Rex Willis : Hulihan’s Hooligans for 4 guitars : DOz

Rex Willis

Les Productions D’Oz: Score and separate parts (8, 2, 2, 2, nd 2 pages respectively)

Sub-titled ‘Krazy – Kool Musik Makers’ (spelt thus!) this piece is dedicated in fun to Chuck Hulihan and his ensemble of guitars, during rehearsals of which, there is a multitude of nit- picking musical details, challenges to individual players and groups of players, stories, philosophy, and lots of fun. As a result the sessions often get ‘Krazy’ and therefore the piece should be played with lots of joy and smiles. There is a performance on YouTube played live in concert by the ensemble, if anyone wants to hear the piece in toto.

Therefore the piece, from the outset is full of light but exceedingly unusual features that are made to make you smile. Set as an Allegretto in E Major 3 / 4 it begins with a loud accented bass line part, above which are offbeat, deliberately clashing chords. Then the melody enters spread over two parts whilst the bass- line and clashing chords continue underneath. At bar 14 the bass – line alters into another key, and so do the other parts. Everything is very jumpy and rhythmically offbeat, until there is a ritardando, and a new speed of Andante. The music, although slower, is nonetheless every bit as humorous and offbeat rhythmically as before with lots of runs of semi – quavers until a pizzicato few bars from all the players, again off beat, now become an Adagio set in 5/8. This begins with a repetitive two note bass line of a C natural and an F# spread across guitars 3 and 4 while guitars 1 and 2 jump around .Then an accelerando takes us back to the opening 27 bars for a D.C that this time turns into a very heavily accented final 13 bars where discord is the name of the day and the whole work closes on a very off beat couple of bars and a final chord of (from top to bottom), F#, D#, B, and C#

This is a fun piece that audiences will enjoy and which is quite tricky to play, so your guitarists have to all be very good throughout!

Chris Dumigan