A Child's View of Music
- 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.