World of Pageantry

Henry Fillmore marches.......Bleh.
The Circus Bee......Rolling Thunder.......

Any piece where the composer decided taking a breath wasn't necessary. Like A Holsinger.

Hahha...I remember His Honor by Fillmore, that was hard. In most of the music that really frustrates me the problem usually is because of tempo, fingering( having insane runs come out right), and octaves. Some examples would be His Honor, Entrance of the Queen of Sheba, Havendance, Chorale and Shaker Dance, and Toccata For Band. The hardest I have ever ATTEMPTED to play would be Hoedown from Rodeo by Aaron Copland. That is insanely challenging for flute.

JohnnyffX wrote:Hahha...I remember His Honor by Fillmore, that was hard. In most of the music that really frustrates me the problem usually is because of tempo, fingering( having insane runs come out right), and octaves. Some examples would be His Honor, Entrance of the Queen of Sheba, Havendance, Chorale and Shaker Dance, and Toccata For Band. The hardest I have ever ATTEMPTED to play would be Hoedown from Rodeo by Aaron Copland. That is insanely challenging for flute.

Wow...out of just that list I've played three...

yeah....His Honor was pretty...weird, i played it for an honor band last year.
Chorale and Shaker dance was, i thought, not that bad...unless you had a different arrangement.

and HOEDDOWN...yes...that is one song that i think we all hated in my band class...i especially hate the part at about the top of the last page...solo bassoon, playing seemingly RANDOM notes that somehow manage to sound somewhere between corny and stupid...we all cheered when we were told we weren't playing hoedown for our concert.

JohnnyffX wrote:Hahha...I remember His Honor by Fillmore, that was hard. In most of the music that really frustrates me the problem usually is because of tempo, fingering( having insane runs come out right), and octaves. Some examples would be His Honor, Entrance of the Queen of Sheba, Havendance, Chorale and Shaker Dance, and Toccata For Band. The hardest I have ever ATTEMPTED to play would be Hoedown from Rodeo by Aaron Copland. That is insanely challenging for flute.

I played Havendance and Toccata for Band before. Quite fun, both pieces, I have to say. The hardest I've encountered were probably "Finale from Kalinnikov's Symphony No. 1 in G minor," "The Fetes," and "Valdres." Not the hardest pieces out there by any means, but the hardest I've come across, anyway.

i would have to say that the hardest song i ever played was Bugler's Holliday. you know, the canadian brass one. the teacher kept taking it too fast for single tounging and too slow for double. *shakes fist* curse you mr. brown!!!

Phantom Phan wrote:But a "difficult" piece isn't always the one with the most runs.

i agree. i think the most dificult pieces are the ones that are really slow and/or really soft because it's harder to control the sound.

the most difficult song i had to play was an irish song for concert band. i had to play it on oboe and the song required you to go down to low C, third lowest note on oboe, and hold it for a couple of measures at piano. eesh... that was a killer. =\

My freshman year we pulled out "variations on a korean folksong," I became very good friends with alternate fingerings... I never really got the hang of it.

hmmmm.... ive played a lot of difficult music, so ill just have to pic my favorite hard piece. its Redline Tango by john mackey. you can check it out in the works index of his website at http://www.ostimusic.com
its made up of three sections.

The first section is the initial virtuosic "redlining" section, with constantly-driving 16th-notes and a gradual increase in intensity. After the peak comes the second section, the "tango," which is rather light but demented, and even a bit sleazy. The material for the tango is derived directly from the first section of the work. A transition leads us back to an even "redder" version of the first section, with one final pop at the end.

you really should go check it out, listen to the florida state redording of it.