Perhaps two million years ago the creatures of a planet in some remote galaxy faced a musical crisis similar to that which we earthly composers face today.

In several pieces he asks players to leave and enter the stage during the piece. The title Makrokosmos alludes to Mikrokosmos the six books of piano pieces by Béla Bartók; like Bartók's work Makrokosmos is a serie of short character pieces. Dream Sequence (Images II) (1976) for violin cello piano percussion (one player) and off-stage glass harmonica (two players)
String Trio (1982)
Pastoral Drone (1982) for organ
An Idyll for the Misbegotten (Images III) (1986) for amplified flute and percussion (three players).

He is noted as an explorer of unusual timbres alternative forms of notation and extended instrumental and vocal techniques. Crumb's music contains an intense humanism which is reflected in his personal definition of music: "a system of proportions in the service of spiritual impulse. Five Pieces for Piano) and using a mallet to play the strings of a contrabass (ex.