Aug. 24, 2026

Giving Sound to the Unspoken- Ray Seol on Music, Memory, and the Limits of Language

Show Notes
Transcript

What happens when words are no longer enough to explain a life? Composer and jazz artist Ray Seol joins Dave Carter for a deeply personal conversation about immigration, language, music, memory, and the unlikely journey that led him to search for meaning through sound.

At the heart of the conversation is Professor Seol’s extraordinary relationship with music and colour, and his project The Prison of Language, which explores the limits words place upon our ability to understand and communicate human experience. That exploration ultimately leads to the most personal part of his story: his mother, an illiterate woman whose life and death left questions that Ray would only begin to confront after she was gone. Rather than treating that history simply as tragedy, Seol has transformed memory, grief and unanswered questions into artistic inquiry.

The result is a conversation that reaches well beyond jazz. Carter and Seol explore what it means to begin again in another country, how music can communicate where conventional language fails, and whether art can help us understand the lives of others — and perhaps our own — in ways words cannot. It is a conversation about the boundaries of language, the persistence of memory, and one artist’s attempt to give sound to things that could never quite be said.

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Good conversations are becoming rare, which only makes them more valuable.

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So let's have one from the Carter Study. This is

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the Dave Carter Show.

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Hey, folks, is Dave Carter is a pleasure to have

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you on the program today. I got a question here.

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Let me set this up this way. We tend to

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think of literacy as something that has learned in school. Reading,

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writing the basic equipment of an education. But what if

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it is something more fundamental than that. What if the

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ability to read and write helps determine not simply what

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we know, but how fully we can participate in the

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world around us, how independently we can live, how confidently

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we can speak, and whether our own story can be

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heard at all. My guest today came to America in

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pursuit of music, but Ray Soul's journey would eventually lead

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him somewhere he could not have anticipated, transforming the ambitions

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of a musician into a deeply personal concern for people

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whose voices are too easily lost or overlooked entirely, the

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story behind that transformation belongs to Ray, and I want

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him to tell it. What follows, then, is a conversation

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about music and immigration. Certainly but also about language, human dignity,

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the things that we discovered too late, and what we

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choose to do with that knowledge once it becomes ours.

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My guest. Ray Soul is a Associate Professor of Professional

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music at Berkeley College of Music and a Fulbright Scholar,

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as well as the distinguished jazz bassist and producer. He

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began shaping his musical identity at the New York I'm

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Sorry at the New School's School of Jazz and Contemporary

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Music in New York City, studying under legendary basis Reggie

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Workman and Buster Williams. He's presented as K pop and

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other related research at Sola University, Henley Business School, the

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Museum of Fine Arts MIT, and Wellesley College, and his

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insights continue to be featured in major media outlets such

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as The New York Times, BBC, The Economists, CNN, CBS, ABC,

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all the Alphabets, as well as media outlets in Germany, Spain, Canada,

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among many other places. And it's an honor and the

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delight to welcome him to the program. Professor Soul, how

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in the world are you serve?

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It's honored to be here.

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I'm delighted to have you. I apologize I cut you

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off for a second, but now we got you back

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with us. Okay, So Ray, before you were a jazz musician,

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I believe you were headed toward a very different life,

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So something involving computers and technology. Do I have that right?

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Oh yes, yes, yes, that was my different life.

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Yeah, so you had you had aspirations involving computers. So

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if so, tell me if you would about young raised

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soul before jazz entered there? What was that guy like?

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Yeah? I was a very I would say, creative person.

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I wanted to be a painter, like designer. I loved

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the car, so maybe I wanted to be a car

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designer or some point. But I became a call up

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lind when I was eleven or twelve years old.

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Overnight thing basically, I don't think.

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It was overnight thing, but all of a sudden, somehow

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I couldn't read that test like test book. There was

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like numbers and stuff. I found that my mother's side

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of uncle's the old colup lines and I didn't know.

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So I couldn't go to art school because in Korea

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you need to you need to actually pass the test. Yeah,

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go to college for the arts. So I was a

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very creative person. But I lost that ability and I

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just didn't paint at all because I was so upset.

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I found the computer back then. I was really kind

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of nice tools for me to actually sit and just

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play with. I learned some programming languages and stuff. I

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major business and a computer, and then I worked for

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a company in Korea for many, I guess, a few

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years until I discovered jazz.

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Yeah, that's that's the extraordinary thing that happened. So, and

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it affected the way you experienced color? Do I have

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that right?

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Yeah?

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I mean somehow right now. Still my work is associated

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with some visual image and music. But when I actually

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see certain types of color combination, I can see clearly

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that's probably some sensation for people. But I do believe

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I have some different some sort of weight to lost

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the color, you know.

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Yeah, yeah, when you when you encountered jazz, you described

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an experience in which, although it's something had changed on

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your ability to perceive color physically, when you heard jazz,

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something else happened. You can describe that.

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Yeah, So I guess because of my brain that I

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guess maybe lost ability to see full color. Whenever I

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hear music, I can get some sensation of color syntastasia,

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and then I learned these whole sensations. When I was

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at the graduate school in New York. I was writing

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about my music and how to visualize my music, which

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a lot of situations. I found that there are some

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sort of the brain and sensation that's trying to connect

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between wordl and visual elements together. So I'm the kind

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of a person that I see the color when I

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hear music. So ever since I created some of the

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work that related with visualization of my improvisation and music, and.

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What how does how does a guy who is one

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of the career in technology and and and and card designing,

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which is fascinating. I mean, lord, I wish I could

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do that? What what texts a person like that and

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makes them decide with music? They look at them at

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the jazz and at that genre and what it does

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for them? What makes them decide? Now, this is what

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I'm supposed to do with my life.

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Oh that's good question, Dave. So uh, you know, in fact,

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my father he became, he became eighty years old. Now

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he still doesn't like the fact that I'm a medician.

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So he's still he's still with us.

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Then yes, okay in Korea and he's still kind of

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puzzling the white music. None of us from my family

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does any type of arts, and all of a sudden

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I became a jazz and musician. I'm wondering myself too,

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you know, But I think I kind of understand now

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that I always wanted to express myself through a different medium.

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It could be either painting or singing. But I wasn't

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really good at music. But jazz is for me, man,

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it's absolutely wonderful form of arts that it's like mysterious

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for me. It sounds very authentic. And read some biographies

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of jazz musician it sounds very interesting that John Coltrane,

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Charlie Parker.

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Yes, so I.

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Got fascinated by this whole art form. But mainly, to me,

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music is my visual formation of arts. You know, I

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can express very clearly.

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Sure. Yeah, So eventually you didn't really change what you

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wanted to listen to, what you wanted to do, but

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you changed where you wanted to live. What did you

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decide to leave Korea and come to America to pursue jazz?

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Yeah? So I discovered this new world of jazz and

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I wanted to actually learn that kind of more official,

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more formal way. Sure, I looked up and I obviously

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a jazz from America, you know, the laveendary people, inventors.

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The structure of it.

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Yeah, everything it came from America. So I wanted to

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actually learn from the best, and also I wanted to

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find my own voice because opinly, I'm I'm not from

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this country. I'm in the culture of jazz, and I

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wanted to express myself, but I want to I wanted

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to learn like actual history and groups that art form.

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So you've written about the experience of international students and

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the question of belonging When you first arrived here, did

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did you feel that you belonged, either in America or

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in the musical community itself.

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I mean I actually arrived in Toronto, Canada. First. I

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spent there for three years and then I got some

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foundational work and one of my teachers transferred me to

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New York City because it felt it I guess I

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need to be a little more bigger. Yeah, so yeah,

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I mean back then, it's about twenty something years ago now,

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and it wasn't really I don't know, like you know,

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there's not many international students for jazz back then. So

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I was the one who plays bass, but like one

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of those small group of people. So it was it

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was okay, but I don't know, it was kind of

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tough for me too, you know, because it's just this

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new culture, right, they never seem not never, but like

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it's rare to see Asian kind of James you should

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play like bass? Sure, yeah, so yeah, it was quite

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interesting cultural experience for sure.

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I hope it's smoothed out a little bit since then,

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since the initial vumps and acclamation. I guess yeah.

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I mean, you know, I met I've puken to my

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colleagues and my friends and to helped me a lot.

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I met the greatest you know, the faculties, oh yeah,

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my life, and they helped me a lot. So it

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was just episodes and now I guess I'm fine. You know,

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I love this culture and I love jazz playing. I'm

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still playing, so I know.

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So your work eventually became deeply concerned with language. When

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did you begin thinking about language is something more consequential

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than simply a means of communication where music and language

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kind of fuse together and it's almost like a one

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plus one equals three, right, Because you put those two

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things together and something magical happens.

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Yeah. So obviously English is meant my first language, right,

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and I had to learn how to speaking write when

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I was kind of starting actually to do all the work.

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And you know, in Korea, I'm kind of like a

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very humorous guy. I I am very excited, you know,

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fun said. But somehow losing those opportunities or skills to

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fully speak and write, somehow it became I became a

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little bit different person, you know, I experienced this station

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and then mainly because of my mother. You actually introduced

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a little bit of my context of the music. But

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mom passed away twenty years ago, and then later I

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found out that my mom was illiterate. She didn't know

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how to read and write. I didn't know absolutely no idea.

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But because I wanted to actually honor her life and

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then you know, all those things that she went through,

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I discovered this whole thing. And it sounds like me

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in a different country, you know, like having no ability

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to fully express, no vocabulary that kind of determine myself

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or express myself. Clearly, it must have been a very

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difficult thing for my mother and also myself too. So

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I learned it. I just improved myself every single day.

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But still the language is part of deep culture in

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our country and also my back home country that I

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need to know better words to express myself. Sure, Mom,

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wasn't you know? I didn't have the chance actually, so

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it really started from that discovery, you know that what

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if I can create something to honor not only her life,

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but also those who have no ability to read and write,

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could be you know, I could need something.

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So yeah, I'm gonna say, ask us to go backward

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in time just a little bit and talk about your

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mom as you knew were growing up before before she

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passed away. When you remember her before you know her

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life ended, what do you remember most?

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So we had a lot of conversation, like you know,

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whatever we have chance. She loved to take me to

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the market whenever she goes to grocery shopping, and I

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was always with her. And then she was talking about

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a lot of things to me. But I was too

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young and I didn't know what they mean. That's why

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I didn't even imagine she couldn't read and write. There

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wasn't really kind of my idea that how could one

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person can do that without you know, but she was

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talking a lot and really knowledge able many things. But

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I guess there was some sort of chance for her

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to hide. It's very embarrassing for her, I guess. I

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remember we had a lot of conversation, like a lot

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of good stories coming from my mother about my grandfather,

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about the town she grew up and the friends. So yeah,

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it's stories and stories probably somewhere lived in my kind

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of my mind and my sphere.

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Yeah, in your heart. So she was she was very,

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very eloquent and very well spoken and the things that

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she knew then, so she was very lively, I suppose

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in the way that she expressed herself to you.

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Oh yeah, definitely. You know. That's why I didn't have

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any clue. But one thing I remember that my father

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was in the Middle East as a construction worker. Back

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and a lot of the age the fathers, they actually

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went to the Middle East, Sound and Ambia with some

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of the Middle East consties to to get some you know,

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the jobs. Right, So we have these monthly events that

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are the host of the company that who sent my

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father to Middle East was to write letters for my father,

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like letters of me talking about hey, how are your father?

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Kind of yeah, My.

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Mother always asked me to dictate her stories, Like she

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asked me, hey, can you write it down for me?

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So I was like, hey, why don't you just do it?

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You know, like why are you asking me to do it?

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Was the one clue that I now I think of, Well,

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she didn't know how to write. That's why she asked

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me to write a letter for her husband, right for

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my father. So it was quite surprising memory the later

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I discovered.

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You know, you know, if someone they can't, if femonine's

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unable to read it, right, what is actually being denied

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to that person? Is it is it is let her say,

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fundamentally about information or is it also about agency? The

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ability to interpret and narrate one's own life.

254
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I mean it's identity, right, I mean certain types of

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the you know, her own definition of her life, you

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know who she is. It has to be transferred from

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her own understanding of herself and then limiting the expression

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without knowing language. Quite quite depressed. Probably a situation for

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my mother. I mean, as far as I remember, she's

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very very calm, very knowledgeable, very you know, quite intelligent person,

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but not knowing that because of it wasn't because of

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her choice of not learning anything. It was some sort

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of social structure back then, first bone daughter in Korea

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back then, like they had to take care of their family,

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you know, grandfather, they didn't send most of the first

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born daughters and then maybe a first bone sons they

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went to the up to the college and they get

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the most out of the benefits or academic progress. But

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as far as I know, like my mother's generations, first

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bone was second born, they many people didn't go to school.

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So that probably my my father, my mother felt a

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little bit embarrassing. Also not knowing how to express herself

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clearly but pretend that she knows something. You know, I'm

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pretty sure that I was kind of devastating, you know,

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the yeah, surroundings.

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Was it was was it, uh, forget me for being

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I'm trying to forget a whay to ask us. But

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it was with a mainly an agricultural existence that she

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was in.

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Sure because she has seven siblings and you know, my word,

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someone gotta someone gotta do work. I mean, my grandparents

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they're busy working and then they need a hens, right,

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So yeah, so the firstborn daughters women, they didn't go

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to school. So my mother community suicide. There was the

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whole beginning of those kind of storylines, and later I

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found out that why she did it, and maybe maybe

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this illiterate illiteracy or some of the lack of expressional

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self because I'm not sure yet to determine the cause

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of her death, but I was kind of speculating that socially, culturally,

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kind of even the word even the words from the

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culture and social society that she was facing. You know,

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there was my kind of discovery last summer that I

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was still looking at my musical drama called The Prison

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of Languages.

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Somewhat odd question, but that I specialize on those sometimes

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were there are questions you're desperately wish that you could

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go back and ask her. I assume that your understanding

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of the things that you knew about her and learned

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about her and heard from her changed after she passed

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and you realize what happened the things you want to

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go back and ask her.

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Yeah, I mean, in my musical drama, there were a

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lot of questions that I'm asking. The drama itself is

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about me younger version of me and older version of me,

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and my my my younger brother or my mother and

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older woden or my mother so all the world, and

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I had these questions that some sort of the progressive

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the progress question of progress. Let's say, first I was angry,

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obviously why did you do that? Kind of questions? But

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later I'm an age of when my mother, you know,

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made the decision. I'm a same age now, so I

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kind of understand, you know, the life a little better

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than so question was literally, you know, why did you

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do that? Coming from I kind of understand her cultural

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circumstances around surroundings, and maybe I would ask her, is

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there a chance that we can meet again? Kind of situation.

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I just really miss her? Right? And what about me?

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How do I say to my daughter? I have daughter

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sixteen years old? I met grandmother? What with the story

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that she wants to tell me about my daughter? Right?

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There was imaginary stories, But I want to ask you

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know how you feel? You know, how do you do

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you miss me? You know, the kind of questions.

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What did what did your what are your mother's wife

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teach you?

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About?

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Illiteracy? That the statistics, the things that we can look

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at on paper just simply fail to convey.

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You know.

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First of all, I don't think there's the heavy case

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in any countries. But I do know there's still there

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are people who don't know how to read and write,

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and especially Korea is the number one, uh you know

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the society rates among we see the countries, I mean

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number one country that a lot of people actually suffering

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from their consequences of society and the whole music that

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I'm creating or stories I'm creating, it's all about societ convention.

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On top of that, also, you know, culture ignorance or

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you know, someone had to actually step up and talk

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about this cultural insensitivity, especially for young generations, things that

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they're suffering from many mental health issues, and especially immigrants

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here in this country too. So I wanted to make

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some case that my mother's story now I'm old enough

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to share, I believe I think I'm okay with that

345
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more than twenty years and it's part of my living

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process still. So I decided to open up a little

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bit engage in conversations through arts and then music and

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then performances. Also, I wanted to open up more opportunity

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for those who want to talk about these very sensitive issues,

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especially the artist communities who are suffering this horror, you know,

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interesting cultural phenomena. So yeah, it's a lot of things,

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but I'm still doing it. I've been doing this for

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twenty years now, and I love to create the beautiful

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things every day to share with the communities.

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I understand that when you encounter an adult who cannot

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read or write, what do you wish the rest of

357
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us understood about that person's life.

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I mean, right now, I do speak English, gold it's

359
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not perfect, and then I do feel that it's similar

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like I'm still in the prison of language. It confined

361
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me into the very specific ideas of me talking about something,

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and that's a free But I will encourage people who

363
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are in the situation, especially let's say immigrant whose language

364
00:22:39.839 --> 00:22:43.279
is not English, that first language. Don't be discouraged. You know,

365
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it is a cultural expression, and I don't believe that

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there's a way you can actually learn. And then music,

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especially universal language. You know, it's so hard for you

368
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to actually learn new kind of cultural language anything, but

369
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maybe there's a music that you can share. We can

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express ourselves like arts, the painting, there's a lot of

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other films to express yourself. So don't be discouraged. And

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also especially life is worth living, you know, we should

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keep going. I do believe that we should keep going,

374
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you know, we should keep up on our life, ourselves.

375
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So in my supposition, then you can agree with it

376
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or not. But is it literacy ultimately is a combination

377
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of an educational issue and a human dignity issue?

378
00:23:28.400 --> 00:23:31.480
Well, sure, for sure. Yeah, I'm more toward the human

379
00:23:31.519 --> 00:23:36.039
dignity more than education. We have access to a basic

380
00:23:36.160 --> 00:23:40.720
education system career and here to like high school, no money,

381
00:23:41.000 --> 00:23:44.599
no treat fee, all free educations. But what if there's

382
00:23:44.599 --> 00:23:49.200
so societal like a social pressure that will kind of

383
00:23:49.240 --> 00:23:53.359
minimize you to be who you are by minimizing access

384
00:23:53.400 --> 00:23:57.240
to for other educations or even language. Right, it is

385
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so fundamental human dignity part right, aspicious yeah, yeah, very bagic,

386
00:24:04.920 --> 00:24:07.240
well being elements for well being.

387
00:24:08.039 --> 00:24:12.519
It's it's it's something creative. There's an extraordinary symmetry in

388
00:24:12.599 --> 00:24:16.799
your story that that grabbed my attention. When ordinary sight

389
00:24:17.720 --> 00:24:20.400
long no longer gave you color in the same way

390
00:24:21.160 --> 00:24:24.599
music did at that point, and years later, when ordinary

391
00:24:24.640 --> 00:24:28.480
language seeming that it quit. For understanding your mother's life

392
00:24:29.000 --> 00:24:32.160
and expressing what a loss, you can turn to music.

393
00:24:32.920 --> 00:24:38.200
I have a plaque on my wall, uh from my father.

394
00:24:38.359 --> 00:24:39.960
He had his while he was in college, he was

395
00:24:40.000 --> 00:24:43.680
a musician. It says life is a song, Love is

396
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