Date Received: Tue, 27 May 1997
These are stories and test questions accumulated by music teachers in the state of Missouri. circa 1989..
- Agnus Dei was a woman composer famous for her church music.
- Refrain means don't do it. A refrain in music is the part you better
not try to sing.
- A virtuoso is a musician with real high morals.
- John Sebastian Bach died from 1750 to the present.
- Handel was half German, half Italian, and half English. He was rather
large.
- Beethoven wrote music even though he was deaf. He was so deaf he
wrote loud music. He took long walks in the forest even when everyone was
calling him. I guess he could not hear so good. Beethoven expired in 1827 and
later died from this.
- Henry Purcell is a well known composer few people have ever heard of.
- Aaron Copland is one of your most famous contemporary composers. It
is unusual to be contemporary. Most composers do not live until they are dead.
- An opera is a song of bigly size.
- In the last scene of Pagliacci, Canio stabs Nedda who is the one he
really loves. Pretty soon Silvio also gets stabbed, and they all live happily
ever after.
- When a singer sings, he stirs up the air and makes it hit any passing
eardrums. But if he is good, he knows how to keep it from hurting.
- Music sung by two people at the same time is called a duel.
- I know what a sextet is but I had rather not say.
- Caruso was at first an Italian. Then someone heard his voice and said
he would go a long way. And so he came to America.
- A good orchestra is always ready to play if the conductor steps on
the odium.
- Morris dancing is a country survival from times when people were
happy.
- Most authorities agree that music of antiquity was written long ago.
- Probably the most marvelous fugue was the one between the Hatfields
and McCoys.
- My very best liked piece of music is the Bronze Lullaby.
- My favorite composer is Opus.
- A harp is a nude piano.
- A tuba is much larger than its name.
- Instruments come in many sizes, shapes and orchestras.
- You should always say celli when you mean there are two or more cellos.
- Another name for kettle drums is timpani. But I think I will just
stick with the first name and learn it good.
- A trumpet is an instrument when it is not an elephant sound.
- While trombones have tubes, trumpets prefer to wear valves.
- The double bass is also called the bass viol, string bass, and bass
fiddle. It has so many names because it is so huge.
- When electric currents go through them, guitars start making sounds.
So would anybody.
- Question: What are kettle drums called? Answer: Kettle drums.
- Cymbals are round, metal CLANGS!
- A bassoon looks like nothing I have ever heard.
- Last month I found out how a clarinet works by taking it apart. I
both found out and got in trouble.
- Question: Is the saxophone a brass or a woodwind instrument? Answer:
Yes.
- The concertmaster of an orchestra is always the person who sits in
the first chair of the first violins. This means that when a person is elected
concertmaster, he has to hurry up and learn how to play a violin real good.
- For some reason, they always put a treble clef in front of every line
of flute music. You just watch.
- I can't reach the brakes on this piano!
- The main trouble with a French horn is it's too tangled up.
- Anyone who can read all the instrument notes at the same time gets to be the conductor.
- Instrumentalist is a many-purposed word for many player-types.
- The flute is a skinny-high shape-sounded instrument.
- The most dangerous part about playing cymbals is near the nose.
- A contra-bassoon is like a bassoon, only more so.
- Tubas are a bit too much.
- Music instrument has a plural known as orchestra.
- I would like for you to teach me to play the cello. Would tomorrow or Friday be best?
- My favorite instrument is the bassoon. It is so hard to play people seldom play it. That is why I like the bassoon best.
- It is easy to teach anyone to play the maracas. Just grip the neck and shake him in rhythm.
- Just about any animal skin can be stretched over a frame to make a pleasant sound once the animal is removed.
Source: Missouri School Music Newsletter, collected by Harold Dunn.