Arabian Dances: Bassoon

My percussionist friend couldn't have described it better: "It sounds like a really awesome desert boss fight."

This is one of those songs that makes you enjoy low notes on a French horn. -A Trombone Player

1st chair clarinet right here. Got a standing ovation from the audience. It was so fun!

OMG I PLAYED THIS AT MY SCHOOL AND MY BAND TEACHER DESCRIBED IT AS A DANCE OFF AND I CAN'T UNHEAR IT! I'm a trumpet and I had to do the clapping bit and I still remember it lol

My band's playing this song and I cannot describe it with anything but the words "this song actually slaps oh my god." Those were my exact thoughts as I listened to the recording for the first time. Also, as a clarinet player, I live for the solo and how important of a role we get to play in this one.

Our Honor Band had 5 hours to play this amazing piece and it went brilliantly! I'm glad we got this beautiful song to play!

We played this at a music festival and I think I lost my hearing from the clapping afterward. Such a good song💙

I was the only baritone in my band. And gosh, this song and "Year of the Dragon" will always be my TOP FAVORITE songs! I still have the sheet music. If I had a baritone, nobody in my neighborhood would know peace. I miss band so much. It was the only thing keeping me going to school.

Ok so my band took it all the way for the concert we performed this song in, so in the featured parts the percussionist got up and danced around the entire gym while clapping and whooping. It was lit.

Just did this song for honors band at the Ordway! It's such a fun song to play ✨✨ Edit: I'm a trumpet player btw ☺️🤙

I'm playing Arabesque for our spring concert (which is like this but faster, more complicated, and "oops that was my cue" than this one but good piece nonetheless) and this popped up. Edit (1-16-2020): We're now playing this song in class and I love playing this song (especially since I had the xylophone part in Arabesque). It's a breeze compared to this, but I love them both!

This was one of our best pieces in middle school! So good, and it's actually really catchy. Our band teacher played us the piece when we got it, and everyone loved it.

Our band director left to go take care of his daughter in the middle of us learning this song, so we kept shuffling through subs who taught it way differently. I was also the only trumpet left in the whole band because everyone quit. We had to delay our concert by 3 weeks and even then it was a disaster.

It was just announced today that we would be performing this, and that we would do "auditions" for the flute solo right before the epic beat drop. I will fight till my last breath for that solo, even though there's only three other flutes in our band.

I was supposed to play this masterpiece at my band concert last night, but unfortunately it was canceled at the last minute due to a wildfire and can't be postponed. Either way, this is such a good song and the alto sax part is so good.

I played this at one of my honor bands, and we even had an Indian director and he said that this song sounded like something he would hear at his job in India when he lived there.

We're playing this in symphonic band and I absolutely love the clarinet solo at the beginning! Our clarinet player kills it.

When I played this, I was the only clarinet with the balls to attempt the solo. This was a month before our concert and I had never EVER done that many high notes at once besides during scales. Concert time comes, and somehow I actually knock it out of the park. This song was so perfectly done by my 8th grade band. Whenever I hear this, a tear comes to my eye ngl.

My middle school is playing this along with "Adrenaline Engines" and "Highlights of Shrek 2," and I am 1st chair flute and I am so excited to play the solo here.

I played this at band camp and I played the tambourine. My hand hurt so bad afterwards.

I'm playing this song as a French horn player in my MS band, and when my teacher first presented it to my class, the only words I could think of were "wow the clarinets are gonna enjoy this."

I was the clarinet soloist in my middle school band :)

Guys, I mastered the clarinet solo at the beginning... WITH A TRUMPET!!

Man, I love resting for 13 measures and then playing the same thing over and over again.

Just played this at our winter concert!!! Coming from a tenor sax of 3 years, super fun!!

I played this in seventh grade band last year. I had first trumpet and absolutely loved this song. Probably my all-time favorite concert band piece we've done so far. I remember my band directors spending so much time on getting our claps together lol.

The memories this brings! I remember my first festival—this was one of our songs and we got all perfect scores.

I remember getting to play the clarinet solo in the beginning in middle school! It was a very fun piece!

Our school played this once, then it was used by the brass section to torment the teachers for years, even being taught to younger students who didn't even know what it was. And it was amazing.

POV the conductor gives you percussionists the duo at the beginning with a random clarinetist two minutes before the concert because of an emergency and you end up having a haphazard musical and spiritual connection with said clarinet lmao 🤣

Played this recently, and I loved how the director described it as a dance competition! Made me see it a whole lot differently.

I might get to play this in the spring. I'm a clarinet. Edit: My band is learning this now and the 3 first clarinets (one of them being me) are playing the clarinet solo at the beginning (we're playing it as a trio). This is probably one of my favorite pieces we've ever played.

Wish me luck! I just yoinked the clarinet solo.

I played this song once and let me tell you, it gave me chills. Mind you, I played it in middle school so everybody was new to this song lol.

We played this for Heartland Honor Band this past January and I was first chair flute and I got the flute solo and we did good.

I'm still mad that our director gave a saxophone the solo instead of a clarinet at the beginning. Also, I'm sad I didn't get the flute solo, but it's okay 💀

As somebody that can play a soprano, alto, tenor, and bari sax and play all of them for band and just choose which one I wanna play every day, this song is awesome. It's sad when you're playing 4 kinds of saxes and still get 1st chair in all of them.

I'm an alto sax and I remember playing this for all-district honors band. This was one of the hardest pieces I've played. Plus, we had to do some of the clapping lol. It was fun though—we only got to work on this for about 3 hours before we had to perform it and I think we did pretty good for what it was.

I played this in 9th grade (I'm 27 now) and I was the flute solo at the beginning. I didn't understand tuning so when I started playing with the clarinet, it sounded so bad 😂💀

I'm gonna be playing this next year in the springtime. I'm so excited! I play horn. EDIT: So far it's been going well! Other than the fact that our trumpet barely knows how to make a sound, so at measures 44 and 85 it's basically 2 horns and 1 trumpet trying to play over the entire band 😭 EDIT 2: We just finished our concert and it went SO WELL!

First time seeing this song was when we took a tour of my middle school the year prior before we got there. The band played us the song for fun and it made me cry. This year I'll be playing it eventually, and trust, I will come back when I do.

I am playing this for Disneyland and competing with other schools.

I remember playing this in 8th grade. I'm now a junior in high school (11th grade). I forgot how the bass clarinet part was, but it was fun to play as an 8th grader.

We hardly sound like this. Our solo hasn't even been decided and it's in two months.

I'm playing the timpani part for a concert and all of my section (percussion) says it's one of their favorite songs and also one of their least favorite songs lol (it's because of all the clapping).

I have a concert for the city and the mayor is going to be there. I'm playing snare and some other percussion 1 parts. Wish me luck!

Let me tell you something... our concert didn't even come close to sounding like this.

Arabesque, except less of a middle finger to upper woodwinds.

I played the clarinet solo at the beginning and I messed up the counting because I totally forgot to breathe, which is exactly what my conductor told me not to do: forget to breathe. So yeah, first time solo did not end the best.

I play the trombone and I was not very happy when I saw I had to wait 13 measures. Edit: I also didn't like it when the snare exploded my ears at the end.

I was so jealous of the alto saxes when they got this. (I play tenor.) I would sit and watch them play at measure 20. I now pat one of their thighs when he has quarter notes.

My band teacher made us practice for 3 classes on the clapping part. We kept messing up.

This is kinda like Arabesque in a way.

We were going to play this for a band performance in Georgia, but the trip got canceled due to a certain virus... Just saying, I played the clarinet part.

I played rainstick, tambourine, and mallets. This was what our band described as the best piece ever. I played rainstick because our player didn't show up, tambourine because, well, I wanted the part, and mallets because I wanted to do something at the end. It was the best thing ever.

I'm a euphonium and this was the first time I felt like I did something.

Stop it, this makes me wanna cry for multiple reasons: 1. Last year while in 7th grade, I was switched to percussion for it (I play clarinet). 2. We had the concert outside and papers went flying. 3. We had it outside so we all got attacked by our stands at least once. 4. It's the last concert I had with my 8th grade friends (going into high school now) and more reasons I'm too lazy to type.

I played this in 6th grade. Now I'm in 9th and miss playing this.

So my middle school band played this (no surprise there) and we just kinda immediately praised it as a bop. This song absolutely slaps, I'm sorry.