Jargon
Let horrid Jargon split the Air,
And rive the Nerves asunder,
Let hateful discord greet the Ear,
As terrible as Thunder.
Music and Text by William Billings
Realization and arrangement for electronic sampled sounds by William McClelland and Steve Elson
Performed by William Appling Singers & Orchestra, William Appling, conductor; Bill Ruyle, bass drum
October 7, 1996, Christ & St. Stephen’s Church, New York City
How “Jargon” Came to Be Realized
From Billings’s “The Singing-Master’s Assistant,” printed in Boston in 1778
“Jargon” is one of William Billings’s most remarkable compositions. In response to critics of his harmonic vocabulary, Billings composed one of the most dissonant pre-20th century works in existence. In a lengthy preface to the published version, Billings (a prolific writer as well as a composer) sarcastically begs forgiveness from “Goddess of Discord” for writing such consonant music and offered “Jargon” as restitution. (Click here to read the full text of Billings’s address.) In it, he also offered instructions on the specific “instruments” he believed should be used to perform the work:
In order to do this piece ample justice, the concert must be made of vocal and instrumental music. Let it be performed in the following manner, viz. Let an Ass bray the bass, let the fileing of a saw carry the Tenor, let a hog who is extream hungry squeel the counter, and let a cart-wheel, which is heavy loaded, and that has been long without grease, squeek the treble; and if the concert should appear to be too feeble you may add the cracking of a crow, the howling of a dog, the squalling of a cat; and what would grace the concert yet more, would be the rubbing of a wet finger upon a window glass. This last mentioned instrument no sooner salutes the drum of the ear, but it instantly conveys the sensation to the teeth; and if all these in conjunction should not reach the cause, you may add this most inharmonical of all sounds, “Pay me that thou owest.”
When we decided to perform “Jargon” in our concert, it occurred to us that through the means of modern day musical “sampling,” we had the ability to actually use the sounds Billings suggested and record them on the actual pitches and rhythms of the piece as he had described in his address to the “Goddess of Discord.” In concert we performed the piece through five times through: the first time was with singers a cappella; the second time are heard a braying ass, “fileing” saw, squealing hog, and “squeeking” cart-wheel; the third time is a cracking crow, squalling cat, howling dog, and “rubing” finger on glass (with an ass and pig on bass); the fourth time through all the non-human sounds are heard together; and the final time all human and non-human sounds are combined. We would like to think Mr. Billings would have been pleased.
We believe this 1996 performance is the only time “Jargon” has been realized as Billings envisioned it, and WASO wishes to acknowledge those who helped make the recording possible: Steve Elson, Dan Evans Farkas, Michael Kirchberger, and William McClelland. Thanks, too, to Peter Zummo for his assistance with the sound equipment at this performance.