Random joke from this category
There's a five pound note on the floor. Of a thrash guitarist, a drummer who keeps good time, and a drummer who keeps bad time, who picks it up?
→ The drummer who keeps bad time. The other drummer doesn't exist, and the thrash guitarist doesn't care about notes anyway.
The late Sir Thomas Beecham used to say the sound of the harpsichord is like "two skeletons making love on a tin roof".
What do you get when you cross a French horn player with a goal post?
→ A goal post that can't march.
How many French horn players does it take to change a light bulb?
→ Just one, but he'll spend two hours checking the bulb for alignment and leaks.
What do you get when you cross a French Horn player and a goalpost?
→ A goalpost that can't march.
How do you make a trombone sound like a French horn?
→ Put your hand in the bell and miss a lot of notes.
How do horn players traditionally greet each other?
→ "Hi. I did that piece in junior high."
How many French horn players does it take to change a lightbulb?
→ Just one, but he'll spend two hours checking the bulb for alignment and leaks.
How do you get your viola section to sound like the horn section?
→ Have them miss every other note.
What is the difference between a french horn section and a '57 Chevy?
→ You can tune a '57 Chevy.
How do horn players traditionally greet each other?
→ "Hi. I played that last year."
What's the definition of a minor second?
→ Two flutes playing a unison.
Flute players spend half their time tuning their instrument and the other half playing out of tune.
Why do loud, obnoxious whistles exist at some factories?
→ To give us some sort of appreciation for flutes.
What is perfect pitch on a flute?
→ When it misses the rim of the toilet as you throw it in.
How do you get 2 piccolos to play a perfect unison?
→ Shoot one.
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.
Hurdy-gurdy: A truss for medieval percussionists who get Organistrum.
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
Lai: What monks give up when they take their vows.
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".
Organistrum: A job-related hazard for careless medieval percussionists, caused by getting one's tapper caught in the clapper.
Organum: You may not participate in the Lai without one.
Paralell organum: Everybody standing in a double line, waiting for Vire.
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.
Prolation: Precautions taken before the Lai.
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.
Sancta: Clausula's husband.
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.
Sine proprietate: Cussing in church.
Solesme: The state of mind after a rough case of Crotchet.
Stops: Something Bach did not have on his organ.
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.
Tone Cluster: A chordal orgy first discovered by a well-endowed woman pianist leaning forward for a page turn.
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
Bob is throwing a party. He decides that, to break the ice at his party, he'll ask his guests what their I.Q. is--hopefully this will strike up an appropriate conversation from there.
The day of Bob's party rolls around, and when the first guest knocks on the door, Bob asks the person what her I.Q. is. "200,000" replies the first guest.
"Well, that's great," says Bob, "let's talk about ethereal astro physics."
Bob and this first guest talk about the aforementioned subject for a while.
Later in the party, someone else is at the door. "Hi my name is Bob; welcome to my party, what's your I.Q.?"
The new guest responds with "250".
"Great," says Bob. "Lets talk about advanced math." Bob and his new guest talk about calculus and statistics for awhile.
Much later in the party, after many more guests had arrived and been spoken to by Bob, yet another guest arrives at the door. "Hi, my name's Bob; welcome to my party, what's your I.Q.?"
This time the guest replies after putting some thought into it, "five."
"Well, that's great," says Bob, "what kind of drumsticks do you use?"
A note left for a pianist from his wife:
Gone Chopin, (have Liszt), Bach in a Minuet
What is the difference between a saxophone and a chainsaw?
→ It's all in the grip.
What is the difference between a lawnmower and a soprano sax?
→ You can tune the lawnmower and the owner's neighbors don't mind if you don't return the sax when you borrow it.
What is the difference between a saxophone and a lawnmower?
→ Vibrato.
How many alto sax players does it take to change a light bulb?
→ Five. One to handle the bulb, and 4 to contemplate how David Sanborn would've done it.
If you were out in the woods, who would you trust for directions, an in-tune tenor sax player, an out-of-tune tenor sax player, or Santa Claus?
→ The out-of-tune sax player! You were hallucinating the other two.
How do you make a chainsaw sound like a bari-sax?
→ Add vibrato.
What's the definition of a gentleman?
→ One who knows how to play the saxophone, but doesn't!
How many sax players does it take to change a light bulb?
→ Sixty. One to change the bulb and fifty-nine to talk about how much better Michael Brecker would have done it.
Steve Wright: I play the harmonica. The only way I can play is if I get my car going really fast, and stick it out the window. I've been arrested three times for practicing.
