Ku Ku

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solo soprano saxophone
1997
6 minutes

performed by Barry Cockcroft

I had been studying in France and one of the last pieces that I performed was Berio’s Sequenza VIIb for soprano saxophone. As I tend to do when practising, I improvised around the themes of the piece. I often found that to contrast the extreme nature of the Sequenza I would play long melodic lines. To contrast further with this, I would take some of the multiphonics used by Berio and add some funky rhythms. When a friend kindly told me that I sounded like a chicken it was amusing to extend on this idea.

Ku Ku remains my most widely played composition after Black & Blue.

Ignoring the spelling apparently:

Kuku in Swahili means chicken.
Ku-ku is a type of clock made in the Black forest.
Ku Ku means crazy.

There are happy hens, ones that live on an organic farm,
that have worms to eat and lay lots of eggs.

The air is fresh and the handsome rooster caters for all their needs…

There are other kinds of chickens,
ones that may have lost their mind, or their head!

Each day they do the same thing, they live in little boxes,
cluck, cluck…. cluck, cluck.