| Just for Giggles |
| Music Definitions |
| Accent: A manner of pronunciation. ie: "Ya'll sing real good" Accidental: A wrong note. Attaca: "Fire at Will!!" Augmented Fifth: A 36 oz. bottle. Bar Line: A gathering of people in which you can usually find number of musicians. Beat: What music students do to each other with their instruments. Cadence: When everyone wants you to stop but you do not. Chromatic Scale: An instrument used to weigh in half pounds. Clef: Something to jump from if you can not sing and are an elementary school teacher. Conductor: A musician capable of following many people at one time. Counterpoint: A favorite device of many Baroque composers, all of whom are dead, though no direct connection between the two has been established. Still taught today as a form of punishment. Detache: An indication that the trombones are to play with the slide removed Duration: Can be used to describe how long a music teacher can exercise self control. English Horn: Neither English nor a horn, not to be confused with French Horn, which is German. Form: The shape of a composition or the shape of the musician playing the compostion Glissando: The musical equivalent of slipping on a banana peel. Hemiola: A hereditary blood disease caused by chromatics. Heroic Tenor: A singer who gets by on sheer nerve and tight clothing. Tempo: Where the headache begins. Tone Cluster: A chordal orgy first discovered by a well-endowed woman pianist leaning over for a page turn. Trill: The musical equivalent of an epileptic seizure. Vibrato: Used by singers to hide the fact that they are on the wrong pitch. |
| Types of Music |
| Jazz: Five men on the same stage all playing different tunes. World Music: A dozen of different types of percussion all going at once. Opera: People singing who should be talking. Rap: People talking who should be singing. Classical: Discover the other 45 minutes they left out of the TV commercial. Folk: Endless songs about shipwrecksin the 19th Century. Big Band: 20 People who take turns standing up while the drummer plays. |
| Conducting a Music Class |
| A band Director named Ravelli was having a lot of trouble with one drummer. He talked and talked and talked with the drummer, and 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 his instrument, and give him two sticks, making 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. |