careers.

6:45

Amira, you're a vocalist and songwriter.

6:48

Vasu, you're a producer, vocalist and

6:51

sound designer, both born

6:53

in India, Vasu from

6:55

Kolkata and Amira from Delhi. And

6:58

I'm just kind of curious, tell me about

7:00

your music individually, how you

7:02

met,

7:03

how, why you decided to collaborate

7:05

on this project. So I,

7:08

you know, I started doing music when I

7:10

was 15, performing a lot, doing original

7:12

music in English. And it

7:15

was all performance space that I wanted to go and

7:17

educate myself. And so I applied

7:20

to Berkeley in Boston. And

7:22

at Berkeley, I met my

7:25

best friend Vasu. We

7:28

hadn't ever obviously connected in India, but we

7:30

completely hit it off when we came to Boston.

7:32

We were very similar, very different in a lot of ways,

7:35

became roommates.

7:36

And then again, journeys took us in separate

7:38

ways. I sing. So

7:41

I wanted to explore different kinds of music and

7:43

like, started participating

7:45

in different ensembles, Greek, Turkish

7:48

music, Bulgarian, Indian ensemble.

7:50

And so that folk element, Indian element

7:52

was really like flourishing. And

7:55

so yeah, Vasu maybe take that away and then

7:57

take us to the next stage of the story. So how did you? Why

8:00

did you guys want to take on this project? Yeah,

8:03

sure. So my musical

8:05

journey, I come from a world of

8:07

music, the whole family is like they

8:09

love listening to all sorts of music. So I

8:11

grew up with Indian classical, I

8:13

grew up with Brian Adams, I grew up with Beatles,

8:16

I grew up with like Paul Moria and French

8:18

music, all sorts of weird things at

8:21

that age. And then I

8:23

met Amira Farzowat to 2014.

8:28

I also went to Berkeley College of music and I

8:30

met her there. I then

8:33

started just dwelling into

8:35

this world of music. I never knew there was so

8:37

much in it. That got me into

8:40

electronic music and composition. I found myself

8:42

getting really interested in that

8:44

space. Now I do UX sound design

8:47

full-time, and then I do my own music on the site. But

8:50

as Mira said, growing up in India, you can't

8:52

ignore the music there. There's

8:54

music everywhere. There's folk music, every

8:56

state has their own folk music sort of.

8:59

There's Bollywood music or film music.

9:01

It's just present in your everyday

9:03

life. And when you're working on projects like these,

9:07

we really hone into that part of us.

9:09

And then there's also this aspect that we're

9:12

modern age women of 2023 who

9:14

grew up in India, but

9:17

were educated in the US, but have

9:19

very strong roots there. I live

9:21

in Seattle now, but they're very strong

9:23

roots for both of us in India.

9:26

And we're at this cusp where we respect

9:29

our roots and our tradition

9:32

and classical music, but also totally

9:35

are open to everything else. We

9:38

try to incorporate all our other inspirations

9:40

from all parts of the world. And this is what

9:42

brings us here.

9:45

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There

10:23

was so much that jumped out to us about

10:26

your initial ideas, your initial

10:29

themes, partly to do with

10:32

this question that we're always talking about on the show,

10:34

which is how

10:35

much does something have a sense of place

10:37

and how much does it feel

10:39

stereotypically of that place? You

10:41

know, if we do a story about Japan,

10:44

say, we're not going to score that

10:46

with all Japanese music and certainly in the

10:49

Love Commandos,

10:50

it's not scored through and through with Indian

10:52

music that there's the theme. In fact,

10:54

John, even some of your music contains

10:57

a lot of bells and we've done stories from

10:59

China and we've had to actually mute the bells because we think, oh

11:01

no, no, no, it's a little too on

11:03

the nose, a little, you know, but at the

11:05

same time, we're a show that wants to take you places.

11:07

Like literally that is the definition of the show,

11:10

to take you on a journey. I'm

11:12

curious what all of you think about that

11:14

debate between that sense of

11:16

place in music and what your advice

11:19

is for, you know, other

11:20

musicians, maybe other podcasters who

11:22

are trying to commission work like

11:25

this. I think it

11:27

all ultimately serves the story.

11:29

That's why we're all here. We're

11:31

telling some sort of a story. Gregory, you're

11:33

telling a story with

11:34

voice and your words and your

11:36

phrasing. John is telling his story with

11:39

his performances or his music and his

11:41

instrument. We're all telling our own stories

11:44

some way. And if the

11:46

story wants bells, then it

11:48

wants bells. More cowbell. I

11:51

think that's how

11:53

I look at it. You zoom out and you

11:55

see the bigger picture. What are you

11:57

serving? What's the purpose and the intention?

11:59

of this and then you go from there. As

12:03

you thought about your references

12:06

and your own roots, both

12:09

in Hindustani classical music, the

12:11

film scores you've grown up with, did

12:14

you think about the fact that you were

12:16

then translating this or that

12:18

it was going to be heard by an audience

12:21

who are basically like, oh, this is an Indian

12:23

version of the rough translation theme.

12:26

Was that in any kind of thought for

12:28

you or a burden for you or thinking, okay, we

12:30

do want to use this or this is too

12:33

obvious in terms of instrumentation

12:36

or this is actually where we want to be. The

12:38

question of representation, did it come up at

12:40

all? It definitely did. And

12:42

we thought a lot about it. I wouldn't

12:45

say feeling pressured, but we were

12:47

aware what we're representing. We've

12:49

been brought on for a reason. And

12:52

at some point, art serves a purpose,

12:54

music serves a purpose, is telling a story. And also,

12:58

like

12:58

you've got to respect where it's coming

13:00

from.

13:01

So we thought a lot about instrumentation

13:04

and which instruments to go for. For

13:06

example, when I started doodling

13:08

on this, I thought to myself,

13:10

I'm not even going to go to my

13:12

sitar patch because that's just too cliche. Everybody's

13:15

on an upper pitch. And it's a very

13:17

common Indian instrument you hear in the Western world.

13:20

So I was like, why don't we try something different?

13:22

So we use Santur ultimately

13:24

for the foundation of this piece, which

13:27

is another string instrument.

13:28

So you ditch the sitar and use

13:30

Santur. It's interesting. It's

13:32

like a dalcima. Yeah, exactly.

13:35

It's the Indian dalcima. But

13:37

it allowed us to form melodies

13:39

from it and arpeggiate on it and

13:42

do things that were able to represent chord

13:44

progressions for us. Then, for example,

13:46

for percussion, we use a lot of early

13:48

Indian percussions that you find in

13:51

a lot of Indian folk music. There's

13:53

a clay pot instrument. There are these bells

13:56

called gungroos. The clay pot instruments

13:58

are called ghatam.

13:59

all of these very

14:02

Indian sounds that we

14:05

really wanted to use for this because we felt we were representing

14:07

this story from there.

14:09

Can I ask a little bit about that? So those

14:12

instruments,

14:13

do they exist in your computer? Who played

14:15

them ultimately, I guess?

14:17

So the flute was

14:19

played by a friend of ours, it was recorded

14:21

live. Obviously, Amira sang

14:24

the vocals and everything else was

14:26

performed by me on the keyboards

14:28

because of

14:29

budget restraints and recording restraints

14:32

and all of that. My husband is

14:34

an Indian percussion player as well, so we

14:36

got him to record some stuff for us. But

14:38

minus the percussions, the flute and the voice, I have

14:41

like contact libraries or other libraries for that

14:43

I used and I got them into my

14:45

MIDI keyboard and I just performed

14:46

it. Play it, right. Yeah, just play

14:48

it. There's a lot of things you did with like

14:51

reverb and panning where things are moving across

14:53

the spectrum, across the field, like

14:55

very wide movement. What

14:59

was your thinking around trying to do that?

15:01

I usually love playing around

15:04

with space in my music and

15:06

for this one, I wanted

15:08

to experiment with the mix and

15:11

how you perceive it. Again,

15:13

owing to the story, so if Amira's

15:15

voice was being panned left and right and

15:18

modulated, that was because

15:20

we weren't sure where

15:22

that voice is coming from, meaning what

15:24

was happening next in the story, where is this going to go,

15:26

we don't know. So I was trying to attach all those

15:28

things to

15:30

the actual podcast in a way and how would

15:32

the podcast sound in form of

15:34

music? John, I'm

15:37

curious with your experience of listening to this, did

15:39

it feel like looking in a mirror at all

15:42

or did you mostly hear it as its own

15:44

piece?

15:45

I was almost thinking of it.

15:47

Yeah, I hear it as being really cool. I guess

15:50

I don't hear it that really as connected to

15:52

the thing that I made. I mean, I heard it as its own separate

15:55

thing.

15:55

What do you guys think? Yeah, when we

15:57

were thinking about how to approach it, Initially,

16:01

just for the sense of continuity, we

16:03

thought of doing an Indianized version

16:05

of John's theme. And then to Vasu's

16:08

point, she said, okay, if we have gotten the free

16:10

reign to explore, why don't we do that? Obviously,

16:12

we took some inspiration from John's piece

16:14

in terms of like, against space. He

16:16

had created a lot of space in terms of like, the

16:19

frequency that each instrument had taken. I don't know

16:21

if it was intentional or not, but

16:24

it just felt very clean. You know, like the

16:27

bass had this frequency range and

16:29

it was good there. We felt like

16:31

every instrument found its space and there was a lot

16:33

of dialogue between it. We took inspiration in

16:36

that sense, but not melodically or harmonically.

16:38

But a consideration was your voice,

16:41

Gregory, because, you know, I sing

16:43

and for sung voice, spoken voice to come together,

16:46

especially when they're in a similar range, because you don't

16:48

speak in a very... It's more animated,

16:51

even though it's a serious topic in a way, because

16:53

my singing voice is also in that range,

16:55

which is not hyper shrill

16:58

or not

16:59

as deep as a main range would be. So there were like

17:01

certain clashes happening there and we had

17:03

to figure out how do we approach this? What octave

17:06

do we sing it in? Then we were exploring with the kind

17:08

of sounds, I mean, we went back and forth to the extent

17:10

of, should we do...

17:13

or should we do...

17:16

Like that was making a difference. Where to have

17:19

it, you know, should we have it at the back? Should we have

17:21

it in front? And then Vasu

17:23

had said something really interesting. She said

17:25

all the time, voices served as or like

17:27

represented as something in the forefront, like an

17:29

instrument that has to have its own limelight. But

17:33

what if for this piece, we just

17:35

purely use it as a textural

17:37

sound that, you know, to have that

17:39

humanity, because

17:41

when you have voice in any piece, it

17:43

gives it a human character at the

17:45

same time, for it not to be clashing

17:48

with what you're doing or what Monsey would

17:50

be doing. So it was in the background, it was

17:52

like a floating thing that I exist

17:54

from here, but I'm not in your

17:56

face.

17:56

Which is such a big deal, or just to say that

17:59

when we're scoring... We're often wanting to

18:01

use pieces with some vocals, but it's really

18:03

difficult because the vocals in

18:05

the music conflict with the speaking

18:08

that we're doing on top of it. And

18:10

it's too bad. So it's amazing that you threaded that needle

18:12

of being able to vocalize a piece that was still gonna be

18:15

spoken over. So when you were making it, you were

18:17

imagining, and did you guys have his

18:20

voice? So during

18:22

this process of figuring out the voice,

18:24

I think Amira, you had recorded a piece

18:28

one of Gregory's podcasts, recorded

18:30

it onto her laptop, and then

18:32

put that audio file onto Logic.

18:35

And then we placed our theme track over it. And

18:38

we were trying to make- Just saying some other thing. Yeah,

18:40

and you were trying to figure out that we just wanted to

18:42

use your vocal sample and see how you speak.

18:45

And that plays such an important role in

18:48

how we treated the vocals and how we decided

18:50

it should be, and not, ah, how

18:52

we decided the vocal range. We tried

18:55

all sorts of things. I mean, we have so many versions

18:57

of this theme track with Amira singing one

18:59

octave higher, like really low, really

19:01

stretching her vocal range. But

19:04

this is the one that I think worked the

19:06

best.

19:07

I'm just selfishly curious as to what clip

19:10

of our show that you used as

19:12

the audio. It was the one from Ukraine.

19:15

The most recent one about the journey of

19:17

abortion pills to Ukraine. Yeah,

19:20

yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I was thinking of this as you

19:22

interpreting John's theme, which is what

19:24

you were doing, but you were also thinking about

19:27

the speakers that were going to be on top

19:29

of the work. So you were thinking about the person

19:31

that was not there, which is me and Mount

19:34

Tchoksi and Laura Frere.

19:35

Even the flute, because the flute had, it's

19:38

much higher in range, but it's also

19:40

set in Indian instrument. We had to figure out

19:43

how does that fit into the pocket? Like it's like

19:45

a call and response with the voice. Yeah, but

19:47

if you listen to the track, there's sort

19:50

of an A and a B section of it.

19:53

That's how I see it. They both

19:55

have the same central arpeggiation,

19:58

the harmonical bed.

19:59

but the context of

20:02

it changes. So A

20:05

is when it starts, it's just

20:07

one pad and Santur very florian,

20:11

there's a whole emotional arc, because the

20:13

story you're talking about two lovers

20:16

and they meet and they're excited. And

20:18

then they find this group,

20:21

the love commandos. This is sort

20:23

of a gray zone. I'm not sure what's happening.

20:26

Am I gonna get out of this and

20:28

win my love? And then B

20:30

comes in with the same harmonic progression,

20:34

but the context totally changes. I

20:36

introduced some really ambiguous

20:39

gray pads almost, the

20:41

vocals are more prominent, the flute comes in only

20:43

and B, like there's so many differences between

20:46

the two and those differences are because the

20:48

context of the story

20:49

changes. So how do we represent that in the music?

20:52

Well, this reminds me of some of the conversations that Jon,

20:54

you and I had where we talked about the

20:57

arc of the trajectory of the tune kind

21:00

of entering different state changes and

21:03

concrete like this is A, this is the moment

21:05

of this and then something turns, the emotion

21:08

changes, it's now becomes the B section.

21:10

Right, it's interesting to talk about what creates

21:13

difference and also what creates like this

21:15

gray zone idea is an interesting idea, but like

21:17

just choosing what the key is, is gonna

21:19

create how it feels, it's gonna affect how it feels.

21:22

So like all of those decisions make

21:24

a big impact.

21:25

Well, I'm curious with given that you guys started

21:27

with this kind of more defined version

21:30

of the assignment, like we're gonna make an Indian

21:32

version of this theme and perhaps you even have

21:34

a

21:34

version in your laptop somewhere that is that,

21:37

but as it evolved, you started borrowing

21:39

not the melody and not the harmony, but

21:42

rather things like sense of space

21:44

and dryness and other

21:47

aspects. What has this whole process taught

21:49

you about

21:50

translation

21:52

or re-imagining if we're gonna call it that? I

21:56

keep going back to individual

21:58

expressions.

21:59

And the concept of nature and

22:02

nurture, you grow up in a certain way and

22:04

you imbibe all these things unintentionally,

22:07

unknowingly. So you're inputting

22:09

all of these things. And then one

22:11

day, 10 years later, maybe when you try to output

22:14

something, it's a collaboration

22:16

of everything that you ever inputted in some

22:18

way or the other that you don't quite know.

22:21

And that's uniquely you. And

22:23

that's the translation for me. That's

22:25

the process of translation for me. When

22:29

you hear something, you absorb it. And the way that

22:31

you express, you don't sometimes

22:33

know what's going to come out, but you

22:35

trust your instinct. If it feels like you

22:37

and it feels like what you bring to the table is what's

22:40

coming out, then I think that's a

22:43

true translation, I guess. You

22:47

know, I think a lot of times with music and storytelling, it goes

22:49

back to what I always think about is

22:51

that there's the music itself, what

22:54

it actually is. And then there's the story that

22:56

we hang on it.

22:57

And the story has to do with where does it come from and who

22:59

is the person who made it. And

23:02

we will change our perception of that music

23:04

based on who we think did it. Like,

23:07

what are they like? What do we know about

23:09

them? What story are we trying to tell?

23:11

If you take a certain piece of music and you put

23:13

it behind a certain type of scene,

23:15

you

23:16

can take very happy music and put it behind a really

23:18

scary scene in a movie and suddenly it will have

23:21

a whole different sinister feeling,

23:23

right? The music, it is a thing

23:25

that exists independently, but we're storytellers,

23:27

like humans. That's what we do. We tell stories.

23:30

So we're going to change that perception of what that

23:32

is just by the story that we're telling about it. And

23:35

that's, I think, part of the translation

23:37

process of how music is used

23:40

to tell stories, how it's translated

23:42

into this storytelling.

23:45

Well, this discussion has filled me with gratitude. So

23:47

thank you, really. And I think listeners

23:50

will be grateful just to think about all the

23:52

work that was put into the music and

23:54

the themes and trusting,

23:57

as you said, that the

23:59

music changes. based on the story

24:01

told by it and over it. And so

24:03

thanks for trusting us to, you know,

24:05

tell the tell the story over it. And

24:08

I say over it, but with it. I mean, it does feel like

24:10

more of a dance. And so it's been incredible

24:12

to dance with these compositions. So thanks

24:15

so much for the for the chance to talk, all

24:17

of you.

24:18

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you all.

24:27

And that's it for this bonus episode of Love Commandos

24:29

from Rough Translation. It was produced

24:32

by Chow Tu, edited by Liana

24:34

Simstrom and Irene Noguchi, mastered

24:36

by James Willits. We'll have links in our show

24:38

notes for how you can follow each of our composers. If

24:41

you want to follow me, check out my sub stack.

24:44

It's an email newsletter where if you subscribe

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for free, you get a new story from

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me every week in your inbox. We're

24:51

going to travel together. We're going to meet interesting folks. It's

24:53

going to be a great ride. Check it out at GregoryWarner.substack.com.

24:59

NPR is going to be releasing a few more Love

25:01

Commandos bonus episodes over the next few weeks.

25:03

To get those, you'll have to head over to NPR's

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Apple or go to plus.npr.org

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slash embedded. Thanks so much for

25:25

listening. I'm Gregory Warner, and

25:27

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is Rough Translation.

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