Kaira - 2023 Handmade Score of the "One Night on Earth" Recording

In 2011 I scribbled the notes of Kaira as played by Toumani Diabaté onto pieces of paper. I returned to these notes in 2023 and created a handmade score, trusting that the notes I found back in 2011 were just perfect!

I made the score on A2 paper using a rubber stamp for tablature lines and pen and coloured pencil (as well as stickers and glue and torn paper for corrections). Why by hand? To emphasise the provisionality of written scores and to make sure that I spend my time in silent non-digital productivity.

The score can be used to create your own version of Kaira, one of the twentieth centuries most important kora pieces, inspired by one of Africa's greatest instrumentalists, Toumani Diabaté, and recorded for solo guitar by myself on the album "One Night on Earth: Music from the Strings of Mali."

The file you will receive is a high res scan of the original converted to PDF.