Skip to content

Music Publishers - Goodmusic, Roberton Publications, Bardic Edition & Leslie Music Supply

01684 773883

Michael Blake
WAYS TO PUT IN THE SALT Havana Version
Bardic Edition BDE1029

Catalogue Number: BDE1029

ISMN: 9790502445638

Download Available What's this?

View Score

Ways to put in the salt (Havana) image
"Ways to put in the salt" (Havana Version 2008) for piano and tape .
In the course of researching Xhosa music (in the Eastern Cape, South Africa), one of 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, nonharmonic 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. Michael Blake, June 2002
In 2008 I made an electronic tape to accompany the piano. It adds rhythmic layers derived from transcriptions of some of Nofinishi Dywili’s performances, and includes two brief appearances of her voice towards the end of the piece. I gave the first performance of the Havana version in the Basílica Menor San Francisco de Asís, Havana on 16 March 2008 at the 'Spring in Havana' festival. It is dedicated to the memory of Stockhausen, electronic music pioneer, who had died a few months earlier. Michael Blake, March 2008
Duration 13 minutes

Your Basket Close basket

Your basket is empty.

-