Bruno Serrou: Royan witnessed another premiere of one of your works, Kemit. 

François-Bernard Mâche: With Kemit, I'm foreshadowing a certain era, several years ahead of time, the era, alas, of World Music, since in it I transcribe, in the form of a score, a darbouka improvisation recorded in Nubia, in Upper Egypt.

Bruno Serrou: What is the darbouka?

François-Bernard Mâche: It's a drum with a wide variety of striking systems that produce perfectly differentiated timbres. It gives the impression of a multiplicity of drums. The performers achieve extraordinary virtuosity. The instrument is played throughout the Muslim world, including North Africa.

Bruno Serrou: Is it as difficult to play as the Iranian zarb?

François-Bernard Mâche: A little less so, because striking it requires less energy from the fingers, and it's not at all the same fingering. The piece was played superbly on a zarb when it was first created by Jean-Pierre Drouet. Knowing that the fingerings could change, I wrote down the sound result, leaving it up to the performer to find the fingerings that correspond to the desired sound result. I called the piece Kemit because it was the name of Egypt in ancient times.

Bruno Serrou: How do you explain the sounds you want to achieve to the instrumentalist?

François-Bernard Mâche: You can have him listen to the original recording, which I spent many months transcribing because it was so difficult. He'll quickly identify what I'm looking for by trying it out on his drum. Some drums give almost definite pitches that I've transcribed in treble clef, others give less definite pitches but with a variety of registers. In fact, there is mainly the 'doum', a deep sound that corresponds to the resonance of the instrument, and the 'tek', a muffled, dry, high-pitched sound. When faced with an ascending chromatic scale, we know that we need to stretch the skin more or less with one hand to make the different intervals sound, and so on. Kemit was premiered in 1973 as part of my very first solo concert. 

Bruno Serrou: How does it feel to have your first solo concert?

François-Bernard Mâche: A great sensation, especially when it's followed by a very nice front-page article in Le Monde by Jacques Longchampt.

Bruno Serrou: Do you remember what he wrote?

François-Bernard Mâche: Precisely, no, but the article was very favourable.

François-Bernard Mâche, De la musique, des langues et des oiseaux, Michel de Maule -INA 2007, p.240-241