Yo Shakespeare (1992)

(…) I started writing immediately, using a primitive musical notation program called HB Engraver. HB Engraver didn't have bar lines – you put them in yourself. It also allowed me to write odd numbers of triplets, one or two triplets by themselves. I started experimenting with these oddly-numbered triplets, finding some joyful, exuberant rhythms that sounded great but looked impossible to play. I discovered, however, that I could put bar lines into the music and make measures in which the three triplet notes are split into groups of one and two, and it would all still add up. This is the origin of the split triplet, which I use throughout Yo Shakespeare, as well as in Trance, Love Bead and other pieces. In Yo Shakespeare, I was able to achieve something that I first attempted to create when I wrote Thou Shalt/Thou Shalt Not!, which is to have a jagged, interrupted rhythmic plot that at the same time feels pulse-based and moves forward energetically. I wanted to write visceral music, and I thought of Yo Shakespeare as three salsa bands playing simultaneously, at different but related speeds. I divided the 13 musicians into three groups, one playing the 16th-note pulse, one playing eighth notes and split triplets and, finally, one playing dotted eighths and quarter notes. (…)