Voynich Manuscript soundtrack…?
Here’s something a little bit more interactive than usual, please feel free to add your comments. 
I woke up this morning in a Voynich Manuscript half-dream with the chorus of Belinda Carlisle’s 1988 hit “I Get Weak” (written by Diane Warren) looping round incessantly. As with most dreams it probably meant nothing (sorry Sigmund), but it did set me thinking… what would be the perfect soundtrack to the VMs?
Hmmm… with my songwriter hat on, I’d say it would have to be something evocative and uncertain, and possibly with some kind of cryptological / biological / astrological / nymph-ological theme running through it. Here are some suggestions to be going on with…
Rationalist theorists:-
Thomas Dolby - She Blinded Me With Science (”…and failed me in biology, yeah-eh“)
Madman theorists:-
Talking Heads - Psycho Killer (”I’m tense and nervous and I can’t relax“)
Romantic theorists:-
Robbie Williams - Angels (the most popular karaoke song ever, according to the PRS, and popular at weddings and funerals too). [Incidentally, this was originally written not by Williams and Guy Chambers but by Irishman Ray Hefferman, and was about his daughter who died at birth.]
OK, so it’s a pretty lame first attempt. But what would be on your perfect Voynich Manuscript soundtrack? Please comment below!
December 5th, 2008 at 6:19 am
Well, while you’re on the Heads, you could go with I Zimbra and claim it’s merely a chanted version of part of the text. : )
December 5th, 2008 at 8:48 pm
I Zimbra, eh? I don’t see why not.
Oh, and I don’t quite know how I forgot to give a nod towards our hoaxological comrades:-
Hoax theorists
Pet Shop Boys - Opportunity (”I’ve got the brains, you’ve got the braun / let’s make lots of money”)
Cheers, ….Nick Pelling….
December 6th, 2008 at 6:57 pm
Here are two Voynich Manuscript music things I found.
Hanspeter Kyburz: The Voynich Cipher Manuscript
http://www.amazon.com/Hanspeter-Kyburz-Malstrom-Voynich-Manuscript/dp/B00004TSZM
“Equally effective is The Voynich Cipher Manuscript, a setting of passages from as as yet undeciphered secret script. (Kyburz adds to this script readings of three brief poems by Velimir Chlebnikov, which appear at three structurally significant points of the work.) The music is in something of an arch form, with outer sections in which the instrumental writing here is less driven and one-dimensional than in Malstrom, with plenty of space to hear the delicate traceries of pitched percussion that are sometimes swamped in the other work. The central sections are faster and louder, with more complex counterpoint and a preference for the chorus over solo voices.”
That has been around for a while, but I don’t know of anyone’s having discussing it in the various VMs forums.
I also found:
Voynich Manuscript - HOLLISTER
http://www.myspace.com/vmanuscript
“A musical project based on the mysterious of the Voynich Manuscipt.Inspiration from its Art to music. ”
I listened to two tracks. Etherial, somewhat like New Age, but has more of an edge.
December 7th, 2008 at 11:39 am
Voynich music
I recommend the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah band’s ’11 Mustachioed Daughters’.
It is a wonderful parody of satanic rock, which anticipates all the clichés of heavy metal, gothery, etc, whilst being musically much better. It is also genuinely dark and unsettling, as well as funny.
Of course, its appropriateness depends on the VMS being some sort of Cathar / cabalistic / esoteric worship manual, which is, admittedly, not very likely. Howver, it is fun.
December 7th, 2008 at 5:21 pm
The Hollister Voynich music thing I kind-of-reviewed back here: perfectly OK as it goes, but not quite on the mainstream cultural wavelength I had in mind here.
As for Chris H’s Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band suggestion (”to anoint the body and make it divine” etc): well, as a Neil Innes fan, I wouldn’t really need my arm twisted a great deal to express my hearty approval. But isn’t that a Vivian Stanshall & biG Grunt track?
January 5th, 2009 at 2:08 pm
did you ever consider that the VM may indeed be music? Before the scale lines were invented, there were many ciphers which indicated musical notes as symbols. That would also account for each page having repeating themes and “words”, much as music does. No way of knowing what symbol means what, but ususally each note played one at a time and for a set length, though similar symbols may donote a change in note length or sharps or flats.
Wouldnt it be ironic if the VM is a playbook for either chants or a simple musical notation and you are looking for a soundtrack for it! Each monostary often used its own notation, and if you look at sheet music, now and then, it often had tangental images filling in the blank parts of the pages.