But what about dubstep flautists? Or really obnoxious post-rock guys? Surely it's not ALWAYS a waste.

I had never once before considered that humans may have more musical instruments than they want or care about. I assumed there were enthusiasts for everything playable and that it was popular somewhere.

Who doesn't own a kazoo? They suck ass, but we all have one.

Don't get me wrong. Everything has its fan base. It's just that, stuff like this is more of a novelty. There are very few people who would want to sit and listen to an entire concert, or album, of subcontrabass flute literature. And it would be a pain in the ass to work into an orchestral score. You'd almost certainly have to mic it for it to be audible in a concert hall (super low instruments are notoriously either too soft or too loud and unwieldy), and virtually no orchestras would own one anyway (let alone someone capable of playing it). You don't want to force an orchestra to have to rent an instrument to play a piece. You'd end up having to cue it in another instrument's part (meaning that a similar sounding instrument would play the important sections when they would normally be resting), which defeats the purpose of using it in the first place. Sorry to go on. I don't get many opportunities to talk about this kind of stuff.

Maybe if the music was actually interesting (unlike what this guy's playing).

Seriously though, congratulations on actually making composition work; I pretty much stopped composing after I was done with school becasue the hassle and expense of dealing with classical musicians/ensembles/orchestras outweighed the personal enjoyment I got out of it.

It really is fun, though, and supposedly I had a lot of promise although I was never too into what I did compared to other, simpler formats.

Thanks. My favorite format is concert band/wind ensemble. The bulk of my income comes from marching band arranging, which I'm not crazy about, but it's something. I mostly work with high school bands, though I've done some work for the Baltimore Ravens Band. I have to rent an apartment from my parents to make ends meet. I've recently gotten into pop music in hopes I might be able to earn some royalties somewhere. It sounds crazy to say I started doing pop music to MAKE money, but there's virtually no money in concert band literature.

In Frank Zappa's autobio he gushes praise over the Synclavier because it allowed him to compose music without having to deal with musicians.

You'll need one of these for the hull: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octobass