December 07, 2022 | Read Online

Mouthfeel.

A meandering rant on the shapes, sounds and feelings of words.

Cole Schafer
December 07, 2022

I've occupied writing offices all around the world, most of which have cost me just $5 and some change.

In Indianapolis, it was Coat Check, a coffee shop literally operated right out of an old coat check. In Denver, it was Black Eye, an adorable little haunt located in the Lower Highlands where I wrote much of One Minute, Please? and a good portion of After Her.

In Chicago, it was Brü, a wonky, eclectic Russian-owned café where no two chairs were the same. In Greenwich Village, it was a Stumptown, with bench seating that runs the length of the shop's walls like a guardrail. I can't tell you how easily the words seem to flow whilst sitting atop this guardrail.

In London, it was Everbean, a bistro with claustrophobic ceilings set inside a triangular-shaped building buried deep down an alleyway at a 5-point pedestrian intersection. Writing there, looking out that bistro's expansive all-seeing window, felt as if I was manning an invisible submarine that had somehow washed up out of the Thames.

In Nashville, it's Retrograde, a room that is longer than it is wide with badly scarred wood flooring pulled from the bellies of boxcars and corners overflowing with prickly cacti.

(I'm here now, writing this letter to you, seated at a bar with my nose 12 inches from the window separating me from the falling rain and my left temple 24 inches from a particularly tall cactus scaring the shit out of the ceiling...)

In Tokyo, I wrote everywhere. I wrote on the Red-eye too and from. I wrote on the trains that carried Kace and me to Osaka and then to Kyoto and then back again. I wrote in coffee shops whose names I could never remember nor pronounce, where my language became a collision of gestures and raised eyebrows and broken Japanese that I'm certain left my grandmother rolling over in her grave.

I hated leaving Kace's side while in Japan. She has a splendid ear for foreign languages and an uncanny ability to communicate across them without sharing the same tongue.

Despite the fact that I am a writer and I make my living with words, I've found that I have a God-awful time attempting to pronounce them. The word "prose" is an ironic and perfect example. Until a year or two ago, I pronounced "prose" in much the same way that one would pronounce the word "prowess".

(Joe Ferraro, my friend and speaking coach, very politely brought the mustard smear to my attention one day, "Cole, is it pronounced, "prow-eez" or "pro-zzz"?)

Kace is constantly and gently, correcting these mishaps. She's made me a better speaker, among other things.

Words have what I would describe as a mouthfeel. The texture of this mouthfeel changes drastically depending on what mediums we're digesting them on.

I'll speak here momentarily on how writers on the page should consider mouthfeel but for now, let's explore mouthfeel in the musical sense.

In music, vocal timbre is defined as the tonal quality and so-called tone color that defines a singer's voice. Just like a Saxophone playing a G sounds distinctly dissimilar to a Piano playing the very same G, voices can boast the same distinction.

When somebody says "so-and-so sounds like everybody else" what they're really saying is that "so-and-so doesn't have a memorable timbre".

I'd argue that among singer-songwriters, a distinct timbre trumps a pretty voice.

An aspiring singer-songwriter, in my opinion, is far better off having a unique and original timbre with solid writing chops than they are a traditionally gorgeous voice.

Johnny Cash is somebody that comes to mind when I think of timbre.

Cash's voice couldn't hold a candle to Elvis Presley's but he's gone down in history as one of the greats because of his timbre. When Johnny Cash sang you knew it was nobody else beside's Johnny Cash doing the singing.

David Bowie, Leonard Cohen, Willie Nelson, Colter Wall, John Prine and Bon Iver are all individuals who come to my mind when I think of artists with jarringly different timbre but not necessarily classically beautiful singing voices.

Now, every once in a great while, you have artists who possess both.

These individuals are (or were) artists like Aretha Franklin, Elvis Presley, Freddie Mercury, Dolly Parton, Ms. Lauryn Hill, Stevie Wonder, Joni Mitchell, Stevie Nicks, Lana Del Rey and, of course, Kace.

In Season Two of Yellowstone, there is a particularly hot sex scene between Kayce and Monica Dutton where Slow Burn is playing in the background.

If you've heard that song, do your best not to think of it as you read the following lyrics...

"

Born in a hurry, always late

Haven't been early since '88

Texas is hot, I can be cold

Grandma cried when I pierced my nose

Good in a glass, good on green

Good when you're puttin' your hands all over me

I'm alright with a slow burn

Takin' my time, let the world turn

I'm gonna do it my way, it'll be alright

If we burn it down and it takes all night

It's a slow burn, yeah

"

Written on the page, these lyrics are sharp, concise and as taut as a tightrope. The line, "Grandma cried when I pierced my nose..." could be the opener to an autobiography.

However, when you listen to the lyrics rather than read them, the words become transcendent because of Kace's timbre.

A writer doesn't possess timbre in the auditory sense. Writing is not so much about how the words sound––at least not to me––as it is about how they look, feel and read in one's head. This makes sense when you consider that while songwriting is heard, writing is seen.

Take the words "timbre" and "mouthfeel" for example.

Mouthfeel's presence on the page has more "mouthfeel" than timbre's. The word mouthfeel––especially when written in all lowercase––is long and evocative but at the same time soft on the mind's tongue.

A writer on the page will never be able to compete with a singer-songwriter. While I'm a bibliophile, I constantly find myself reaching for music over literature. I can't get enough of the stuff.

I think there is something primal about music that has snaked its way deep into our DNA. By 12 months, all of us instinctually begin singing short phrases, long before we're capable of reading and writing.

So, what is a writer's job in all of this?

I don't fucking know...

Perhaps to get folks to look twice at words like mouthfeel.

But, I digress.

By Cole Schafer.

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