Ray Holman - Compositional Style

Compositional Style

Since 1971 Ray has produced a string of beautiful calypsos, which are characterised use of five against four hemiola, and by long flowing melodic arcs, supported by complex harmonic progressions,suspended harmonies and extended chords, in contrast to the more standard 16-bar frameworks and simple chord schemes used by other composers. Panyard Vibrations (1977) for example, has three major sections (as opposed to the verse/chorus form often found in calypso), and his 2007 piece "We Just Can't Go On Like This" has a similar tripartite form, with a 32-bar verse, 59-bar chorus and 32-bar "tag". "Heroes Of The Nation" (2001) starts with the highly complex chord progression G#min7 flat5/C#7aug5/C#7/Dmaj7/E7sus4, a level of harmonic sophistication few other calypso composers have reached.