The work «Becoming Indigenous» is written for a new quintet consisting of the combined forces of Norwegian euphonium artist Bente Illevold and the Swedish saxophone quartet Rollin Phones. The group commissioned pieces from several composers for their project Peace Talks in September 2025, with questions if the musical works could illuminate and explore themes like peace, conflict management and dialog through new musical works. In a time characterized by global tension, warfare and human-made disasters the group wanted to contribute artistically with reflection and dialogue around aspects of peace work.

I’ve written before about how sound can awaken feelings memories or resonances in the listener[i] – sometimes such evocations can be quite precise, sometimes not. This is just the nature of music and sound. In my sound work I sometimes use semiotic indications for extramusical elements, as long as the pieces work on their own, and does not depend solely on the semiotics to work exactly as intended. The way I deal with the peace work aspect in “Becoming Indigenous” is through translation in the meaning that I hide some source material somewhere in the structure of the piece, that has relation to the subject.

In this essay I explore aspects of the process of constructing the piece from such source material. In this case the material was derived from audio recordings containing meanings such as care and clean up.

In the essay I also investigate my choice of source recordings, and my own reaction to the recordings I use, I examine how the source recordings’ form, material and associations influence my own process. I don’t go into detailed analysis of the piece itself the way it became in the end, but that might come at a later point.

The world of today is explosive. Colonial, greedy thoughts has gotten a strange renaissance. War on each other. War on nature. Greed is good. Drain the resources and quickly move on to the next resource you can drain. The audio recordings I’ve used in the making of this piece, are recordings that I subjectively associated with this situation. When asked to write something for this project, an earlier field recording surfaced in my memory, called «If one had a home». It is spoken word, and I also later found a second spoken word recording called “Words Before All Else” that I decided to combine with the first. Two recordings from quite different angles are combined. The identities of both people who speak, carries some meaning. I used the sound and rhythm of the language as a source, which I have then translated to the instruments.

What is behind the title

The title “Becoming Indigenous” is a term borrowed from author and botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer. I have reread her book “Braiding Sweetgrass” many times. Kimmerer, who is Native American herself, writes that “indigenous” does not have to be a protected title, but that one can “become indigenous” to a place one immigrates to. This means living as if the future of your children in the new place matters, taking care of the environment as if their lives, both material and spiritual, depended on it[i].

[i] Seim, 2020, “Alignment – a musical recycling study”

[i] Kimmerer “Braiding Sweetgrass” Chapter “In the footsteps of Nanabozho: Becoming indigenous to place”

«If one had a home”

I will start with the recording that came to mind first “If one had a home” recorded in a refugee camp in 2017. This snippet that eventually surfaced from a big pile of material, is dear to me. “Becoming Indigenous” is the second work I use it in. The 8-year old girl I recorded, we can call her Aisha, uttered a short, auxiliary sentence on the fly, in between more seemingly weighty statements from her older siblings and relatives, in their tent in a refugee camp. It didn’t stand out at first. I won’t identify these people, as they were in a vulnerable position compared to myself. Aisha’s was just one of many families I recorded. A social worker helped get people speak in response to my question “What means home”, I came home with hours of recordings from many different families, talking about home and what it means. The material and impressions from that trip needed some maturing and sorting. Their perspectives were so far from my own. How the selection eventually happened, still feels mysterious, years later. As I listened to these recordings over and over in 2017-18, over about a year’s time, trying to figure out some kind of core, it was like she suddenly stood out. Not only did I hear it but this time I actually listened, and the meaning appeared. She is speaking in arabic, and her relative is translating to english, about having a home and going to school. But the part I found so interesting, was that she said “If one had a home, one could clean up” I had an arabic-speaking friend listen to it too, afterward and confirm what she was saying. I realized that, from all this great material, Aisha was the one that I needed to work with. Why it was needed, was not clear, except that I wanted to. She became the musical basis of the first “What means home” work, “Velkommen Hjem” in 2018. It is now the second time I use Aisha’s sentence for a work. 

It’s message about cleaning up puzzles me, Why is that so puzzling? After reading “Braiding Sweetgrass” it gives more sense. I will get back to this later.

To illustrate some of the aspects about translation in music, I will first describe my process of using “If one had a home” in this earlier work, “Velkommen hjem” which was an installation for a young audience.

I transcribed the recording in three steps. First I extracted a melody by recording myself singing along with the language melody. In the process I simplified the text into simple sounds, by filtering out most of the consonants.

I notated, for my private use, the new melody and text:

The recording of me tracing Aisha was again traced by a children’s choir (who could not read music). Finally we recorded the choir and this recording was triggered in performance as part of the piece

If we now return to the present, and using “If one had a home for the second time in “Becoming indigenous” I could lean on the fact that I knew the musical potential. I still wanted to make a new transcription, and I wanted to focus only on the part about cleaning up.  I figured out that what I hear as zawatkananda in the start of the recording, means if. And what I hear as beiish gelsh in the end, means clean up.  So I cut out this part, slowed down the recording

I listened for the rhythm rather than pitch when transcribing it to music notation. Here are the first words. Which constitutes the if section:

And here is the clean up section. My main focus this time was transcribing the rhythm. The pitches are partly invented by me. 

“Words before all else“

 The second sound recording, «Ohen:ton Kariwatehkwen» (In english «Words Before All Else» or the Thanksgiving Adress)  is a resitation from the American Haudenosaunee-confederacy (Six Nations), in their native language. The resitation is mentioned by Kimmerer in relation to her term «becoming indigenous». Ohen:ton Karihwatehkwen is an expression of gratitude and reciprocity; it positions humans in a rich, interdependent web of relationships.

 «Ohen:ton Kariwatehkwen» is not religious, but is used traditionally to gain focus for instance before one starts a meeting, when a child is born or before one starts negotiations with other nations. As far as I’ve understood, there are very few people left who speak the Haudenosaunee language. And the recording I’ve used is of a young man who probably is one of a few young enthusiasts of the language. He does not seem like a trained performer, and the video gives me the impression of being a documentation video that could be a language or culture revival attempt.

English translation of the first three verses of «Ohen:ton Kariwatehkwen»[i]

Today we have gathered and when we look upon the faces around us, we see that the cycles of life continue. We have been given the duty to live in balance and harmony with each other and all living beings. So now, we bring our minds together as one as we give our greetings and our thanks to each other as People. 

Everyone: Now our minds are one. 

We are all thankful to our Mother, the Earth, for she gives us all that we need for life. She supports our feet as we walk about upon her. It gives us joy that she continues to care for us as she has from the beginning of Time. To our Mother, we send thanksgiving, love, and respect. 

Everyone: Now our minds are one. 

We give thanks to all the waters of the world for quenching our thirst, providing us with strength, and nurturing life for all beings. Water is life. We know its power in many forms — waterfalls and rain, mists and streams, rivers and oceans, snow and ice. We are grateful that the waters are still here and meeting their responsibility to bring life to all of Creation. With one mind, we send our greetings and our thanks to the spirit of Water. 

Everyone: Now our minds are one.

 Full version of the text can be found here

I used, not the very first sentence in the video, since that seems like an introduction, but cut out what seems to be the tree first verses. The way I transcribed it can be explained like this:

I imported it into my sound studio app. After listening over and over, and trying to find metrics, I realized it was complicated. So I decided to take a screenshot of the waveforms and measure them to try and dechiffre the metrics of some passages, and compare that to a phonetic transcription of how I perceived the sounds.

[i] Kimmerer “Braiding Sweetgrass” Chapter “In the footsteps of Nanabozho: Becoming indigenous to place”

This is probably a good time to comment on my phonetic transcriptions of both these texts. They are extremely subjective, and can’t be used for anything other than keeping a personal track of points in the timelines of the recordings. Since I don’t speak any of the languages, this is “baby language” on my part. More on this further down.

My goal with transcribing the rhythm was to extract a rhythmic loop from the metric structure of the verse, which I then invented some simple pitches for. The result was this melody:

I felt that I had to combine these two recordings to make the piece, so I tried to make a two-part loop. Since I was combining a long phrase (Words before all else) with a short phrase (If one had a home), I made the latter into a longer structure by repeating the if part three times, and then concluding with the clean up part. If one had a home. If one had a home. If one had a home. One could clean up. Here it is, in rhythm notation:

Here is a section of the two-part loop, the way it turned out. To be exact, what I call “the two-part loop” is three times the length of this example. 

 Translation in music

There is a lot to be told about composition processes like this. For this essay, just a few key points. The two terms, transcription and translation of material, what do they mean in terms of musical composition? It could be argued that translation has a wider meaning than transcription, and that transcription can be seen as a tool in the process of translation. Translation in musical composition, the way German composer Helmut Lachenmann defines it, is hiding something somewhere in the structure of a work, for instance another piece of music, as a “skeleton that now serves to help me articulate a characteristic time grid”[1] In addition to being about time-grid or rhythm, translation could also be about sound or other parameters.

The goal of the translation process is to transform the source material into something new, informed by the physicality and connotations of the source material, but also by the physicality and connotations of the instrument or performer who is performing it. 

There could be creative aspects and artistic choices to both transcription and translation, such as:

-the choice of source material (sound, music, numbers, shapes, acoustics, etc)

-the choice of instrument/medium that perform the translated result

-which parametres are retrieved from the source, and which are left out

-the level of accuracy in the transcription of a parameter

-the method of tracing/transferring

-how many times are the process repeated (translating of the translation)

-are other processes applied after the material is retrieved, such as for instance taking apart or putting together

 Some other examples of translation from sound recordings in my own output: In 1998, the piece “Iwiwiwi” for trumpet/tape, I recorded my 1-year old son’s baby song and transcribed it. Also, in 2019 “Svarttrost” (Blackbird) for violin, vibraphone and electronics was one of several times I’ve made pieces from transcribed bird song recordings.

The form of the piece – memory and ritual

Things you don’t know, shapes that are hidden, knowledge that is hidden or forgotten, is real, it is there, available to connect to, or remember, once you look or listen for them. This is some of the idea behind the form. The form can be seen as a process to reconnect and deconnect to such hidden shapes, or long forgotten memory.

Music as an art form has a unique relation to memory. Through repetition of patterns it makes us in a way able to predict the future.

The focus of “Becoming Indigenous” came to be the rhytmic structure/logic/formulas of repeated resitations, although they are not always audible. The form  is based on 12 repetitions/variations of the “characteristic time grid” of the 2-part loop, with a slow emergence, manifestation, transformation and fading of the actual sound elements.

The temporal form of the “skeleton” is kept and looped, while each loop repetition escavates more and more. It is a choice I’ve made, to keep the temporal form mostly intact, and just trace and highlight it in different ways. I made this choice because I wanted the repetition to be noticed. Also the ritual form of «Ohen:ton Kariwatehkwen» inspired me to try and make a ritualistic or hypnotic form, with a lot of repetition but “repetition with difference”. Each time a little different, but gradual.

“The sculpture is already complete within the marble block, before I start my work. It is already there, I just have to chisel away the superfluous material.”

Michelangelo

One might need many repetitions to excavate the shape. In this piece, it takes seven repetitions before the original two-part loop is fully revealed in the eight’ repetition, and the last four to highlight it and then fade out.

Unfamiliar languages 

Norwegian and English are my two strongest languages. My source recordings are in Arabic and Haudenosaunee, which I don’t speak at all.

Transcription of the sound of languages you don’t know, is to touch only the surface of a wide and deep ocean. A piece like this could then be compared to the rendering of a personal investigation into unknown territory. The shapes of the sounds of the words and sentences exists in “Becoming Indigenous” much as how crumbling sound tapes exists in a sound library.

The powerlessness of not knowing the language becomes part of the process. When faced with the text written in the original language or international phonetic language, after making notes yourself from the sounds, you realize that you have made “Norwegian phonetic” notes, that are unrecognisable from the correct written language, and you have no idea what part of the text corresponds with your own notes. You need help from translators and mediators, in this case I used the non-professional kind. Aisha’s relatives translated from Arabic to English, then again the Arabic friend. Of course the results from the process gets colored by these facts. And not to mention by my own way of perceiving and remembering the sources and the ways that the sounds are rendered, notated and ultimately, performed by the performers.

Listening takes constant effort. If you are able to stay in and rest comfortably in this condition – where you are grasping and don’t know what is there.  Keep listening and you will start to hear some shapes. Once you stop listening, it will start to disappear again. This could be compared to how human memory works. Maybe even our collective consciousness. And maybe the same can be said about the concept of home, that it may take constant work, constant care, constant listening, to have something that you can call home…?

Cultural appropriation

Why use unfamiliar languages? Why not keep to my own cultural heritage?

It goes without saying that you use the original if possible. In the language it was originally conceived. Would I even find something like this in Norwegian, spoken by a Norwegian person? I’m not sure.

Using unfamiliar languages could be compared to consciously surrounding yourself with things that you feel you do not understand. Reading texts you don’t understand, listen to words or music you don’t understand, 

The question can of course arise, whether it is cultural appropriation, for a white composer who is not indigenous herself, to use a native American resitation. Some would say exoticisation or depiction of a “noble savage”[4]. As a music student in the 90-ies, I’ve had my share of cultural appropriation, as a white person from the north studying and performing for instance “african drumming” and “black music”. Me and many of my generation has felt shamefulness when this practise later has been critisised. And, my choice of source in this piece has bothered me.

However, differences can be subtle. Lately I have been reading historical sources on how philosophical thought developed by pre-American indigenous nations reached Europe as early as the 17th century, and how this thought inspired the Enlightenment in Europe [2]

If I had used a so-called neutral white male philosopher’s thought as a basis for a piece (would Rosseau be ok?), no one would have blinked. I think using Haudenosee philosophical thought could be to elevate it to where it belongs, as actual philosophy, even though it is oral.

Perhaps the well-founded and well-meaning critiques of exotism have in them seeds for something that could turn into an opposite: It is better to keep to your own kind? There is a danger that cultural phenomenons, also well-intended ones, under the influence of bureaucracy and power, might cause their own inherent reaction, that results in the opposite of what was intended [3].

The oral statements that I use in the piece, exists whether I describe them or not. I choose to share them. Also according to Haudenosaunee sources, the Ohen:ton Kariwatehkwen is supposed to be shared, otherwise, what’s the point with it?[5]

Describing them must be done with respect, humility, honesty and conciousness that you “know nothing Jon Snow”. 

The puzzling attraction to care and clean up

It is a universal human need to be able to take care of something in order to belong to something. It is also a -from a Western point of view- a feminine starting point.

The words care and clean up can seem mundane in relation to ambitions of saving the world or making art. So it puzzled me that I had the urge to base a piece on them. I resisted it for a while, looking for other material instead. However my subconscious combine things that my conscious mind do not.

The first time I used Aisha’s combination of home and clean up I had not read Braiding Sweetgrass. But when I did, it surprised me to see that Aisha’s combination of home and clean up could be explained via the larger concept of “becoming indigenous”. There is something feminine about combining the concepts peace talk, home and clean up. I am a female composer, I am also a mother, however my personality and interests have never been particularly feminine.  

How I surprised myself in this matter, does that reflect my -as a person of privilege – lack of experience with the concept of cleaning up, so much that it becomes exotic? 

Despite equality in the world of composers, my interest in these matters tells me that I indeed am a female composer. In the big picture I feel equality, but in the small details of what I retrieve from the collective consciousness, I feel related to figures that I identify with the most. If there is a personal cloud of collective consciousness in my mind, I would imagine that some female ancestors, who I imagine excelled in uncredited inventions related to domestic life[6], are there, next to acclaimed composer idols I had to study in school, like Karlheinz Stockhausen and Helmut Lachenmann.

Conclusion:

I see several possible explanations why the audio sources that attracted me, came from a foreign culture and not my own:

1. To find something, you need to look or listen. And there is a difference between hearing and listening. Have I actually been listening better when listening to a foreign language, due to some kind of heightened concentration?

 2. Is it possible that some meaning you are subconsciously missing, don’t exist in or have become void from your own language? When the way you find something you unconsciously search for, is by stumbling across it by accident in stories about what is described in some obscure source.

Why the attraction towards female culture was so puzzling to me can also be illuminated by the foreign language-perspective: We live in a male world. Our default language is basically male, in addition to being for instance English or Norwegian. Female culture is otherness and female language is foreign language. 

I am conluding that the reason I was so puzzled by my choice of sources, must have to do with some spiritual malnutricion on a subliminal level. Unexpected combinations will typically come from the subconscious. As a composer working with the subconscious in a time where you are constantly expected to “get in there, take what you need and then move on”, plus the new backlash against rules-based international order and human rights, I have developed a new attraction to words like these, and it is not so strange after all.

The act of cleaning up is caring

The act of caring is radical, feminist, anticapitalist, pacifist

The act of caring should be sacred

To have a home is to have a place to care about. To have a place to care about is to have a home. People who have lost the ability to take care of a place, have lost their home.

[1] Heathcote «Sound structures, Transformations, and Broken magic: An interview with Helmut Lachenmann.”

[2] Wengrow and Graeber «The dawn of everything: A new history of humanity» chapter 1 page 5

[3] Wengrow and Graeber «The dawn of everything: A new history of humanity» chapter 10, paragraph “On what appears to be a surprisingly small scale” p 418

[4] In a colonial context, exoticism is the romanticisation or fetishisation of ethnic, racial, or cultural others. “The noble savage” In Western anthropology, philosophy and literature refers to a stock character, who is uncorrupted by civilization

[5] Haudenosaunee/Onondaga faithkeeper Oren Lyons in conversation with Robin Kimmerer, described in “Braiding Sweetgrass” chapter “Allegiance to gratitude” p 116

[6] Wengrow and Graeber «The dawn of everything: A new history of humanity» chapter 10 paragraph “Coda, On civilization..”, p 433 «women, their work, their concerns and innovations are at the core of this more accurate understanding of civilization (….) knowledge accumulated in earlier times such as the solid geometry and applied calculus of weaving or beadwork»