ELWOOD'S MUSIC CATALOGUE - UNPLAYABLE PIECES

This page is best viewed using Opera - a better browser than Internet Exploder any day! ELWOOD'S MUSIC CATALOGUE
All the pieces that for one reason or another are unplayable!
(Music playing - "Take a deep breath" - click the stop button on your browser to stop the music)
All tracks Š Elwood Herring (There is nothing downloadable on this page - for the reasons given below)
If you think this is all too bizarre to be real, take a look at these notes!
EXPLORING NEW DIRECTIONS AND NEW POSSIBILITIES IN MUSIC COMPOSITION.
LOTS OF DIFFERENT STYLES AND APPROACHES, EVERY PIECE A MUSICAL EXPLORATION. GIVE YOUR EARS A TREAT!
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UNPLAYABLE PIECES Description (This page written on behalf of Elwood, who is very modest about his musical imagination at times!)

String Quintet The basic idea of Elwood Herring's String Quintet is that (as stated in his poem That Masterpiece) is that the players can make any sound at all, as long as it is NOT what is printed in the score. The five players in the quintet must also sit as far apart from each other as physically possible, which does tend to make it difficult for an audience or real-time recording (especially if, say, the violinist is in London, the cellist is on top of Mount Everest and the double-bass player has just hitched a ride on the Space Shuttle!)

? Elwood once pointed out that once a piece of music is made public, it immediately loses something. A piece of music still under construction has a certain charm which is lost the instant it is heard by anyone else other than the composer. Hence this piece, which he has stated will "never be written down, sung, whistled or hinted at in any way by me, except by this description. It exists in my head only, and that's where it will stay. It doesn't even have a title." So, does it actually exist at all? "It exists alright" said the composer; "It drives me mad every day, as if it is compelling me to write it down, but I won't give in. It will die with me!"

Take a deep breath A piece for triangle solo, this starts with a pause lasting 802,701 bars, and is marked largississimo, hence the title. Elwood points out that this is NOT a totally silent piece (none of these works are) so he can't be sued by John Cage's estate (as was Mike Batt), but you do have to have rather a lot of patience. (Apparently the triangle solo, when you finally get to it, is incredibly difficult and well worth waiting for!)

Take another deep breath This piece is considerably shorter than the previous one, and is scored for electric triangle with accompaniment by a soprano and a huge male voice choir, and lasts approximately ten minutes. However, it is marked on the score that the piece must be performed no less than one thousand miles above the surface of the Earth, and all performers must be completely naked and painted dayglo yellow. (Elwood is apparently not fond of male voice choirs or sopranos.)

Sonata for Violin, Piano & Perpetual Motion Machine This piece lasts approximately half an hour, and is rumoured to be quite pleasant; however the score requires all instruments to be destroyed in the final bar and all performers and audience members to commit suicide immediately afterwards. Doesn't get played very much.

Superstring Quartet Apparently the Pet Shop Boys wrote a piece of music called "The Sound of an Atom Splitting" - well, as always Elwood Herring has gone one better. This piece was written for a quartet of superstrings, which as everyone knows are millions of times smaller than an atom! The whole piece lasts 0.000000000000124 of a second. Now all Elwood has to do is find performers small enough to play the superstrings... (n.b. Elwood has written a very real piece called "Serenade for String Theory" which can be heard here)
STOP PRESS: It seems that as usual, reality will inevitably catch up with fiction. See this BBC news article from 22 September 2004.

Serenade for 24 damp sponges Similar in style to Ligeti's Počme Symphonique for 100 metronomes (and you thought Elwood's music was weird?) this piece involves a dozen performers who arrive on stage by means of rollerskates, then proceed to squeeze the sponges (one in each hand) in various conflicting rhythms until their hands get tired, then rollerskate off again one by one. Nice relaxing stuff!

Upside Out Music In this controversial orchestral piece, the members of the orchestra are instructed to remain absolutely silent, while the audience try to make as much noise as they can with whistles, horns, shouts, indoor fireworks etc. This piece is regularly played at the Last Night of the Proms!

The Millennium Fanfare This amazing piece was written for the start of the New Millennium, with strict instructions fro the composer that it would never be played again (until perhaps January 1st 3000). So, sorry if you missed it - but hey, you never know...

Sonata for gravity piano A simple piano piece for "gravity piano". What's a gravity piano, you may ask? Basically, it's a grand piano in free fall, starting from a height of 50,000 feet. The piece lasts exactly as long as it takes the piano (and pianist) to get to the ground, and the pianist is instructed to keep playing all the way down! Elwood also specifies that the performer is required to change sex half-way through the piece, "just to make it a bit more difficult"! Any takers?

The RIAA Copyright Concerto This piece is dedicated to the RIAA and their relentless persecution of music fans everywhere and their seemingly paranoid interpretation of copyright laws. The copyright on this concerto is guaranteed to please the most ardent RIAA lawyer: it is totally forbidden to listen to it, at all. Ever. It can't even be performed or recorded, it can't be written down in any form of musical notation and it can't even be described. In fact I'm probably breaking copyright law by writing about it here!

The Ultimate Symphony Lasting well over four thousand years and scored for every instrument ever built, with extra parts for Channel Tunnel boring machine, Saturn V rocket, the only remaining Lancaster bomber, half a dozen North Sea oil rigs, the Giant Bucket Wheel Excavator, zero-point fueled retro-oscillating time machine, the entire population of Detroit playing kazoos down drainpipes, as many players as can comfortably stand on the Golden Gate bridge hitting the wires with toffee hammers, an albino orang-utan being flicked on the left ear with a runcible spoon, three hundred and one hurdy gurdys being put through a car crusher, twenty-nine whirling dervishes in green wooden clogs called Mohammed (the dervishes, not the clogs) stomping on genuine Steiff teddy bears (also called Mohammed), not to mention a double bass piccolo, an 18th Century ophicleide and a bamboo noseflute (all to be played simultaneously by a Mr. Bean impersonator if possible), this must be the noisiest piece of music ever conceived. Probably not the most interesting though, as every single instrument is directed to play only the note B flat until they drop dead from exhaustion (which begs the question; how exactly do you play a B flat on a North Sea Oil Rig? Obvious really; stand with your back to the wind!)

Best | New | Easy | Hard | Short | Long | Symphonic | Weird | Guitar | MIDI | Full List | Artwork | Instruments

Elwood's Home Page

*UNPLAYABLE PIECES*	*Description* (This page written on behalf of Elwood, who is very modest about his musical imagination at times!)
String Quintet	The basic idea of Elwood Herring's String Quintet is that (as stated in his poem That Masterpiece) is that the players can make any sound at all, as long as it is NOT what is printed in the score. The five players in the quintet must also sit as far apart from each other as physically possible, which does tend to make it difficult for an audience or real-time recording (especially if, say, the violinist is in London, the cellist is on top of Mount Everest and the double-bass player has just hitched a ride on the Space Shuttle!)
?	Elwood once pointed out that once a piece of music is made public, it immediately loses something. A piece of music still under construction has a certain charm which is lost the instant it is heard by anyone else other than the composer. Hence this piece, which he has stated will "never be written down, sung, whistled or hinted at in any way by me, except by this description. It exists in my head only, and that's where it will stay. It doesn't even have a title." So, does it actually exist at all? "It exists alright" said the composer; "It drives me mad every day, as if it is compelling me to write it down, but I won't give in. It will die with me!"
Take a deep breath	A piece for triangle solo, this starts with a pause lasting 802,701 bars, and is marked largississimo, hence the title. Elwood points out that this is NOT a totally silent piece (none of these works are) so he can't be sued by John Cage's estate (as was Mike Batt), but you do have to have rather a lot of patience. (Apparently the triangle solo, when you finally get to it, is incredibly difficult and well worth waiting for!)
Take another deep breath	This piece is considerably shorter than the previous one, and is scored for electric triangle with accompaniment by a soprano and a huge male voice choir, and lasts approximately ten minutes. However, it is marked on the score that the piece must be performed no less than one thousand miles above the surface of the Earth, and all performers must be completely naked and painted dayglo yellow. (Elwood is apparently not fond of male voice choirs or sopranos.)
Sonata for Violin, Piano & Perpetual Motion Machine	This piece lasts approximately half an hour, and is rumoured to be quite pleasant; however the score requires all instruments to be destroyed in the final bar and all performers and audience members to commit suicide immediately afterwards. Doesn't get played very much.
Superstring Quartet	Apparently the Pet Shop Boys wrote a piece of music called "The Sound of an Atom Splitting" - well, as always Elwood Herring has gone one better. This piece was written for a quartet of superstrings, which as everyone knows are millions of times smaller than an atom! The whole piece lasts 0.000000000000124 of a second. Now all Elwood has to do is find performers small enough to play the superstrings... (n.b. Elwood has written a very real piece called "Serenade for String Theory" which can be heard here) STOP PRESS: It seems that as usual, reality will inevitably catch up with fiction. See this BBC news article from 22 September 2004.
Serenade for 24 damp sponges	Similar in style to Ligeti's Počme Symphonique for 100 metronomes (and you thought Elwood's music was weird?) this piece involves a dozen performers who arrive on stage by means of rollerskates, then proceed to squeeze the sponges (one in each hand) in various conflicting rhythms until their hands get tired, then rollerskate off again one by one. Nice relaxing stuff!
Upside Out Music	In this controversial orchestral piece, the members of the orchestra are instructed to remain absolutely silent, while the audience try to make as much noise as they can with whistles, horns, shouts, indoor fireworks etc. This piece is regularly played at the Last Night of the Proms!
The Millennium Fanfare	This amazing piece was written for the start of the New Millennium, with strict instructions fro the composer that it would never be played again (until perhaps January 1st 3000). So, sorry if you missed it - but hey, you never know...
Sonata for gravity piano	A simple piano piece for "gravity piano". What's a gravity piano, you may ask? Basically, it's a grand piano in free fall, starting from a height of 50,000 feet. The piece lasts exactly as long as it takes the piano (and pianist) to get to the ground, and the pianist is instructed to keep playing all the way down! Elwood also specifies that the performer is required to change sex half-way through the piece, "just to make it a bit more difficult"! Any takers?
The RIAA Copyright Concerto	This piece is dedicated to the RIAA and their relentless persecution of music fans everywhere and their seemingly paranoid interpretation of copyright laws. The copyright on this concerto is guaranteed to please the most ardent RIAA lawyer: it is totally forbidden to listen to it, at all. Ever. It can't even be performed or recorded, it can't be written down in any form of musical notation and it can't even be described. In fact I'm probably breaking copyright law by writing about it here!
The Ultimate Symphony	Lasting well over four thousand years and scored for every instrument ever built, with extra parts for Channel Tunnel boring machine, Saturn V rocket, the only remaining Lancaster bomber, half a dozen North Sea oil rigs, the Giant Bucket Wheel Excavator, zero-point fueled retro-oscillating time machine, the entire population of Detroit playing kazoos down drainpipes, as many players as can comfortably stand on the Golden Gate bridge hitting the wires with toffee hammers, an albino orang-utan being flicked on the left ear with a runcible spoon, three hundred and one hurdy gurdys being put through a car crusher, twenty-nine whirling dervishes in green wooden clogs called Mohammed (the dervishes, not the clogs) stomping on genuine Steiff teddy bears (also called Mohammed), not to mention a double bass piccolo, an 18th Century ophicleide and a bamboo noseflute (all to be played simultaneously by a Mr. Bean impersonator if possible), this must be the noisiest piece of music ever conceived. Probably not the most interesting though, as every single instrument is directed to play only the note B flat until they drop dead from exhaustion (which begs the question; how exactly do you play a B flat on a North Sea Oil Rig? Obvious really; stand with your back to the wind!)