A 2-CD set featuring six new compositions by Ray contains an enhanced data disc with the music scores to help increase steel pan playing and literacy. The scores are designed for use by steelpan instructors and educators.
Entitled Changing Time, the double CD set is the brain child of Mark Loquan, and is being distributed by eCaroh.com, an Internet-based company.
Music scores, or sheet music, has been mostly absent from pan music and denote various aspects of the written music that can be studied before being performed. Such scores are to any steelpan literacy program.
“The CD is a unique selection of works by Ray Holman that showcases his melodic genius,” says Dr. Jeannine Remy, a UWI ethno-musicologist who transcribed the scores. Editor of the scores was Satanand Sharma, who, like Dr. Remy, is attached to the UWI Centre for Creative and Festival Arts at the St. Augustine Campus of the University of the West Indies.
“This selection of music demonstrates the growth of Ray Holman from his younger Starlift years to his current eclectic cross-cultural jazz phase, says Dr. Remy. “From jazzy licks to complex rhythmic passages, the sweetness of Ray’s music intervenes throughout.”