Skeleton Key

Brian Nozny

4+ Players

Easy/Medium Concert Percussion

Instrumentation: The instrumentation for this piece is very flexible. The bold instrumentation is how it’s listed in the score, and it is followed by instrumentation suggestions for the discretion of the director. Creativity is encouraged! High Metal – any sort of high sound (i.e., small pot/can, brake drum, triangle (resting on table), glass bottle), Low Metal – dark, lower pitched metallic sounds (i.e. metal trash cans, circular saw blade, large pieces of metal sideing, gongs laid flat on a table, darker-sounding ride cymbals), High Drum – any non-metallic item (i.e. small plastic containers, small pieces of wood, woodblocks, drums (i.e. higher pitched, smaller drums)), Low Drum – larger, non-metalic items (i.e., plastic trash cans, plastic containers, large wooden crates, large drums (i.e., bass drum, floor tom, low/dampened timpani)

Skeleton Key by Brian Nozny is a high-speed percussion quartet written for found percussion instruments. This piece is a flexible and fun addition to concert repertoire as directors and students have the opportunity to scout out and select the "instruments" they would like to play. The four parts can be achieved with a combination of high metal, low metal, high drum-like, and low drum-like objects. The work primarily focuses on developing simple syncopation and sixteenth-note timing at an accelerated speed, pushing students' mental and kinetic coordination, respectively. The parts can also be doubled (or tripled) depending on the number of players available. Skeleton Key is a lighthearted and energetic piece to a begin or end a concert on a high note.

Skeleton Key ships as a printed, professionally bound score and includes individual parts in PDF format for printing or tablet viewing.