San Francisco-based pianist Bryant Kong and singer Elender Wall recently managed to steal a figurative 15 terabytes of fame when they combined to record and release 'The Poetry of Donald Rumsfeld' on Kong's Stuffed Penguin Music label.

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With controversy reigning over the war in Iraq and the war against terror, defense secretary Rumsfeld's public statements were seen by some as intentionally humorous, even poetic. Lines such as "There are known knowns. There are things we know we know" acquired additional gravitas when laid out in stanzas.

Taking a cue from Hart Seely's 'Pieces of Intelligence: The Existential Poetry of Donald Rumsfeld', Kong and Wall combined to put the poetry to music. We asked Bryant a few questions about the project and he was kind enough to answer them for us.

What exactly are these songs called "The Poetry of Donald Rumsfeld?"

"The Poetry of Donald Rumsfeld" is--as we like to say--a disarmingly funny set of seven songs based on direct quotes from Rumsfeld's Pentagon briefings and other interviews. His words are actually the lyrics, not just speech over background music, so it's a pretty distinctive work. The style is accessible--based in classical music with strong contemporary influences, from cabaret to pop.

What inspired you to take on a project such as this?

Well, the poems are absolutely hilarious, and they have good variety. They were compiled by columnist Hart Seely and published on Slate.com last April. As a classically trained composer, I wanted to find modern texts that hadn't been done before, and you can hardly get more topical, timely, and American than the Rumsfeld poems. I also didn't think anyone else would set them. Did I mention the poems are hilarious?

Please explain the process of setting the Rumsfeld lyrics to music.

I actually think it starts the same way as any other text. What is the poem about? What are the speaker's attitude and the overall mood? Then, what kind of song does all this suggest? "The Digital Revolution" begins with "Oh my goodness gracious." This suggested to me a charming melody in three beats--a waltz--except the waltz goes wrong when Rumsfeld starts talking about "a trained ape."

This example raises another key aspect specific to the Rumsfeld texts: Somebody else chose them to make fun of the person who is speaking. So the musical accompaniment may not support the speaker's attitude or may even indicate character flaws. This is something you see in musical theater or opera but almost never in solo singing. My favorite example in "The Poetry of Donald Rumsfeld" is "The Unknown." The words go from certainty ("known knowns") to complete uncertainty ("unknown unknowns"), but Rumsfeld's matter-of-fact tone and blithe attitude don't change. To convey this in music, I have the piano play shifting harmonies and some outrageously wrong notes while the singer's soaring melodies never stray from the same C minor scale.

Could you tell our readers more about yourself and Elender Wall and how you worked together on this album?

Elender is a wonderful classically trained singer and has always pursued that as a professional career. I was an advanced amateur pianist who never had time to write music because of my day job. But after I got my Masters in Business (MBA) from UCLA in 2002, I was unemployed for so long that I did have time to write music. We'd performed together in the past, so I wrote "The Poetry of Donald Rumsfeld" for her. She really gets to show off her chops! Then we worked as fast as we could to learn, record, and release the songs, and now I have my own record label, Stuffed Penguin Music, to produce classically based music that's updated and accessible. I'm based in San Francisco, and she's based in Los Angeles. Oh, and we're boring, dowdy, and prim.

I get the idea that you've captured a lot of international attention with the album and introduced people to Amercian art songs. For our audience, could you explain what 'art songs' are all about?

Thanks! We've done PR for all of one week (!) and still seek to grow our reputation in the US and globally. Anyway, art music is one of the fine arts and generally means classically based music, with its learned techniques and use of older forms like the waltz and aria. One of the things we're trying to do with our album of "fresh American art songs" is show that art music can be topical, contemporary, and accessible to people who aren't experts in classical music. Too much modern art music is abstract and unpleasant to listen to. We prefer melodic, enjoyable music and, oddly enough, audiences seem to as well.

'The Poetry of Donald Rumsfeld' has become an overnight meme online. What kind of response have you attracted from the online community?

The online community is very important to us, as open-minded and contemporary attitudes are at the core of our audience. Also, Stuffed Penguin is a small, start-up label with a debut album, so we really need the Internet to get the word out about our songs. Response has been tremendous. When National Public Radio featured the Rumsfeld album, they created a feature page for us where people worldwide can listen to the interview, hear streaming audio of several songs, and link to our site (www.stuffedpenguin.com) to buy the CD. That article has been one of the top few Most E-Mailed Articles at NPR.org for a solid week, and people have posted it and our lyrics page on numerous blogs and info sites.

So, what's your next project and are you considering touring outside the USA?

I can't tell you what our next project is because we think no one's done it before either! Well, at least commercially. I'll only say that there are lots of contemporary stories that haven't been done and that lend themselves to a classically based treatment. As for touring, since we've been selling CDs for all of two weeks we are still developing our US tour! But we'd love to tour outside and have our eye on it. There's tons of passionate sentiment against the Iraq war and Bush administration outside the US, esp. in Canada, Australia, England, France, Germany, and Spain. Plus people everywhere enjoy fun music, something new, and a good laugh at public officials' expense. So hopefully we'll come see a lot of your readers before too long. In the meantime, international fans can actually order the CD from our website.  

Feedback:

• hi - kyla 11:24:32 11/21/06 (0)
• easy to read anti bush and rumsfeld music - scott walmsley 11:31:41 4/21/04 (2)
  • Re: easy to read anti bush and rumsfeld music - A Alexander Stella 08:27:50 6/12/04 (1)
    • Re: easy to read anti bush and rumsfeld music - chief thunder lung, alotatokem tribe 15:28:28 7/14/04 (0)
• Rhymin' Rummy CD - Gray Felstiner 12:19:58 4/10/04 (0)
• We had one of those hear in Queensland - W. Johnson. Qld Australia 23:58:33 4/08/04 (0)
• Rumsfeld`Poetry - Jobst 13:07:57 3/30/04 (1)
  • Re: Rumsfeld`Poetry - Geoff 21:29:01 3/30/04 (0)
• Politicizing What Should Not Be Political - Elaine 08:52:02 3/27/04 (1)
  • Re: Politicizing What Should Not Be Political - Geoff 21:26:44 3/30/04 (0)