I am wanting to know what are some novelty and/or audience pleasing marimba pieces out there. I am talking about pieces like Rhythmic Caprice...though preferibly something a tad easier. But I am open to any and all input out there as to what pieces exist for that catagory. Thanks for your help

Ben,
Some pieces that are always crowd pleasers are Polaris, Michi, Wind in the Bamboo Grove, or Rhythm Song. Tambourin Paraphrase by Keiko Abe also is a great crowd pleaser and contains a lot of the novel things contained in Rhythmic Caprice, and it is a bit easier.

Tyson
www.percussionspecialist.com

You should try Zivkovic's Ilias. Hidemi Murase, last year's winner of the Belgium mar. comp., performed this piece last year at PASIC. It is a fun, exciting challenging piece that is accesible to all audiences.

Prism, solo version, is a flashy, very fast 2-mallet piece. It is in the Abe's book mentioned in another post, "Works for Solo Marimba". This book has Prism, Tamborine Paraphrase, Wind Sketch and Wind Across Mountains.