Two-Mallet Traveler, The

The Two-Mallet Traveler invites players and their audiences to savor scenes, sights, and sounds from around the world. Written for two mallets and ranging from 3 to 4 1/3 octaves in range, these solos form a varied collection of colorful and winsome vignettes written in a state of constant delight.

Program Notes

Ever since I was a boy I've been fascinated by unexplored roads, trails, or paths stretching out before me. Sometimes it is the very name of a destination that is enticing, but what I savor most is the contrast in scenery and setting. The beauty and immense variety in the land, the water, the sky - these are inexhaustible sources of wonder and delight. However, I also love watching people where they live and work, and am keenly interested in the sometimes subtle, sometimes startling, differences between what colors and flavors their life and what shapes mine.

The tuneful, and, I hope, evocative solos in this collection distill a variety of experiences, encounters, and personalities into distinctive musical vignettes. As always in writing for the marimba, I delight in trying to coax it to sing, to paint a picture, to transcend the prosaic reality that we marimbists are merely striking slabs of wood with sticks. I think it's given to us with this instrument to travel, to explore, and to invite our listeners to journey with us.

Well - lofty words, no doubt. Perhaps weightier than the actual music that lies in front of you! I've recently returned from an extensive trip throughout the American Southwest, and many of the staggering views, reluctantly untraveled (for now) back roads, encounters and conversations with both locals and fellow travelers, and even the scents of the earth and air, linger in my mind. Maybe someday I can somehow translate that tapestry into fitting music, but in the meantime, I hope you'll enjoy this collection of previous sights seen, songs heard, and moments savored.

Whether yearning, innocent, relaxed, musing, or agitated, each solo represents a journey I wish to share with you and your listeners.

- Kit Mills

CONTENTS
Brookside Prelude (3-octave)
Danza Triste (4-octave)
Salsa Habañera (3.5-octave)
Sheepshearers' Rondo (4.3- or 4-octave)
Canción de Andalucía (4-octave)
Soul Reggae (4.3- or 4-octave)
The Old Gaelic Fiddler (3.5-octave)
Takin' It Easy (3-octave)
The Club Gig (3-octave)
Incendiary Toccata (4.3- or 4-octave)

Grade Level: 4
Copyright: 2022
Number of Players: 1
Publisher: C. Alan Publications
Category: Solo Works

Instrumentation

Marimba (3, 3.5, 4, & 4.3-octave)