As a stress reliever, for those who are doing their last minute rushing of hols hw :)
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Q: What do you call a person who plays the viola?
A: A violator.
Q: What is the difference between the first and last desk of a violin section?
A: Half a measure.
Q: What is the best recording of the Walton viola concerto?
A: Music Minus One.
Q: Why can’t you hear a piccolo on a digital recording?
A: Recording technology has reached such an advanced level of development that all extraneous noise is eliminated.
Q: What do a saxophone and a lawsuit have in common?
A: Everyone is happy when the case is closed.
Did you hear about the classical pianist who was not a good speller? When she went out to buy something she left a sign on her door that said: “Out Chopin. Be Bach in a minuet”
Q: Why did they arrest the musician?
A: He got into treble.
Q: What is musical and handy in the supermarket.
A: A Chopin Lizst.
Q: Why did the music student have a piano in the bathroom?
A: Because he was practicing Handel’s Water Music.
Two violinists make a pact that whoever dies first, he will contact the other and tell him what life in Heaven is like. Poor Max has a heart attack and dies. He manages to make contact with Abe the next day. Abe says, “I can’t believe this worked! So what is it like in Heaven?” Max replies, “Well, it’s great, but I’ve got good news, and I’ve got bad news. The good news is that there’s a fantastic orchestra up here, and in fact, we re playing “Sheherezade,” your favorite piece, tomorrow night!” Abe says, “So What’s the bad news?” Max replies, “Well, you're booked to play the solo!”
A: A violator.
Q: What is the difference between the first and last desk of a violin section?
A: Half a measure.
Q: What is the best recording of the Walton viola concerto?
A: Music Minus One.
Q: Why can’t you hear a piccolo on a digital recording?
A: Recording technology has reached such an advanced level of development that all extraneous noise is eliminated.
Q: What do a saxophone and a lawsuit have in common?
A: Everyone is happy when the case is closed.
Did you hear about the classical pianist who was not a good speller? When she went out to buy something she left a sign on her door that said: “Out Chopin. Be Bach in a minuet”
Q: Why did they arrest the musician?
A: He got into treble.
Q: What is musical and handy in the supermarket.
A: A Chopin Lizst.
Q: Why did the music student have a piano in the bathroom?
A: Because he was practicing Handel’s Water Music.
Two violinists make a pact that whoever dies first, he will contact the other and tell him what life in Heaven is like. Poor Max has a heart attack and dies. He manages to make contact with Abe the next day. Abe says, “I can’t believe this worked! So what is it like in Heaven?” Max replies, “Well, it’s great, but I’ve got good news, and I’ve got bad news. The good news is that there’s a fantastic orchestra up here, and in fact, we re playing “Sheherezade,” your favorite piece, tomorrow night!” Abe says, “So What’s the bad news?” Max replies, “Well, you're booked to play the solo!”
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Efficiency
From: Efficiency & Ticket, Ltd., Management Consultants
To: Chairman, The London Symphony Orchestra
Re: Schubert's Symphony No. 8 in B minor.
After attending a rehearsal of this work we make the following observations and recommendations:
1. We note that the twelve first violins were playing identical notes, as were the second violins. Three violins in each section, suitably amplified, would seem to us to be adequate.
2. Much unnecessary labour is involved in the number of demisemiquavers in this work; we suggest that many of these could be rounded up to the nearest semiquaver thus saving practice time for the individual player and rehearsal time for the entire ensemble. The simplification would also permit more use of trainee and less-skilled players with only marginal loss of precision.
3. We could find no productivity value in string passages being repeated by the horns; all tutti repeats could also be eliminated without any reduction of efficiency.
4. In so labour-intensive an undertaking as a symphony, we regard the long oboe tacet passages to be extremely wasteful. What notes this instrument is called upon to play could, subject to a satisfactory demarcation conference with the Musician's, be shared out equitably amongst the other instruments.
Conclusion: if the above recommendations are implemented the piece under condsideration could be played through in less than half an hour with concomitant savings in overtime, lighting and heating, wear and tear on the instruments and hall rental fees. Also, had the composer been aware of modern cost-effective procedures he might well have finished this work.
From: Efficiency & Ticket, Ltd., Management Consultants
To: Chairman, The London Symphony Orchestra
Re: Schubert's Symphony No. 8 in B minor.
After attending a rehearsal of this work we make the following observations and recommendations:
1. We note that the twelve first violins were playing identical notes, as were the second violins. Three violins in each section, suitably amplified, would seem to us to be adequate.
2. Much unnecessary labour is involved in the number of demisemiquavers in this work; we suggest that many of these could be rounded up to the nearest semiquaver thus saving practice time for the individual player and rehearsal time for the entire ensemble. The simplification would also permit more use of trainee and less-skilled players with only marginal loss of precision.
3. We could find no productivity value in string passages being repeated by the horns; all tutti repeats could also be eliminated without any reduction of efficiency.
4. In so labour-intensive an undertaking as a symphony, we regard the long oboe tacet passages to be extremely wasteful. What notes this instrument is called upon to play could, subject to a satisfactory demarcation conference with the Musician's, be shared out equitably amongst the other instruments.
Conclusion: if the above recommendations are implemented the piece under condsideration could be played through in less than half an hour with concomitant savings in overtime, lighting and heating, wear and tear on the instruments and hall rental fees. Also, had the composer been aware of modern cost-effective procedures he might well have finished this work.
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Glossary of music terms
Accent: An unusual manner of pronunciation, e.g. "Y'all sang that real good!"
Accidentals: Wrong notes
Ad Libitum: A premiere.
Agitato: A string player's state of mind when a peg slips in the middle of a piece.
Agnus dei: A famous female church composer.
Allegro: Leg fertilizer.
Altered Chord: A sonority that has been spayed.
Atonality: Disease that many modern composers suffer from. The most prominent symptom is the patient's lacking ability to make decisions.
Augmented fifth: A 36-ounce bottle.
Bar Line: A gathering of people, usually among which may be found a musician or two.
Beat: What music students to do each other with their musical instruments. The down beat is performed on the top of the head, while the up beat is struck under the chin.
Bravo: Literally, "How bold!" or "What nerve!" This is a spontaneous expression of appreciation on the part of the concertgoer after a particularly trying performance.
Breve: The way a sustained note sounds when a violinist runs out of bow.
Broken consort: When somebody in the ensemble has to leave and go to the restroom.
Cadence: When everybody hopes you're going to stop, but you don't.
Cadenza: The heroine in Monteverdi's opera "Frottola".
Cantus firmus: The part you get when you can only play four notes.
Chansons de geste: Dirty songs.
Chord: Usually spelled with an "s" on the end, means a particular type of pants, e.g. "He wears chords."
Chromatic Scale: An instrument for weighing that indicates half-pounds.
Clausula: Mrs. Santa.
Coloratura Soprano: A singer who has great trouble finding the proper note, but who has a wild time hunting for it.
Compound Meter: A place to park your car that requires two dimes.
Con Brio: Done with scouring pads and washboards.
Conductor: A musician who is adept at following many people at the same time.
Conductus: The process of getting Vire into the cloister.
Counterpoint: A favorite device of many Baroque composers, all of whom are dead, though no direct connection between these two facts has been established. Still taught in many schools, as a form of punishment.
Countertenor: A singing waiter.
Crescendo: A reminder to the performer that he has been playing too loudly.
Crotchet: 1) A tritone with a bent prong. 2) It's like knitting, but it's faster. 3) An unpleasant illness that occurs after the Lai, if prolation is not used.
Cut time: When you're going twice as fast as everybody else in the ensemble.
Da capo al fine: I like your hat!
Detache: An indication that the trombones are to play with the slides removed.
Di lasso: Popular with Italian cowboys.
Discord: Not to be confused with Datcord.
Drone: The sound of a single monk during an attack of Crotchet.
Ductia: 1) A lot of mallards. 2) Vire's organum.
Duration: Can be used to describe how long a music teacher can exercise self-control.
Embouchre: The way you look when you've been playing the Krummhorn.
English horn: A woodwind that got its name because it's neither English nor a horn. Not to be confused with French horn, which is German.
Espressivo: Close eyes and play with a wide vibrato.
Estampie: What they put on letters in Quebec
Fermata: A brand of girdle made especially for opera singers.
Fermented fifth: What the percussion players keep behind the tympani, which resolves to a 'distilled fifth', which is what the conductor uses backstage.
Fine: That was great!
Flute: A sophisticated pea shooter with a range of up to 500 yards, blown transversely to confuse the enemy.
Garglefinklein: A tiny recorder played by neums.
Glissando: The musical equivalent of slipping on a banana peel. Also, a technique adopted by string players for difficult runs.
Gregorian chant: A way of singing in unison, invented by monks to hide snoring.
Half Step: The pace used by a cellist when carrying his instrument.
Harmonic Minor: A good music student.
Harmony: A corn-like food eaten by people with accents (see above for definition of accent).
Hemiola: A hereditary blood disease caused by chromatics.
Heroic Tenor: A singer who gets by on sheer nerve and tight clothing.
Hocket: The thing that fits into a crochet to produce a rackett.
Interval: How long it takes you to find the right note. There are three kinds: Major Interval: a long time; Minor Interval: a few bars; Inverted Interval: when you have to back one bar and try again.
Intonation: Singing through one's nose. Considered highly desirable in the Middle Ages
Isorhythm: The individual process of relief when Vire is out of town.
Isorhythmic motet: When half of the ensemble got a different photocopy than the other half
Lamentoso: With handkerchiefs.
Lasso: The 6th and 5th steps of a descending scale.
Lauda: The difference between shawms and krummhorns
Longa: The time between visits with Vire.
Major Triad: The name of the head of the Music Department. (Minor Triad: the name of the wife of the head of the Music Department.)
Mean-Tone Temperament: One's state of mind when everybody's trying to tune at the same time.
Messiah: An oratorio by Handel performed every Christmas by choirs that believe they are good enough, in cooperation with musicians who need the money.
Metronome: A dwarf who lives in the city.
Minim: The time you spend with Vire when there is a long line. Breve: The time you spend when the line is short.
Minnesinger: A boy soprano or Mickey's girlfriend in the opera.
Modulation: "Nothing is bad in modulation."
Motet: Where you meet Vire if the cloister is guraded.
Musica ficta: When you lose your place and have to bluff till you find it again. Also known as 'faking'.
Neums: Renaissance midgets
Opus: A penguin in Kansas.
Orchestral suites: Naughty women who follow touring orchestras.
Ordo: The hero in Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings".
Pause: A short period in an individual voice in which there should be relative quiet. Useful when turning to the next page in the score, breathing, emptying the horn of salvia, coughing, etc. Is rarely heard in baroque music. Today, the minimum requirements for pauses in individual pieces are those of the Musicians' Union (usually one per bar, or 15 minutes per hour).
Pneumatic melisma: A bronchial disorder caused by hockets.
Quaver: Beginning viol class.
Rackett: Capped reeds class.
Recitative: A disease that Monteverdi had.
Rhythmic drone: The sound of many monks suffering with Crotchet.
Ritornello: An opera by Verdi.
Rota: An early Italian method of teaching music without score or parts.
Rubato: Expression used to describe irregular behaviour in a performer with sensations of angst in the mating period. Especially common amongst tenors.
Score: A pile of all the individual orchestral voices, transposed to C so that nobody else can understand anything. This is what conductors follow when they conduct, and it's assumed that they have studied it carefully. Very few conductors can read a score.
Solesme: The state of mind after a rough case of Crotchet.
Supertonic: Schweppes.
Tempo: This is where a headache begins.
Tempus imperfectum: Vire had to leave early.
Tempus perfectum: A good time was had by all.
Transposition: An advanced recorder technique where you change from alto to soprano fingering (or vice-versa) in the middle of a piece.
Trill: The musical equivalent of an epileptic seizure.
Trope: A malevolent Neum.
Trotto: An early Italian form of Montezuma's Revenge.
Tutti: A lot of sackbuts.
Vibrato: The singer's equivalent of an epileptic seizure.
Vibrato: Used by singers to hide the fact that they are on the wrong pitch.
Virelai: A local woman known for her expertise in the Lai.
Virtuoso: A musician with very high morals.
Accidentals: Wrong notes
Ad Libitum: A premiere.
Agitato: A string player's state of mind when a peg slips in the middle of a piece.
Agnus dei: A famous female church composer.
Allegro: Leg fertilizer.
Altered Chord: A sonority that has been spayed.
Atonality: Disease that many modern composers suffer from. The most prominent symptom is the patient's lacking ability to make decisions.
Augmented fifth: A 36-ounce bottle.
Bar Line: A gathering of people, usually among which may be found a musician or two.
Beat: What music students to do each other with their musical instruments. The down beat is performed on the top of the head, while the up beat is struck under the chin.
Bravo: Literally, "How bold!" or "What nerve!" This is a spontaneous expression of appreciation on the part of the concertgoer after a particularly trying performance.
Breve: The way a sustained note sounds when a violinist runs out of bow.
Broken consort: When somebody in the ensemble has to leave and go to the restroom.
Cadence: When everybody hopes you're going to stop, but you don't.
Cadenza: The heroine in Monteverdi's opera "Frottola".
Cantus firmus: The part you get when you can only play four notes.
Chansons de geste: Dirty songs.
Chord: Usually spelled with an "s" on the end, means a particular type of pants, e.g. "He wears chords."
Chromatic Scale: An instrument for weighing that indicates half-pounds.
Clausula: Mrs. Santa.
Coloratura Soprano: A singer who has great trouble finding the proper note, but who has a wild time hunting for it.
Compound Meter: A place to park your car that requires two dimes.
Con Brio: Done with scouring pads and washboards.
Conductor: A musician who is adept at following many people at the same time.
Conductus: The process of getting Vire into the cloister.
Counterpoint: A favorite device of many Baroque composers, all of whom are dead, though no direct connection between these two facts has been established. Still taught in many schools, as a form of punishment.
Countertenor: A singing waiter.
Crescendo: A reminder to the performer that he has been playing too loudly.
Crotchet: 1) A tritone with a bent prong. 2) It's like knitting, but it's faster. 3) An unpleasant illness that occurs after the Lai, if prolation is not used.
Cut time: When you're going twice as fast as everybody else in the ensemble.
Da capo al fine: I like your hat!
Detache: An indication that the trombones are to play with the slides removed.
Di lasso: Popular with Italian cowboys.
Discord: Not to be confused with Datcord.
Drone: The sound of a single monk during an attack of Crotchet.
Ductia: 1) A lot of mallards. 2) Vire's organum.
Duration: Can be used to describe how long a music teacher can exercise self-control.
Embouchre: The way you look when you've been playing the Krummhorn.
English horn: A woodwind that got its name because it's neither English nor a horn. Not to be confused with French horn, which is German.
Espressivo: Close eyes and play with a wide vibrato.
Estampie: What they put on letters in Quebec
Fermata: A brand of girdle made especially for opera singers.
Fermented fifth: What the percussion players keep behind the tympani, which resolves to a 'distilled fifth', which is what the conductor uses backstage.
Fine: That was great!
Flute: A sophisticated pea shooter with a range of up to 500 yards, blown transversely to confuse the enemy.
Garglefinklein: A tiny recorder played by neums.
Glissando: The musical equivalent of slipping on a banana peel. Also, a technique adopted by string players for difficult runs.
Gregorian chant: A way of singing in unison, invented by monks to hide snoring.
Half Step: The pace used by a cellist when carrying his instrument.
Harmonic Minor: A good music student.
Harmony: A corn-like food eaten by people with accents (see above for definition of accent).
Hemiola: A hereditary blood disease caused by chromatics.
Heroic Tenor: A singer who gets by on sheer nerve and tight clothing.
Hocket: The thing that fits into a crochet to produce a rackett.
Interval: How long it takes you to find the right note. There are three kinds: Major Interval: a long time; Minor Interval: a few bars; Inverted Interval: when you have to back one bar and try again.
Intonation: Singing through one's nose. Considered highly desirable in the Middle Ages
Isorhythm: The individual process of relief when Vire is out of town.
Isorhythmic motet: When half of the ensemble got a different photocopy than the other half
Lamentoso: With handkerchiefs.
Lasso: The 6th and 5th steps of a descending scale.
Lauda: The difference between shawms and krummhorns
Longa: The time between visits with Vire.
Major Triad: The name of the head of the Music Department. (Minor Triad: the name of the wife of the head of the Music Department.)
Mean-Tone Temperament: One's state of mind when everybody's trying to tune at the same time.
Messiah: An oratorio by Handel performed every Christmas by choirs that believe they are good enough, in cooperation with musicians who need the money.
Metronome: A dwarf who lives in the city.
Minim: The time you spend with Vire when there is a long line. Breve: The time you spend when the line is short.
Minnesinger: A boy soprano or Mickey's girlfriend in the opera.
Modulation: "Nothing is bad in modulation."
Motet: Where you meet Vire if the cloister is guraded.
Musica ficta: When you lose your place and have to bluff till you find it again. Also known as 'faking'.
Neums: Renaissance midgets
Opus: A penguin in Kansas.
Orchestral suites: Naughty women who follow touring orchestras.
Ordo: The hero in Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings".
Pause: A short period in an individual voice in which there should be relative quiet. Useful when turning to the next page in the score, breathing, emptying the horn of salvia, coughing, etc. Is rarely heard in baroque music. Today, the minimum requirements for pauses in individual pieces are those of the Musicians' Union (usually one per bar, or 15 minutes per hour).
Pneumatic melisma: A bronchial disorder caused by hockets.
Quaver: Beginning viol class.
Rackett: Capped reeds class.
Recitative: A disease that Monteverdi had.
Rhythmic drone: The sound of many monks suffering with Crotchet.
Ritornello: An opera by Verdi.
Rota: An early Italian method of teaching music without score or parts.
Rubato: Expression used to describe irregular behaviour in a performer with sensations of angst in the mating period. Especially common amongst tenors.
Score: A pile of all the individual orchestral voices, transposed to C so that nobody else can understand anything. This is what conductors follow when they conduct, and it's assumed that they have studied it carefully. Very few conductors can read a score.
Solesme: The state of mind after a rough case of Crotchet.
Supertonic: Schweppes.
Tempo: This is where a headache begins.
Tempus imperfectum: Vire had to leave early.
Tempus perfectum: A good time was had by all.
Transposition: An advanced recorder technique where you change from alto to soprano fingering (or vice-versa) in the middle of a piece.
Trill: The musical equivalent of an epileptic seizure.
Trope: A malevolent Neum.
Trotto: An early Italian form of Montezuma's Revenge.
Tutti: A lot of sackbuts.
Vibrato: The singer's equivalent of an epileptic seizure.
Vibrato: Used by singers to hide the fact that they are on the wrong pitch.
Virelai: A local woman known for her expertise in the Lai.
Virtuoso: A musician with very high morals.
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Last but not least (i think py will kill me for this):
Q: Why did Beethoven kill his chicken?
A: It kept saying "Bach, Bach, Bach..."
happi laughing =]
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