Klarinet Archive - Posting 000370.txt from 1998/06

From: Shoe <joshcole@-----.Edu>
Subj: Re: [kl] musical terminology
Date: Wed, 10 Jun 1998 01:13:10 -0400

> In a message dated 6/8/98, Peter Stoll wrote:
>
> > I've always had an instinctive reaction against calling instrumental music
> > "songs" as in "My band's playing some great songs by Holst next term",
> > thinking to myself 'sing a song, play a piece'. Am I being stuffy?

You wouldn't be the only one!!! In Feb. '97, I attended the NMSU
Southwest Honor Band. We had a clinician (can't recall his name, but I
can look it up for the really curious... or I could ask NMSU music
faculty) who was "stuffy" about that. A girl in the clarinet section
announced that she was missing two of the "songs" we were playing, and
suddenly a volcano erupted from this clinician. He ran over to her and
promptly asked, "Are you singing or something?" Confused, she answered,
"No." He replied, "Then why did you just call it a song??!??! They're
pieces!!" He then gave us a 5-minute speech in a very loud voice about
the differences between pieces and songs and how one should never, _ever_
refer to instrumental music as "songs"...

Just a side story!!

Joshua M. Coleman
http://web.nmsu.edu/~joshcole

"Every man dies... not every man really lives."
-- William Wallace, Braveheart

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