One Day Wonder #88

For 1 horn.

It’s the first piece for solo instrument! There are so many things that I love about the solo horn and about music in general. I tried to merge those and exploit those in this forum. This piece is all in a steady 4/4, but I tried to take it a step outside of that, as the meter tends to dictate the music. (No wonder that contemporary composers don’t like that annoying detail. I mean, it’s pretty true, meter has a lot to do with how one writes music, even if it’s for a solo instrument.) All I wanted to do was to convey a sense of flexible tempo and make the thing virtuosic without having it be technically impossible. Sure, there are some big leaps, but no lip-splitting high notes or anything to blow out anybody's chops. So not only is it playable, better players will be able to sight-read it pretty well, too. Here I am getting ahead of myself once again; these pieces probably won't ever be performed. With my Mackris v. O'Reilly experience as a gauge, I'd say that rehearsing and recording these tunes would cost a minimum of $80,000. Most of that would be for everybody's time. Pro players do not come cheap, but they really get the job done. And speaking of time, if I persevere and finish this project, I'll have more than 10 hours worth of music. Out of that amount, I'd like 4-5 hours of really kickass stuff. Maybe that's a little much to hope for. OK, I'd be fine with 2-3 hours of kickass stuff.

Click on the title to listen.