The Best

I originally wanted to list this project's "top 10%," but thinking back on all these pieces, I think there will be a lot more than 30, so I'll just pick however many I want. I mean, there's a lot of good music here. And even the pieces that aren't listed below have their moments. Here goes:

#7 - I've said it many times before: this piece started it all. After I finished it, everything changed.
#8 - Simple in form, effective in delivery and very nice to listen to.
#12 - This piece came from nowhere and ended up being one of the project's best.
#15 - I don't know what compelled me to write this driving galop, but I'm glad I did.
#18 - This is a sunny, groovy and short little odd-meter piece that always cheers me up when I'm feeling creatively bankrupt.
#19 - How are you supposed to write a funky march without percussion? Like this!
#31 - My first proper march; it paves the way for many fine efforts in the future.
#33 - A faux-Balkan romp, complete with a nasty-sounding trumpet and crazy alternating meters.
#40 - Although the trombone part is totally impractical, this is a really nice little odd-meter doo-wop evocation.
#41 - Another very fine march. This one is in minor key.
#44 - How do you make 4/4 sound weird? Subdivide it and make a piece out of it.
#46 - It's my accidental Herb Alpert creation!
#48 - Here's a nice massive dirge-like piece.
#61 - This tune just happened, and in a very good way.
#64 - Here's a fun little polka that kind of rocks.
#74 - This march might well be the best piece of the project. I won't declare it the winner, but it's a serious contender.
#77 - A proto-jazz cakewalk that packs a lot of charm.
#79 - The first try for this piece (#78) was something of a disaster. This version is most improved reworking that I've done.
#82 - A trombone-centric galop that totally stomps.
#87 - This may also be the best tune of the project so far: it's just your regular weird, tonally-unstable surf tune.
#99 - I channel Prokofiev in this march. I worked so hard on it that it's no wonder that #100 sucks so bad.
#102 - This piece is very tense and occasionally lyrical. It also kicks ass in a very slow way.
#109 - On the surface, this piece seems quite ordinary, but I've grown very fond of it.
#118 - Another example of what happens when you don't have any workable ideas and just start writing. Sometimes amazing things happen. This is one of those pieces.
#122 - A lovely trombone-lead tune that highlights both major and minor sevenths.
#123 - A cool ska tune with the trombone once again in the lead.
#131 - This is a real pleasing jazz waltz that almost sounds like it has real changes.
#133 - Although the main theme of these variations (#132) is kind of a bust, this is one of the best pieces I've written in a long time. It builds until we hear three separate lines going on at the same time. I was as surprised as anyone that they work so well together.
#139 - This is the best of my Gabrieli-like pieces. The others are #116, #117 and #145. They're not as good.
#150 - This is a slick, alternate-harmony march that celebrates the project's halfway point.
#156 - I didn't write enough wild polkas, but I made up for it by making the few that I wrote very wild.
#162 - I wanted to write something that sounded like the soundtrack to a reasonably good adventure movie and here it is. This also ranks among my very, very best pieces.
#165 - One more piece that came from nowhere and manages to sound really good.
#178 - I wrote this as a requiem for a goldfish named Leon. I still miss that little guy.
#190 - My marches are getting weirder and I really like it.
#195 - Yeah, those marches are getting so weird that they barely resemble marches.
#196 - A very humane approach to 12-tone music.
#202 - Small-band semi-minimalism that works really well.
#207 - The best jig I've ever written. It's also the only jig I've ever written. Still, it kicks serious ass.
#214 - If you write lots of grace notes, expect great things to happen.
#228 - Here's a a pretty intense canon that, unlike many other canons and fugues that I've written, manages to hold its shit together for the duration.
#231 - This is a reall swell tune that has a melody in 4 and an accompaniment in 5.
#242 - The best galop in the bunch. This piece seriously wails.
#247 - This is one of the weird pieces I've written - a sort of hoe-down/neo-romantic Slavic dance combination. Somehow, it ends up sounding pretty super-fine.
#254 - Once again, it's not a march, but it's definitely not a polka. It does, however, sound pretty crazy.
#264 - This effort represents the best of all those musical palindromes of the late-250s and early-260s.
#274 - All echoes, all the time; very trippy stuff.
#284 - Big, glacial music.
#288 - One last swipe at the march. This is among the best. How did that happen??
#289 - At last, a successful neo-renaissance piece! Hallelujah!
#294 - Although this is based on #285, this is a far better example of big-band minimalism than its source material.