Pangrams and Ravensongs
Hello friends,
I am delighted to announce the release of my new EP — RAVENSONGS. The EP is available from my website (https://anthonyetherin.com/shop/p/ravensongs). You can also hear it for free on YouTube:
Ravensongs presents three pieces for bouzouki, guitar, and bass — with minimal percussion and synth cello — and a fourth piece for solo bouzouki. The acoustic guitar avoids standard tuning throughout.
Each composition is a musical pangram whose bouzouki part uses all twelve notes of the octave, showcasing the full chromatic scale.
Of course, the literary equivalent of this constraint — the literary pangram — is a text that uses every letter of the alphabet at least once. For example,
ERESHKIGAL (Pangram-Sonnet)
In fiery dreams,
the gods enlist
exotic screams
whose blood persists
in quartz…. The mist
that Enlil swirled
and Lilith hissed,
this way, unfurled
the underworld—
Ereshkigal,
a serpent curled
within her skull,
is conjured there,
in larval prayer….The limit case of the pangram is the isopangram, which uses each letter of the alphabet only once. Here’s one of mine:
Crwth.jpg — Vex, quiz my folk bands!
It’s rare that you’ll see an isopangram without an abbreviation or initialism there to soak up some letters. Given the difficulty of writing isopangrams, I have experimented with loosening the restriction a little. For example, this pangram — a variant on the above—allows two extra letters (an additional u and an additional i):
Crwth jig and pub quiz vex my folks....
And this pangram uses every letter of the alphabet only once — apart from a, which is used six times:
My jackdaw flaps, heaving a quartz box.
Finally, these pangrams use a, e, i, o and u exactly twice, but every other letter only once:
A quick, brown fox jumps the glazed ivy.
Webs of mock plight quiz and vex a jury.