1. Fanfare-Allegro
2. Lento-Allegro-Lento
3. Scherzo
4. Misterioso
5. Variations

Five Short Pieces was written while Robins was studying at the Netherlands Carillon School in Amersfoort. They were published by The Guild of Carillonneurs in North America in 1962; however, negative backlash at the difficulty of these pieces and their modern character led to them being withdrawn (this edition was published in 2005). These pieces use techniques that were unexplored or unheard of at the time. Rather than using the typical major and minor tonality, Robins built much of the music on vertical sonority; that is to say, chords and passages were chosen because certain intervals (minor thirds, fourths, tritones, and minor sixths) worked better than most other intervals on carillon bells. Another device was a chromatic scale which included skips of a minor third, again because the minor third is a natural part of the harmonics of carillon bells. By building the music on its sound on the carillon rather than by traditions which have grown out of writing for other instruments, Robins created some strikingly powerful music. Robins also made some use of the "octatonic" scale, made up of alternating half-steps and whole-steps.

1. The theme is presented three times, first interspersed with eighth notes, then with triplet eighths, and finally with sixteenths. Each statement of the theme is separated by a short bridge section, chordal, and in a slower tempo. The opening fanfare and concluding flourishes, combined with the built-in acceleration of the faster and faster notes, gives the piece a flavor that is not only flamboyant, but almost frantic. Noteworthy near the end of this piece is the chromatic scale with minor third skips, a device unique to Robins.
2. A short subject, alternating minor and major third intervals, is presented slowly in the introduction, then developed at a rapid tempo, the subject often being tossed between the higher and lower ranges of the carillon in playful invertible counterpoint. The piece concludes with a return of the slow introduction.
3. A sharp, spicy theme, a bit humorous but also almost ironic in character, is presented several times, interspersed with freer, fantasia-like sections, at times based on the theme. The playful nature of the piece is heightened by its abrupt ending.
4. Here, Robins makes his most obvious use of the octatonic scale. Both the theme and its accompaniment, the latter moving in parallel fourths most of the time, use this scale almost exclusively. As the intensity increases, the accompaniment grows into parallel fourths in both hands, in contrary motion, with the theme moving to the bass. The theme then returns to its original range. Though this piece is, relatively speaking, a relief from the fireworks of the other pieces in the set, there is, even here, a brooding quality to the music which maintains much of the intensity of the work as a whole.
5. A huge flourish, spanning almost the entire range of the carillon, leads to the first presentation of the theme, which appears in the pedals under very rapid figurations in the higher ranges. Four rather free variations follow. In the first, the tempo is much slower, and the theme is presented in canon between the top and bottom voices, the accompaniment being in between. The next variation is faster, with jagged triplet figurations which jump up and down in the upper ranges of the carillon. The third variation presents the theme in an extended form, over a slow, chordal ostinato. Finally, a rapid toccata figuration, built of minor thirds and perfect fourths, accompanies the theme, which again is in the pedals. A bold statement of a fragment of the theme, coming to rest on two powerfully dissonant chords, brings the set to a dramatic close.

—The GCNA