Blue Skin of the Sea is also the title of a book by Graham Salisbury, which is a series of coming-of-age stories set in Hawaii. In Salibury's writing, the Pacific Ocean is embodied, almost to the point of being another character. Just like the skin on our bodies, the sea is flexible, wrinkles with time, and is protective of what it surrounds. I am reminded of this idea every time I return home to Honolulu and see the expansive deep blue waters from the plane window.

Looking closely at the “skin” of something is always a revelatory experience. Every type of surface, be it our skin, the ocean, or the wood of the marimba, contains intricate and unique patterns that tell a story. These wrinkles and patterns are actually imperfections that float on top of the object. The personality of these tiny gradations and how they can combine into larger textures is translated musically in my work. I also expressed this idea in a very literal sense; instead of maintaining a safe distance from the instrument with traditional mallet playing, I felt more compelled to explore physical and sonic breadth of individual marimba bars. Thus, all of the extended techniques that are used are simply an extension of the concept of horizontal, rather than vertical movement. For much of the piece, the percussionist needs to be quite close to the instrument— to hear, touch and feel the marimba in a different way than perhaps one is used to. 

More than any other instrument, the marimba’s sound to me seems to palpably “float” several feet above the instrument. The distinctive way of how its sounds activate, suspend (sustain), and decay is manipulated in the large-scale structure of the work. Over the five movements, I chose particular mallets to create a timbral transformation from soft/ resonant to dry/ brittle and back again.

So, Blue Skin of the Sea is about “floating”— hands and mallets on wood, wood on water, sounds in the air.