RAAAAHHHHH FHORNSSSSS

I played this song at my concert as well! It was a cool experience

Glad you enjoyed it!

Thanks for watching!

Isn't it great?! Glad you liked it.

This March was written for a car show when klaxon horns were the standard in vehicles, and originally the horns were actually included in the performance

Thank you!

Thank you so much for giving me a great performance. Thank you very much for your dedication.👍👍👍🌟🌟🌟🙌👏👏👏👏👏

We can try…

The Klaxon stylistically belongs to a sub-category of “quick step” marches that are often performed at a more brisk tempo-His Honor and Americans We come to mind. Circus marches (Circus Bee and Barnum and Bailey’s Favorite) are treated in a similar way. The march genre is actually quite diverse in tempo/feel if you include European composers as well!

@Munjibunga When you get more into march history, you can look for hints about tempo in many places. First of all, the composer. In this case, it's Henry Fillmore...one of the more fascinating personalities to emerge as a composer for circuses. Circuses--that's the second hint. Fillmore had a very religious upbringing, and a controlling father. His mother was more sympathetic to his spirit. Henry sang, and played multiple instruments. He eventually became fascinated with the trombone , an instrument his father associated with sinful behavior. Once Henry graduated from conservatory, he joined his father's publishing company, but that was not long lived. He'd fallen in love with an "exotic dancer," further infuriating his father. He literally packed up and joined the circus, with his now-wife. Eventually he and his father reconciled. Fillmore also wrote under at least a half-dozen pseudonyms. He's one of the most--if not the most--prolific composers and arrangers in wind band history. And he was a titan of music education in his later years. The Klaxon is one of his more interesting marches. It was **not** written during his circus period. In fact, it was written for an automotive exhibition, and for that exhibition the trio melody was played with AUTOMOTIVE HORNS!! So, it's one of his more fascinating marches from that perspective alone. It's not unreasonable to interpret The Klaxon at almost any march tempo you could name. Most of Fillmore's marches sound great at all tempos. I've heard beautiful renditions of this march at the entire gamut of march tempos. But I do happen to enjoy it when someone plays The Klaxon as a "screamer," because the woodwind lines take on a heightened kinetic energy at that tempo. Bottom line, there are literally hundreds upon hundreds of marches that beg for quick tempos--almost the entire canon of circus marches (with the exeption of the "smears," a whole different category), but even Prokofiev's March Op. 99 is most alive at a full-blown galop. You mention Bernstein...his early sixties readings of the Overture to Candide are quick, for sure, but that was his original vision for the work!! He did record it at a slower tempo later in life, I think to wring a little more shape out of the "Oh, Happy We" theme. But that's always the challenge, right? To wring shape out of melodic lines at tempo. If I were going to critique this performance in any way, I found myself wanting more emotion out of the melody in the trio. I don't think a slower tempo is necessary to achieve that, so much as leaning into the diminished to dominant couplets, swelling the diminished INTO the dominant to give the melody more propulsion. But that kind of shaping takes rehearsal time. Many of my dear friends have been members of them over the years, and I know what their performance schedules are like. I imagine that's why they (and most bands) don't even attempt to recreate The Klaxon "gimmick" as it was originally performed. The Klaxon has become a serious march in its own right, sans gimmick, and this is a fine performance of it that lacks for nothing as a quick interpretation!!