Stray Landings

Despite its seeming nascence, coded music has a long history. During the slave trade, people in Nigeria and Ghana used drum telegraphy to communicate with each other over long distances. When colonial European intruders came into the jungles, message of their arrival and their intention was often carried through the woods a step in advance. A transmission through drumming could travel at a speed of 100 miles per hour. This ‘coded drumming’ was thus banned by the slave owners, as it functioned as a secret language and a tool for resistance. Musicians as far back as the Baroque period have also included hidden messages (or ‘musical cryptograms’) in their scores. Most notably, Bach included his own signature into his music in an act of bizzare narcissism. Pauline Oliveros even used a C-A-G-E motif for her obituary piece for John Cage, CAGE DEAD. I’ve often thought that someone should do an A-C-A-B motif as a coded message against the police. Musical cryptograms received some unwanted attention in the 80s when f