The Wooden Voice:Twenty Concert Études for Solo Marimba
Twenty concert études for the advanced four-mallet marimbist.
Each étude in The Wooden Voice is built on one technical problem, and each is also a complete concert piece with its own character: a chorale, a toccata, a lullaby for the low bars, a hocket in 7/8, a nocturne, a march, an invention, a lament, a passacaglia and a brilliant finale. The technique serves the music, and the music gives the technique a reason to be practised.
Together the twenty études cover:
- The four-mallet strokes: double vertical, single independent, single alternating and double lateral
- Rolls of every kind: traditional, one-handed and ripple rolls
- Independence between the hands, polyrhythm and two-voice counterpoint
- Odd and mixed metres: 5/8, 7/8 and changing bars
- The colours of the instrument: playing on the nodes, dead strokes and mallet shafts
Every étude fits a 4.3-octave marimba (A2 to C7) and can be played without change on a 4.5- or 5-octave instrument.
Inside the book:
- Twenty études, about 35 minutes of music, printed so that every étude starts on a left-hand page and every two-page étude lies open without a turn
- Notes on each étude: key, metre, tempo, duration, level, mallet suggestions, technical focus and practice advice
- A guide to the instrument, grips, mallet numbering and mallet choice
- An illustrated guide to the four-mallet strokes and to the notation used in the score
- A technique index, a suggested order of study and ready-made recital sets
- A glossary of musical and marimba terms
- A QR code linking to recordings of the études
The études are suitable for university percussion students, recitals, juries, auditions and competitions, and for professional marimbists looking for new concert repertoire.
Innocent Okechukwu is a Nigerian composer whose music has been performed across Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas by ensembles including the JACK Quartet, the Chamber Orchestra of Boston and the Brazilian Symphonic Orchestra. A Ph.D. candidate in composition at the University of Iowa, he won first prize in the 2026 Luna Nova Pipe Organ Composition Contest. His music has been recorded by Navona Records and published by Hal Leonard.
