Um clot

violin and string orchestra (min. 6/6/4/6/2)

2026

duration: 20'

commissioned by Orchestra Innova 

Um clot is a piece primarily about the need to say something but being unable to find the words or ability to do so. When we need to speak, but can’t, many of us turn to fill the silences with filler words. “Um” is common for many English speakers but similar pauses exist across all languages. Inspired by Ed Atkin’s use of filler words in Old Food, in Um clot, I extend these momentary pauses to fill the entire piece using material from Sibelius’s Symphony No. 3. It is a profound nothing in a greater communication.

Looking further at meaningless, but felt, words led me to glossolalia or “speaking in tongues.” The reasons where or why someone might do this are debated. Goodman argues it is an artifact of a trance-like state (or what she describes as the “hyperaroused dissociated state”), where Samarin disagrees and theorises it is a form of language which works with and/or against the variables of the speaker’s native language in a quasi- randomised relationship. Both papers are distinctly out of date, however a quote from one of Goodman’s lectures stuck with me:

“Glossolalia involves... the privation of the informative and communicative side of discourse; speech becomes musical sound.”

So, where to next other than to wordless (non-lexical) vocals. So many countries, languages and cultures have wordless music in their traditions. Irish lilting, Scottish canntaireachd, English/Scottish diddling, Sami joik, Jewish nigun, Swedish kulnig (the list goes on and covers more than just Western Europe). What many of these traditions have in common is the mimicry of an instrument through consonant/vowel choices. These singing forms often seem to evolve through the necessity of simply not having said instruments, so mimicry is essential.

To actually write this piece, I combine the random alteration of an “original language”-‘s variables (a la Samarin’s hypothesis for glossolalia). Here, an extract of Sibelius’s Symphony No. 3 (a simpler work of Sibelius’s highlighting his love for the “severity of form”) acts as the “original language.”
The reordering of this material through a digital, randomised sampling process acts as the restructuring of the original language, with the act of transcription mirroring the act of mimicry & approximation in non-lexical singing. The orchestra then acts as a slower, longer restructuring to restructure the material through time-a stretched, warped form of Sibelius.