Ways to put in the salt (Havana version 2008) for piano and CD
Michael Blake (piano)
“Spring in Havana” International Electroacoustic Music Festival
16 March 2008, 16h00, Basílica Menor del Convento de San Francisco de Asís, Havana, Cuba
In the course of researching Xhosa music (in the Eastern Cape, South Africa), one of Dr David Dargie’s informants, Mrs Amelia No-Silence Matiso, told him how the Xhosa people like “to put salt into their songs” to bring the performance to life. Salt may be added rhythmically, melodically and harmonically through the use of cross-rhythms, clap-delay techniques, altered scale tones, parallel melodic and harmonic parts, non-harmonic tones, dissonance, pattern-singing, and a variety of vocal techniques. The now legendary Nofinishi Dywili, whose live and recorded performances are among my most memorable musical experiences, was probably the greatest exponent of uhadi bow music. Strangely, the day after I had completed the piece I heard from a friend, Andrew Tracey, that she had died. “Ways to put in the salt” was written at the request of John Tilbury who gave the first performance in the Beethoven Room, Grahamstown, South Africa on 28 June 2002 during the New Music Indaba. In 2006 I had the idea of composing a commentary on the piece that would sample and transform the sounds of the uhadi bow and singers, and sometimes sample the voice of Nofinishi herself. This can be played as a second layer of the piece, a kind of Kontakte in reverse — since the soundtrack came later. “Ways to put in the salt (Havana version 2008)” is my small tribute to Stockhausen, without whom we wouldn’t have electronic music or electroacoustic music festivals.
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