Musical humor

Dear Linda,

Here are some questions that I have for you from my students this year.

Do I need a left hand fiddle or a right hand fiddle? Do I need to glue my bridge back on my violin or just nail it to the top? My bass smells a little funny inside my f-holes, and I'm missing my pet hamster. Do all the violins need to be tuned the same? I can't pick up my violin after I sprayed it with Old English furniture polish. I saved money by putting all my strings on my cello to one peg, and threw away the other three. I bought an electric violin but it doesn't play very loud, do you know why? I can't tune my bass very well and the neck looks a little funny hanging off to the side like that. I think something's wrong with my viola bridge, it's in four pieces. I had to pull ninety hairs out of my bow; will that affect the way it plays? I ran out of rosin to use on my bow so I used some chalk but it doesn't sound the same as before. I'm sorry Mr. Michael, but I tried turning those wood pegs and three of my strings came loose into two pieces, are they broke?

Here are some questions from new teachers who have never played strings.

I tried tuning the viola and cello "E" strings but they broke? Does the order that you put the strings on the instruments matter? A piece of one my student's violin fell off and I didn't know what it was, so I threw it away. Do you need rosin to rosin a bow? I put the bridge back on one of my student's instruments but it looks a little funny, on one side the strings are touching the fingerboard and the other I can stick a pretzel between the bridge and the fingerboard? I think my school picked up some cheap instruments. All the necks are unfinished and don't shine with the same finish as the rest of the body. Can you still use the rosin if it's in one hundred pieces? How do you spray insecticide inside a violin to prevent cockroaches and spiders from living inside?

Of the many difficult-to-attribute gems knocking around on the 'net these days, the following is one of our favorites. All that can be said with certainty is that it contains actual quotes from elementary music students collected by a teacher in St.Louis over a 22 year career.

* "When I learned we were going to take a trip to hear a symphony orchestra, I told my feet to quiet down but they felt too Saturday to listen."

* "I would like for you to teach me to play the cello. Would tomorrow or Friday be best?"

* "Will we ever get to the point where music is no longer taught in schools? The chances are 999 out of a hundred."

* "Refrain means don't do it! A refrain in music is the part you better not play."

* "Pieces written in minor keys sometimes make me feel nervous, like when my mom is looking at me under her breath."

* "Just about any animal skin can be stretched over a frame to make a pleasant sound once the animal is removed."

* "By shortening and lengthening tubing filled with air, high and low sounds can be made. Only wind instruments can understand this well enough to make it work for them. When electric currents go through them, guitars start making sounds. So would anybody."

* "When we blow into a whistle, the air is pushed together in some places and pulled apart in others. Naturally it screams and that is the sound we hear."

* "Many things about electronic instruments that were once thought to be science fiction now actually are."

* Question: Who composed The Hallelujah Chorus? Answer: "George Fredric Doorknob."

* "Although Rossini was once considered a great composer of operas, we now know of operas he failed to compose."

* "Haydn got married when he was 28 years old and became the father of classical music."

* "Handel was a deeply religious man because in some of his music he talks about Ye and Thee and people like that."

* "Felix Mendelssohn seems to have been happy, honest and well-liked, although a musician."

A musical director was having a lot of trouble with one drummer. He talked
and talked and talked with the drummer, but his performance simply didn't
improve.
Finally, before the whole orchestra, he said, "When a musician just can't
handle his instrument and doesn't improve when given help, they take away
the instrument, and give him two sticks, and make him a drummer."
A stage whisper was heard from the percussion section: "And if he can't
handle even that, they take away one of his sticks and make him a
conductor."

NEW MUSICAL TERMS
In order to keep you abreast of the ever-developing world of musical
terminology, we provide herewith the latest additions to the esteemed
Harvard Dictionary of Music:

ALLREGRETTO
When you're 16 measures into the piece and realize you took too fast a tempo

ANGUS DEI
To play with a divinely beefy tone

A PATELLA
Accompanied by knee-slapping

APPOLOGGIATURA
A composition that you regret playing

APPROXIMATURA
A series of notes not intended by the composer, yet played with an "I meant to do that" attitude

APPROXIMENTO
A musical entrance that is somewhere in the vicinity of the correct pitch

CACOPHANY
A composition incorporating many people with chest colds

CORAL SYMPHONY
A large, multi-movement work from Beethoven's Caribbean Period

DILL PICCOLINI
An exceedingly small wind instrument that plays only sour notes

FERMANTRA
A note held over and over and over and over and. . .

FERMOOTA
A note of dubious value held for indefinite length

FIDDLER CRABS
Grumpy string players

FLUTE FLIES
Those tiny mosquitoes that bother musicians on outdoor gigs

FRUGALHORN
A sensible and inexpensive brass instrument

GAUL BLATTER
A French horn player

GREGORIAN CHAMP
The title bestowed upon the monk who can hold a note the longest

GROUND HOG
Someone who takes control of the repeated bass line and won't let anyone else play it

PLACEBO DOMINGO
A faux tenor

SCHMALZANDO
A sudden burst of music from the Guy Lombardo band

THE RIGHT OF STRINGS
Manifesto of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Violists

SPRITZICATO
An indication to string instruments to produce a bright and bubbly sound

TEMPO TANTRUM
What an elementary school orchestra is having when it's not following the conductor

TROUBLE CLEF
Any clef one can't read: e.g., alto clef for pianists

VESUVIOSO
An indication to build up to a fiery conclusion

VIBRATTO
Child prodigy son of the concertmaster

And here are the latest and most up-to-date definitions of traditional musical terms:

AN-DANTE
A tempo that's infernally slow

ANTIPHONAL
Referring to the prohibition of cell phones in the concert hall

BAR LINE
What musicians form after the concert

BASSO CONTINUO
When musicians are still fishing long after the legal season has ended

BEN SOSTENUTO
First cousin of the second trombonist

CADENZA
Something that happens when you forget what the composer wrote

CANTABILE
To achieve a complaining sound, as if you have a sour stomach

COLLEGNO
An indication to cellists to hold on tight with their lower extremities

CON SORDINO
An indication to string players to bow in a slashing, rapier motion

ESPRESSIVO
Used to indicate permission to take a coffee break

L'ISTESSO TEMPO
An indication to play listlessly (e.g., as if you don't care)

MAESTRO
A person who, standing in front of the band, orchestra and/or chorus, is able to follow them precisely

OPERA BUFFA
musical stage production performed by nudists

PASTORALE
The beverage to drink in the country when listening to Beethoven with a member of the clergy

PESANTE
An effect distinctly non-upper-class

PIZZICATO
Too much coffee -- time to take a break

RUBATO
A cross between a rhubarb and a tomato

STRINGENDO
An unpleasant effect produced by the violin section when it doesn't use vibrato

A new report now says that the Mozart effect is a fraud. For you hip urban professionals: no, playing Mozart for your designer baby will not improve his IQ or help him get into that exclusive pre-school. He'll just have to be admitted to Harvard some other way. Of course, we're all better off for listening to Mozart purely for the pleasure of it.

However, one wonders that if playing Mozart sonatas for little Hillary or Jason could boost their intelligence, what would happen if other composers were played in their developmental time?

LISZT EFFECT: Child speaks rapidly and extravagantly, but never really says anything important.

BRUCKNER EFFECT: Child speaks very slowly and repeats himself frequently. Gains reputation for profundity.

MAHLER EFFECT: Child continually screams - at great length and volume - that he's dying.

SCHOENBERG EFFECT: Child never repeats a word until he's used all the other words in his vocabulary. Sometimes talks backwards. Eventually, people stop listening to him. Child blames them for their inability to understand him.

BABBITT EFFECT: Child gibbers nonsense all the time. Eventually, people stop listening to him. Child doesn't care because all his playmates think he's cool.

IVES EFFECT: the child develops a remarkable ability to carry on several separate conversations at once.

GLASS EFFECT: the child tends to repeat himself over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again.

STRAVINSKY EFFECT: the child is prone to savage, guttural and profane outbursts that often lead to fighting and pandemonium in the preschool.

BRAHMS EFFECT: the child is able to speak beautifully as long as his sentences contain a multiple of three words (3, 6, 9, 12, etc). However, his sentences containing 4 or 8 words are strangely uninspired.

AND THEN OF COURSE, THE CAGE EFFECT -- CHILD SAYS NOTHING FOR 4 MINUTES, 33 SECONDS. PREFERRED BY 9 OUT OF 10 CLASSROOM TEACHERS.

1. Wilma is tired of paying for clarinet reeds. If she adopts a policy of playing only on rejected reeds from her colleagues, will she be able to retire on the money she has saved if she invests it in mutual bonds, yielding 8.7%, before she is fired from her job? If not, calculate the probability of her ever working in a professional symphony orchestra again.

2. Jethro has been playing the double bass in a symphony orchestra for twelve years, three months and seven days. Each day, his inclination to practice decreases by the equation: (Total days in the orchestra) x .000976. Assuming he stopped practicing altogether four years, six months and three days ago, how long will it be before he is completely unable to play the double bass?

3. Wilma plays in the second violin section, but specializes in making disparaging remarks about conductors and other musicians. The probability of her making a negative comment about any given musician is 4 chances in 7, and for conductors is 16 chances in 17. If there are 103 musicians in the orchestra and the orchestra sees 26 different conductors a year, how many negative comments does Wilma make in a two-year period? How does this change if five of the musicians are also conductors? What if six of the conductors are also musicians?

4. Horace is the General Manager of an important symphony orchestra. He tries to hear at least four concerts a year. Assuming that at each concert the orchestra plays a minimum of three pieces per concert, what are the chances that Horace can avoid hearing a single work by Mozart, Beethoven or Brahms in the next ten years?

5. Betty plays in the viola section. Despite her best efforts she is unable to play with the rest of the orchestra and, on average, plays .3528 seconds behind the rest of the viola section, which is already .16485 seconds behind the rest of the orchestra. If the orchestra is moving into a new concert hall with a reverberation time of 2.7 seconds, will she be able to continue playing this way undetected?

6. Ralph loves to drink coffee. Each week he drinks three more cups of coffee than Harold, who drinks exactly one third the amount that the entire brass section consumes in beer. How much longer is Ralph going to live?

7. Rosemary is unable to play in keys with more than three sharps or flats without making an inordinate number of mistakes. Because her colleagues in the cello section are also struggling in these passages she has so far been able to escape detection. What is the total number of hours they would all have to practice to play the complete works of Richard Strauss?