http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3LgD3zC7AU

See the episode about the creation of Gumboots & Bodypercussion on this link

Seventh and last destination on this voyage with Global Compositions was a reunion with Havana, where I lived for 5 months eleven years ago – back in 2000. Back then; the purpose of my journey was to study Cuban music. Now, the idea was to compose new music based in the encounter with Cuban musicians. Whether it was Havana or I, who had changed the most, I don’t know, but either way it was a very different experience this time.
Havana still has an intense and omni-present musical scene.

But musicians do not have the same access to “do it yourself productions”, in the way you see it everywhere back home. Therefore you don’t see that many experimenting “modern-productions” – and hardly any electronic music at all. It shows clearly, that one is in a Third World country, where living through playing music is extremely difficult. Everybody has to play popular music for the mainstream audience to be able to earn money. On the other hand, the music tradition is strong and proud, there are many excellent salsa and rhumba musicians, and few places in the world brings you this many cafés and restaurant featuring live bands.
For several years I have been playing with the Danish/Cuban orchestra Grupo Danson. In 2005 we recorded our debut record “Mi Musica”. Back then we invited the Cuban musician and composer Alexander Abreu to come to Denmark and perform on the album. It was Alexanders debut as a songwriter and lead singer, but the result was good and led to a Danish World Music Award, among other things. Since then Alexander has formed his own orchestra in Havana: “Havana de Primera”, which has been very successful and today is one of the most popular and prestigious orchestras Cuban orchestras. I knew that Alexander would be a good connection to the music scene in Havana and therefore met with him one of the first days after my arrival. He invited me to play with his orchestra, which turned out to be a good opportunity to greet the musicians with whom he is playing and collaborating.
My second connection to the music scene in Havana was the percussionist Julian Morejon Pino. Juian is the brother of my good Cuban friend Yasser Morejon Pino, who for the last 10 years has been residing in Copenhagen. Julian took me to a practise session with the group Afro Cuban and introduced me to the musicians playing there.
The end of it was that I got myself a good team of musicians consisting from: Julian Morejon Pino, Kaisel Leyva and Yandy Gonzalez from Havana de Primera and Afro Cuban and also the flute player Jenniffer Munoz and violinist Yadira Rodriguez, whom I met at a café in old Havana, where they played regularly a few times a week.
I wrote 2 new compositions in Havana. One, which was based in a traditional Cuban comparsa figure and one, which is inspired by Afro-Cuban grooves and figures. I succeeded in booking a day in the studio Egrem, and despite busy musicians, who at the same time had sound checks and practise sessions elsewhere in the city, we ended up with learning and recording de 2 compositions.
Øyvind Melhus and Øyvind Ganesh Eknes, two Norwegian photographers, whom I met, joined us in the studio and filmed out session. I have uploaded some of their shots here on www.globalekompositioner.dk. They are currently working on a video portrait of Global Compositions in Havana.
Havana was, despite challenges considering logistics, etc., a musically very successful course and a nice end to 5 months of music adventure. Now awaits only the finishing of all the sound and film material from the last 5 months.

Buenos Airos happened to become a bit compressed. Due to a frozen credit card in Rio de Janeiro, I was almost a week delayed, leaving me with only 2 weeks in Buenos Aires to edit video from Rio, compose new music, find musicians and record the music, filming, etc. Thus, it turned out to be two intense weeks.
I settled in the quarter of San Telmo, which is a very evocative place with heaps of very cosy cafés. At the theatre “La Scala del San Telmo” I had – during a previous visit to Buonos Aires – noticed a pretty good grand piano. I was lucky to seal a deal allowing me to use it a few hours before noon on days, where the theatre was not being used. Through Palle Windfeldt and his friend Ernesto Snajer, I got in concact with guitarist Lautaro Mature. He became my primary collaborator in Buenos Aires. He gave me feedback and ideas for the compositions, I was making, played in one of the tracks and set me up with the other musicians later to interact.
I managed to do to compositions while in Buenos Aires. The first one originated from a drum-groove found in the Argentine folklore music. The drummer Agustin Lumerman recorded the groove, which I later listened to while composing. Therefter, Lautaro added a bit of folklore-spice, and then it was done. The track was recorded in La Scala on the day before my departure.
The second composition was inspired by the tango. Originally, it was not my ambition to create a tango in that sense, more to compose a tune with the tango in the back of my mind and finding some tango musicians to record it with. After finishing the tune, I met with composer and organiser Diego Schissi, who shared with med different kind of tango-effects, roles, characters, etc. I started out recording a beat and the piano part on the grand piano in La Scala. Thereafter I met with violinist Joaquin Chiban in his apartment, and later on the bandoneón player Martin Sued, who did his recordings at Lautaro’s.
During a lunch break at Plaza Dorrego on one of the last days in Buenos Aires, as always a pair was dancing the tango. We got chatting and decided to meet later that night, where the illumination was at it’s best, to shoot their tango-moves for the tune, which we were currently working on. Earlier, Laurato had noticed a cool wall with graffiti at a roof terrace nearby. The place belonged to an artist’s commune. They though shooting the tango at their terrace was a great ideas, so that became the location for our recordings.

Next stop Havanna.

My connection to the musical environment In Rio was the pandiero-player Bernardo Aguiar. Through him, I got in contact with a number of other cool musicians. I wrote a track one night after returning from a concert with Bernardos band. This track eventually became the focal point of much of what was going to happen in Rio. I decided to turn it into a vocal track in Portuguese. Naturally, I needed someone else to take care of the Portuguese text, and I got in contact with the songwriter Renato Frazao. He added words to the tune – and it was titled “Amplidao”. Bernado and I started out recording the percussion root tracks. The guitar track was recorded in Renato Frazao’s kitchen, and André Siqueira stopped by my place, seized the bathroom and recorded cavaquinho out there. Luiza Borges recorded the vocal track in her own apartment. Finally, I met with Bernardo again for nice, long day, where we created a massive sound barrier of percussions for the outro.
One day I was invited by Gabriel Policarpo, a percussion-playing friend of Bernardo’s, to watch a music lesson with his samba group. Later that night we went to a jam. Here we got the chance to share ideas, which eventually resulted in the defining of a mutual project. In brief, the project consists of a video composition, where we combine Gabriel’s samba school with with Boom project (400 children playing on mason tubs), among other things. We might also use smaller musical constellations from both countries. These different groups of people from both Brazil and Denmark will record the composition – which we subsequently will cut and mix between, filmic and musically.
One of the last days of my stay in Rio, I went with Gabriel to his father’s metal workshop. It turned out that the machines contained some pretty cool sounds, which we started to combine to grooves and rhythmical figures. At the same time I tried to shoot some sequences to gain material for editing a video to the music once back in Denmark.
Rio is definitely a city, where I’ll be back again soon. It was also as if it was trying to keep me there. My credit card got frozen, thus postponing my departure towards Buenos Aires 4-5 days.

After 3 weeks of Indian metropolis and up to 40°C it was perfect to land on the Faroe Islands and inhale the fresh air, feeling the rain and wind in the face and being surrounded by calmness and spectacular nature.
One of the only engagements fixed prior to my departure on the journey, was a weekend workshop at Torshavn School of Music’s Musical Basic Course (MGK in Danish) late September. This I have done a few times before, and these trips has been a contributing factor to the Faroe Islands being chosen as one of the 7 destinations. My workshops at the School of Music are focusing on music and body, rhythm training, coordination and improvisation. This time we worked with a Gumboot-inspired body-percussion groove, among other things. This way I managed to tie together the time in Johannesburg with the stay on the Islands, which for me was a fun experience.
Before arriving I’d pictured a Faroese chain dance as one of the interesting aspects on which to try my strength. To solve this challenge, I allied with Kari Sverrisson, who is a Faroese singer interested in chanting lays. I found a lay called Regin and got Kari to record the lead vocal. Thereafter I summoned the student from the Musical Basic Course one evening to record the previously learnt body-percussion groves and the chorus for the lay. Below the chorus I have put a very old recording of the lay to add some fullness and authenticity. Last I created a track with solo bod-percussion to create a little variation in the beat.
Kristian Blak is often referred to as the focal point of Faroese music throughout the last 30-40 years. He is a fireball who arranges several festivals every year, is running the music store Tutl, which is only selling Faroese music, is the leader of multiple orchestras, arranges and composes music, etc. One of Kristians projects is arranging grotto concerts. Sometimes public concerts and sometimes as events and private arrangements. I got my way into playing in the last grotto concert of the year. We put out from Torshavn on the ship “Nordlyset” (Northern Lights), together with an audience of around 30 people. We moored at a grotto on Nolsoy and skipped into 4-5 dinghies, which sailed us to the grotto. Kristian brought a keyboard and an amplifier plus a few horns. I had my melodica and a djembe from the School of Music. One from the audience brought a western concert flute and played along a bit. Unfortunately there was a lot of current and waves during the concert, so some people from the audience got seasick, an engine went out, two audience-boats collided and the boat with the musicians collided with the grotto walls once. Apart from this, though, there were passages of the concert with calm sea and the possibility to enjoy the experience of playing such a unique location and with the amazing timbre of the grotto. Thumbs up to Kristian for arranging these alternative concerts.
Kim Kristensen is a Danish jazz pianist, composer and fusion musician posted abroad, who has lived on the islands for a few years. He teaches at Torshavn School of Music. I spent quite some time together with Kim, and we agreed to inaugurate his home studio, which at the time being was almost ready to use. I thought that it would be interesting to interpret an older Fareose melody, so I asked the singer Unn Paturson, if she would join me and pick out a tune. She chose the tune Litlan by Hans K. Hoejgaard. Thereafter, Kim and I met one morning in his homestudio, and I explored Kim’s huge collection of instruments. I found a wooden box, a small marimba, an udo pot, a harmonium, an Inuit drum of some kind and 24 bells equal to chromatic scale over 2 octaves. The marimbas were in E Minor, so they got to define the key. Then I recorded on instrument at a time, layer on layer. Kim recorded the flute, and the next day I met with Unn at another place to record the vocals for the track.
Last project on the Faroe Islands was and interpretation of a lullaby called Rura Rura. Actually, at first I just wanted to do a solo piano version of the track but then decided to do a trio version. I asked Per Hoejgaard Petersen, who is studying at the Musical Basic Course, and the bass player Agnar Lamhauge. We met for a few hours the night before I travelled home, and we mad a few spontaneous takes of my arrangement of the track.
It was some very cool weeks on the islands, where the amount of music once again surprised me. Only about 15.000 people live in Torshavn, but the amount and quality of music at least equals that of a Danish city four and fives times the size. Next stop Rio de Janeiro

In Chennai I became acquainted with Southindian Carnatic Music, Anjana’s commune and a boiling hot Indian metropolis.
I logded in a room in a house managed by Anjana. Anjana works with music and theatre and thus, her place would be a good start in Chennai as a connection the musical environment in the city. I got in contact with her through an Indian guy, who I met in Kathmandu.
Anjana introduced me to a number of exciting musicians. One of them was Vedanth Bharadwaj. He recently finished an album project with interpretations of 700-800 old poems. We met to record his song improvisations over a drone and after that some improvisations over a vamp, which I recorded priorly.
In Anjana’s house people often stopped by to hang out. One of them was the poet Sharanya Manivannan. For a while she had considered collaborating with some musicians, where poetry recital should be combined sound/music. We met one afternoon, where she wrote a short text about Chennai, while I tried to comtemplate the possibilities of the musical part. The result was a poem with pictures from Chennai and beats created from the sounds of writing and paper.
At the end of my stay in Chennai, I met a young flute player named Sruthi Sagar. We created a piano-flute duo and recorded a theme along with some improvisations. We chose a raga consisting of the notes: D, Eb, F#, G#, A, A# and C#. The concept was to only play the notes included in the raga. We borrowed one of the only grand pianos in Chennai one forenoon, but unfortunately I am not certain that the recordings are any good, since a drummer was practising next door..
One of the last days in Chennai I met with Praveen Kumar and hans Mridangam-drum. He played a few grooves with som impressively fast subdivisions. As a contrast I chose to play a slow theme largely consisting of semibreves. For this session I used a two-octaves usb-keyboard with organ plugin from Logic. I’m planning on switching the midi-track with a real organ once I get back home.

Next stop Thorshavn.

Namobuddah is a monastery a 2-3 hours drive from Kathmandu.
It is situated in the mountaions with a view of a beautiful valley. Around 200 monks live in that place. A small, isolated society which in many ways resembles a folk school or independent boarding school in the countryside. A small, plain café/kiosk next to the monastery, where I used to go, when I needed a break from my work on mixing sound recordings from Kathmandu. Usually I ordered a masala milk tea.
When the monks learned that I was creating music, they became very interested, and therefore I showed them a few videos. They found body percussion the funniest thing, and they wanted to learn how to do it.
So I showed them a few simple things.

Nepal was a meeting with noisy and hectic Kathmandu contrary to the fragile, little timbres from the Singing Bowls. It was a meeting with Buddhist quarter of Boudhanath, monastaries, monks and monsoon all over the place.
After spending the first days in Kathmandu roaming the streets and looking for some Nepalese music and local musicians to collaborate with, I met Ram, who’s the owner of a shop selling Singing Bowls in Boudhanath and also working as a meditation musician. We decided to make to projects together: One evolving around an album with one hour of relaxation music on Singing Bowls – and another one where I am to cut and paste the recordings to create musical collages. We had quite some problems recording and had to cancel 5 times before succeeding. The obstacles were many: noise from the city, monsoon, taxi strike, electricity shortage and a party next door.
Concurrently I visited the sitar-player Dhrubesh Regmi from the popular Nepalese group Sukarma. He contacted the tabla-player Ananta Prajapati, and together we recorded some improvisations and a few simple themes.
I concluded the 3 weeks in Nepal with a few days at Namobuddha, where I was put up in a guesthouse at the monastery. In peace and quiet and a view to a beautiful valley with the Himalayas in the background, I could listen to the recordings and begin the editing process.
Next stop Chennai