Kubing

Music For Bamboo percussion and Men's voices; 14mins. In Kubing, men’s voices are treated in various ways – as “percussion” sounds in the form of clicks and stops, as a rapid succession of plosives and as continuous sounds, vowel colors, glissandi, pitch levels of speech trills, whispers and high-pitched calls. These voices are set against a background of low-volume attacks produced by the zithers and rasping of the scrapers. The sounds of bamboo tubes, buzzers and sticks serve as bridges between sections. The characteristics twang of the jaw’s harp provides another musical ingredient. As a substitute to the vocal chords its sounds are amplified in the mouth chamber, and altered by tongue placements to produce sounds that approximate those of speech.

*from program notes for “A Concert of Asian and Avant-Garde Music”, 13 and 14 December 1967