get up and go!

Surendran Reddy recorded get up and go! as track 1 of his second CD, Rough ‘n Reddy (The Ill-tempered Keyboard, Part II) (JNS Musiek, Johannesburg 1996). He did it in one take and there is no notated score, although at some point ACE may provide a transcription. Reddy’s approach is a mixture of composition, arrangement and improvisation. get up and go! is based on a tune written by Heike Asmuss, and this is how he describes it in the CD liner notes: ‘A wonderfully lively piece by my girlfriend Heike Asmuss fusing African rhythms with pop influences and good German Schlagermusik, this last being still the unchallenged Führer over other musical styles (ironically so, in the land of Beethoven, Schumann and Brahms) and topping it clear over techno (2nd), salsa (3rd) and Mozart (4th).’ The recording below is the CD track and can be downloaded free. The other five tracks on this CD are the gravy train, ubunene ngamandla, vrede vanaand, sweet suite, and lîla’s song for winnie-the-pooh.

The piece originated in one of Reddy’s composition seminars, where he encouraged students of any level to create their own music, and it serves as a reminder of how creative such spaces are.