Pattern Transformation (1988)
(for 4 players on 2 marimbas)

Pattern Transformation is one of the first pieces I ever composed, and is certainly the first in which I began to find a voice of my own. Inspired by the metric structure of Baganda court music, from a region today situated in Uganda, I set out to develop new forms of interplay between musicians in an ensemble. Based on a fast fundamental pulse, different musicians feel the ‘beat’ at different moments, and this relative notion of meter opens the door to endless polyrhythmic possibilities, giving the music a three-dimensional quality, akin to looking at a sculpture from different sides, or observing the spokes of a bicycle wheel turning ever faster, blurring, and then seemingly turning in retrograde...

When I initially wrote Pattern Transformation, I believed it to be impossible to play; it is no coincidence that the piece was championed by the Amadinda Percussion Group, an ensemble from Hungary that named itself after the amadinda xylophone, one of the principal instruments of Baganda music, and has mastered the rhythmic techniques of this tradition. Through Amadinda’s many performances, Pattern Transformation was heard and taken up by many other percussion groups and so has, perhaps, added a new aspect to the percussion ensemble repertoire. For me, it was the beginning of a path of exploration of polymetrics that continues to this day and has become one of my main areas of interest as a composer.