Title: Zeke Hecker: On Composing for Woodwind Quintet
Headings: On Composing for Woodwind Quintet
On Composing for Woodwind Quintet
by Zeke Hecker

Content: The horn can purr, or blast the audience out of the room. The flute gets louder as it gets higher; the oboe does the reverse. The clarinet is more capable of immense crescendi and diminuendi than are the flute, oboe, and bassoon. Use these and other dynamic capabilities of the group to your advantage. Get away from the constricted mezzo-piano-to-mezzo-forte range caused by too much composing at the keyboard. Since the bulk of woodwind repertory is modern, players are skillful at counting, and can negotiate tricky time signatures and frequent metrical changes. ( My string playing colleagues often envy us our sightreading abilities in contemporary music; but hell, if you're a wind player, what else is there?) Don't stick to unchanging 4/4 or 6/8.