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 Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: ohsuzan 
Date:   2008-01-16 20:46

Hi everyone --

Over the years, I've noticed that lots of us have (ahem) pithy quotations or mottos about music in our signature blocks.

I'd like to make a collection of these, and things like them (which I will, of course, share with everyone here). So . . .

What are your favorite (or your three favorite, or ten?) quotations, sayings, mottos, etc., about your instrument, or about music in general?

Post here or email me privately.


Susan

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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: William 
Date:   2008-01-16 20:50

"If it sounds good, it is good" [Duke Ellington on classical music]

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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: robertgh 
Date:   2008-01-16 21:49

“It's a state of grace, it's a state of ecstasy. It's wonderful.”
— Leon Fleischer on playing again after so many years of impairment. Goes straight to the heart of anyone who thought their playing days were long past but found a way back.



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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: tdinap 
Date:   2008-01-16 23:56

"You do what the music requires of you." - Harold Wright, on interpretation and preparation.

Tom

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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: David Spiegelthal 2017
Date:   2008-01-16 23:57

"I hate saxophones and cats".

"Big John" Wakefield, former Director of Bands at the University of Maryland, College Park

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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: Joel K. 
Date:   2008-01-17 00:28

1) My high school band director told a story about him being on tour with a military band and the group was getting a bit weary. His director told the group: "Just remember there are musicians in the audience".

2) I was talking with Mitchell Lurie about performance nerves. He said: "Just consider it an opportunity, not an ordeal."



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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: Mark Charette 
Date:   2008-01-17 00:31

"You plan on being younger next year?" - my former piano teacher's response when I was wondering whether or not I should start piano lessons at around age 40.

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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: Don Berger 
Date:   2008-01-17 00:41

I'd rather play the malady than the harmonica. A cure for the pinch Bb, "blow the xxxx out of it", author one of our own, but hoo? Don

Thanx, Mark, Don

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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: GBK 
Date:   2008-01-17 00:48

"99% of most audiences can't tell a right note from a wrong one.

You must play to the 1%."


...GBK

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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: samohan245 
Date:   2008-01-17 01:10

" If you don't care you can't play"

-me

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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: Jack Kissinger 
Date:   2008-01-17 02:55

"Practice makes permanent."

Best regards,
jnk

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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: skygardener 
Date:   2008-01-17 03:56

I read an article by an oboist that related a story when he was doing a masterclass. He played an example for the student and the student asked 'How did you do that?'
Answer- 'You have to want to, very badly.'

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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: Mike Clarinet 
Date:   2008-01-17 07:53

"Nobody erected a statue to a critic" - Sibelius, I think.

My clarinet teacher used to say to his students, when confronted with a page with a lot of dots: "Don't panic, you only have to play them one at a time". This didn't cut much ice with my piano teacher.

" A good musician is someone who learns to work around the shortcomings of their instrument" - Jack Brymer, I think.

"Playing the notes is the easy bit. It's getting from one note to the next that causes the problems" - Don't know who, but is quite true.

Popular in my community band, especially after the summer or Christmas breaks: "Remember you blow down the pointy end"

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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: MalcolmH 
Date:   2008-01-17 11:11

"Fail to prepare, prepare to fail".

Probably most teachers.

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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: Tony Pay 2017
Date:   2008-01-17 12:09

Conductor to French oboe player in difficulty:

"Non, non, Monsieur -- attaquez, attaquez, s'il vous plaît!"

Oboist, pointing to his reed:

"Monsieur, je l'attaque....mais il se défend!"

Tony

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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: EuGeneSee 
Date:   2008-01-17 12:19

Monsieur Pay: Say whut? This hillbilly still struggling to learn English . . . French, or any other language (except pig Latin), is beyond my reach.

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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: cosine 
Date:   2008-01-17 12:20

"An amateur practices until he gets it right. A professional practices until he can't get it wrong."

"Slow is smooth, smooth is fast."
I have to constantly remind myself of this when practicing.

And, probably my favorite (ignore the grammar...): "You got time to breathe, you got time for music."

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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: Mark Charette 
Date:   2008-01-17 12:21

<babelfish.altavista.com> will get you the gist of it ...

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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: DavidBlumberg 
Date:   2008-01-17 13:07

"sure am glad that conductors stick doesn't make a sound"

http://www.SkypeClarinetLessons.com


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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: EuGeneSee 
Date:   2008-01-17 13:15

Thanks for that link, Mark. I was not aware that it existed, but now I have it installed as a favorite.

The clarinet teacher I had as a youth was adamantly opposed to having any touching of the mouthpiece or reed with one's teeth. She often chastized students with:

"That is NOT the type of licorice stick that you eat!"

She hit me often with that one.

Honi soit, qui mal y pense! Eu

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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: Dan1937 
Date:   2008-01-17 13:23

"Play what's written, not what's rotten."
-- my Jr. High & High School orchestra and band director



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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: David Spiegelthal 2017
Date:   2008-01-17 13:38

"If you're going to make a mistake, make it big!"

Our high school band director (to the trumpet section)




"Every note's a solo."

Motto of the Riverdale School of Low Clarinet Playing (founded by my
best friend in high school and me to counter the then-prevalent "French",
"English", and "German" schools of clarinet playing)



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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: Katrina 
Date:   2008-01-17 14:14

"Tuning is for sissies." (Me.)

"Good enough for folk music!" (when tuning to the accordion for folk music...)

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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: Cass Tech 
Date:   2008-01-17 14:33

My high school band director, Dr. Harold Arnoldi, used to say:
"When in doubt, leave it out."

A clarinet teacher, Sidney Forest, used to tell us that, rather than "Practice makes perfect", "Practice makes less worse."

George Bernard Shaw says in Man and Superman:
"Hell is full of musical amateurs: music is the brandy of the damned."

Walter Pater says in The Renaissance that:
"All art aspired towards the condition of music."

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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: mnorswor 
Date:   2008-01-17 14:52

"It's only a matter of hours"

"Hope and practice, but never hope more than you practice"

--Kalmen Opperman

“Brahms did not play the right notes, but he played like a man who knew what the right notes were.”

--German music critic



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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: EuGeneSee 
Date:   2008-01-17 14:54

"In Heaven they give you a harp. In Hell they give you an accordian."

"Old musicians never die, they just go fine mestoso."

"Trumpets have a broad dynamic range, from fortissimo to much louder."

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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: William 
Date:   2008-01-17 14:58

DB asked, "but hoo?" Anthony Gigliotti, I think: "BTSOOIT"

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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: Kel 
Date:   2008-01-17 15:23

"The composer didn't really expect ALL those notes to be played."

Our community band director, quoting his violinist wife.

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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: Chauncey 
Date:   2008-01-17 15:23

"Practice doesn't make perfect; perfect practice makes perfect"

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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: DavidBlumberg 
Date:   2008-01-17 15:33

"what's a musician without a girlfriend called?"


homeless

http://www.SkypeClarinetLessons.com


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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: Jack Kissinger 
Date:   2008-01-17 15:49

"I am sitting in the smallest room of my house. I have your review before me. In a moment it will be behind me." -- Max Reger responding to a critic.

Best regards,
jnk



Post Edited (2008-01-17 15:49)

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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: Old Geezer 
Date:   2008-01-17 15:51


I hate the clarinet...especially when it's played. -Unknown

Clarinet Redux

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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: Mike Clarinet 
Date:   2008-01-17 16:02

Cass Tech said:

"When in doubt, leave it out."

I believe in the opposite philosophy:

"When in doubt, belt it out"

One I forgot from earlier:

"The Quartet played Brahms. Brahms lost."

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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: Cass Tech 
Date:   2008-01-17 16:33

Chauncey: "Practice doesn't make perfect; perfect practice makes perfect." Or is it perfect practice makes less worse?

Mike Clarinet: "When in doubt, belt it out." Not when you're in a large ensemble and others are duplicating you part. And another Brahms story is that when his brother was walking down the street and recognized by members of the town, he was referred to as "the other Brahms".

Cass Tech (aka leatherlip)

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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: ZCClarinet 
Date:   2008-01-17 17:19

"When in doubt, sing loud." - Robert Merrill

"If you hit a wrong note, then make it right by what you play afterwards." -Joe Pass

"I hate music, especially when it's played." -Jimmy Durante

"There are two instruments worse than a clarinet - two clarinets." - Ambrose Bierce

=-Ben Chapin

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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: DavidBlumberg 
Date:   2008-01-17 17:38

"Cass Tech said:

"When in doubt, leave it out."

I believe in the opposite philosophy:

"When in doubt, belt it out"

--------------------------------------------------------------


Think about the sense in that..........., then don't.

http://www.SkypeClarinetLessons.com


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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: Jaysne 
Date:   2008-01-17 17:40

If it was as hard to play as it sounds, you wouldn't be able to play it.

Music is what happens between the notes.

Music sounds the way emotions feel.

Beethoven's symphonies are greater than any possible performance of them.

I'm not interested in what you can play. I'm interested in what you can't play.
--My college band director

I'm not a flute player, I'm a flute holder. --James Moody

Bebop is all about playing cleanly and trying to find the pretty notes.
--Charlie Parker

The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side. --Hunter S. Thompson

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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: Jaysne 
Date:   2008-01-17 17:45

For improvisers:

When in doubt, go chromatic.

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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: Don Berger 
Date:   2008-01-17 18:33

TKS. Wm, yup . "Dont even look at the trombones, it may encourage them", which OLDE maestro was it ?? Toscaninni ? Don

Thanx, Mark, Don

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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: robertgh 
Date:   2008-01-17 19:04

Hi, Don

Re: "Dont even look at the trombones, it may encourage them"

I think it may have been Sir Thomas Beecham, who also said, "The English may not like music, but they absolutely love the noise it makes." Of course, in fairness, he also reportedly said, "I have just been all round the world and have formed a very poor opinion of it."

Bob H.



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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: jwiseman114 
Date:   2008-01-17 19:33

"When someone plays a ballad you can hear every minute of every hour of every day that they practiced in their life" (or something like that) Eddie Harris

"Less is more" Miles...of course.

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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: Don Berger 
Date:   2008-01-17 20:48

Hi Bob H, TKS, sure sounds like one of those OLDT "crusty-martinets", orchestral conductors, ?former violinists?, yure prob. rite! My addition to "when in doubt" , play SOFTLY, and be ready for many grace notes ! Learned this from an ad lib pianist . Don

Thanx, Mark, Don

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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: bob49t 
Date:   2008-01-17 21:05

"better to play sharp than to play out of tune"

BobT

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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: Old Geezer 
Date:   2008-01-17 21:58


Madam, you have between your legs an instrument capable of giving pleasure to thousands and all you can do is scratch it."

Sir Thomas Beecham to a lady cellist.

Clarinet Redux

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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: FDF 
Date:   2008-01-17 23:09

Cool! Said by many, when it was deserved.



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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: sdr 
Date:   2008-01-17 23:21

For rehearsal and gigs:

If you're early, you're on time.
If you're on time, you're late.
If you're late, you're dead.

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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: Arnoldstang 
Date:   2008-01-18 00:41

Is all this nuance really necessary?

Freelance woodwind performer

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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: Chauncey 
Date:   2008-01-18 01:05

Cass Tech: I like it better as "...perfect practice makes perfect." It makes me remember that however you practice something, well or poorly, it is ingrained in your muscle memory and head however you do it.

It makes me, as stated above, really, really want to get it something as good as I can get it--every time, from the get-go. It makes life easier not having to bang my head against the wall trying to un-learn something...



Post Edited (2008-01-18 01:07)

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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: hartt 
Date:   2008-01-18 01:10

.........as John Denman has said........

'It's better to be sharp than to be out of tune"

dennis

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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: Bill G 
Date:   2008-01-18 02:38

Maria Callas on breathing: "You must breathe from hair to hair"

My high-school band director, who sat beside me while I tried unsuccessfully to play all the notes in my first circus band gig: "When in doubt, trill"!

The same director, who was an old Sousa cornetest, when I commented on the visually spectacular half-time performance of the "other" band: "No matter how you slice it, it's still balogna".

Bill G.

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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: kilo 
Date:   2008-01-18 08:51

"When you hear music, after it's over, itis gone; you can never capture it again." ... Eric Dolphy

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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: Phurster 
Date:   2008-01-18 11:40

"I would like the Sopranos, Altos, Tenors and the men to now sing" local choir director.
"This is in 7/8...one-two, one-two, one-two-three" said by same director whilst beating a firm 4/4 pattern.
"breathe using your bottom" singing teacher.
"No matter who the player, or whatever the standard...with Clarinet the sound remains the same." prominent piano teacher.

Chris Ondaatje

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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: Bassie 
Date:   2008-01-18 13:07

"I am playing all the right notes ...
just not necessarily in the right order"
- Eric Morcambe

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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: awm34 
Date:   2008-01-18 14:02

Doesn't exactly fit this thread, but there's the old story about two heavyweights, say Heifitz & Horowitz, attending a performance of, say, Rubenstein.

Halfway through, Horowitz says "it's awfully hot in here" to which Heifitz responds "not for violinists."

Alan Messer

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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: Cass Tech 
Date:   2008-01-18 14:40

Alan:
Right story, wrong instrument. It was a performance by a very young Yehudi Menuhin.

Therefore the poet
Did feign that Orpheus drew trees, stones, and floods;
Since nought so stockish, hard, and full of rage,
But music for the time doth change his nature.
The man that hath no music in himself,
Nor is not mov'd with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils;
The motions of his spirit are dull as night,
And his affections dark as Erebus:
Let no such man be trusted.
(The Merchant of Venice by Shakespeare)

Cass Tech (aka leatherlip)

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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: Firebird 
Date:   2008-01-18 14:44

My high school conductor:

'A good player not only knows how to play, but also how to hide.'

On triplets:

'Think this way: Co-co-nut co-co-nut co-co-nut.'

Conductor to oboist:

'You are playing the wrong rhythm.'

The oboist looks at his reed and sighs.

Chan

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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: Tony Pay 2017
Date:   2008-01-18 15:26

"One is aware of witchcraft without noticing a single magical gesture."

C. D. F Schubart on the harpsichord playing of C. P. E Bach,

Tony

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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: crazy karlos 
Date:   2008-01-18 17:50

"The clarinet is an ill woodwind that nobody blows good".

-- Duke Ellington. Busted us all.

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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: Don Berger 
Date:   2008-01-18 20:09

What a good group of sayings, comments, observations, etc, etc. I like the above "oboe" quote, also duck-quack, guinea hen chatter ref's. [sounds like], and the Shakespeare quote. I have another oldie to submit "but dammit, Schmedlie, there IS no reason for it, it's just [add your own group] concert band policy " . Don

Thanx, Mark, Don

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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: Jack Kissinger 
Date:   2008-01-18 20:27

Maybe Duke Ellington said that but I have my doubts. The famous quote is: "An oboe is an ill wind that nobody blows good." Bennet Cerf

This and many other quotes too numerous to quote here can be found at:

http://www.angelfire.com/tn/angelflutes/musicquotes.html

And even more here:

"http://www.harrogate.co.uk/harrogate-band/humour26.htm"

Best regards,
jnk



Post Edited (2008-01-18 20:39)

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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: GBK 
Date:   2008-01-18 20:43

Jack Kissinger wrote:

> Maybe Duke Ellington said that but I have my doubts. The
> famous quote is: "An oboe is an ill wind that nobody blows
> good." Bennet Cerf



I've also seen it attributed to both Ogden Nash and Danny Kaye.

Perhaps no one really knows...GBK

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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: Arnoldstang 
Date:   2008-01-18 20:47

Under the heading of How To Talk To A Conductor, NY Phil probably in the 1930's. Bruno Labate(oboe) was playing under Klemperer who was giving several of the orchestral players, including Labate, a hard time. Finally Labate had had enough abuse and spoke up, saying, "Hey! Klemp, Ima got tree apardement 'ouses ina da Bronx, ana 50,000 dallas ina da bank. You don' scare me!"

Freelance woodwind performer

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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: Jack Kissinger 
Date:   2008-01-18 21:58

From Rem Rieder of the American Journalism Review:

"Here's what the language mavens who put out Random House's 'Word of the Day' have to say about this pressing matter:

'This play on words is variously said to be about the clarinet, the French horn, or the oboe. It has been attributed to — among others — Duke Ellington, Ogden Nash, Sir Thomas Beacham, Danny Kaye, and Danny Kaye's wife, Sylvia Fine, who wrote the songs for all his movies. In truth, it was probably around before any of them. But whoever said it first, the words that ring in my ears were sung in 1947 by Danny Kaye in the movie 'The Secret Life of Walter Mitty': 'And the oboe it is clearly understood / Is an ill wind that no one blows good.'

Cerf included the quote in Laughing Stock a collection of jokes and anecdotes published in 1945. As he is listed as editor, rather than author, we can probably rule him out. But that predates " ... Walter Mitty" so I think we can also rule out Danny Kaye and Sylvia Fine as well. On the other hand, Duke Ellington and the clarinet are back in contention.

Best regards,
jnk

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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: Neil 
Date:   2008-01-18 23:30

Othello act III scene I

clown: Are these, I pray you, wind-instruments?

1st musician: Ay, marry, are they, sir.

clown: O, thereby hangs a tail.

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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: runner 
Date:   2008-01-18 23:51

I use this all the time: "If it sounds good, it is good." I wish to thank Duke Ellington for this.
My favorite quote of all time is "Don't look back; something might be gaining on you." Satchel Paige

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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: crazy karlos 
Date:   2008-01-19 15:16

Charlie Parker, on being asked his religion:

"I am a devout musician."

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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: bassbuddy 
Date:   2008-01-19 22:13

"It's chromatic, not traumatic"-high school band director

"somebody should make a lamp out of that"-private teacher when I brought in an old borrowed clarinet

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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: lj 
Date:   2008-01-20 00:36

"A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul." (Goethe)

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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: Danny Boy 
Date:   2008-01-20 01:40

"I may have been given an OBE, but my wife has gone one better...she has an OBOE."

"I'm afraid Malcolm Arnold won't be joining us for the concert. He's recently gone on tour with Vaughan Williams."

Both by Guy Woolfenden.



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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: DavidBlumberg 
Date:   2008-01-20 13:55

The use of ill wind is most commonly in the phrase 'it's an ill wind that blows nobody any good'. This is first recorded in John Heywood's A dialogue conteinyng the nomber in effect of all the prouerbes in the Englishe tongue, 1546

http://www.SkypeClarinetLessons.com


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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: Ralph G 
Date:   2008-01-21 01:08

My signature line is my favorite.

________________

Artistic talent is a gift from God and whoever discovers it in himself has a certain obligation: to know that he cannot waste this talent, but must develop it.

- Pope John Paul II

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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: clari-hack 
Date:   2008-01-21 13:10

On the Muppet show, Waldof and Statler werethe two old guys who sat in the balcony and made wisecracks about everything. After a classically bad Miss Piggy performance:

Waldorf: Ah, there's nothing like a great musical performance!
Statler: Yeah, and that was NOTHING like agreat musical performance!

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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: Bob Phillips 
Date:   2008-01-21 15:21

My first music teacher:
Nobody digs a sharp pitch.

Bob Phillips

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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: hinotehud 2017
Date:   2008-01-22 02:44

My favorites are:

"Never give a kid a violin until they learn how to play it."

"Nothing difficult was ever easy."

Keith Hudson

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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: RodRubber 
Date:   2008-01-22 03:16

here's my favorite from beecham:

When he was asked if he had heard any music from Stockhausen, he replied -

...no, but i believe I've trodden through some...



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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: Tom A 
Date:   2008-01-22 08:06

Albert Einstein playing Mozart violin sonatas with his friend Artur Schnabel on piano, and having trouble reading the rhythm. Schnabel is probably the only person ever to have said to Einstein:

"For Heaven's sake, Albert, can't you count?"

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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: skygardener 
Date:   2008-01-22 09:26

If you think positivly you will realise that there are no wrong notes- only new works.
---
And the classic- "I played it better at home."

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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: blazian 
Date:   2008-02-06 22:35

Ah! Just thought of one:

(quoting my band director referring to my alto clarinet) "We don't play those any more."

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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: Blake Arrington 
Date:   2008-02-06 23:07

"A beat is just a second in the life of a groove." Wynton Marsalis

"Just grab something and beat the hell out of it." Anshel Brusilow to a UNT Bass Drummer during Mahler 1 rehearsal.

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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: Alphie 
Date:   2008-02-06 23:26

"There are still so many beautiful things to be said in C-major"

Sergei Prokofiev

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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: Cass Tech 
Date:   2008-02-07 15:25

Having recently re-re-read Ambrose Bierce's classic The Devil's Dictionary (which I recomend to you all as arguably the greatest collection of epigrams in world literature), I came across this gem:
Fiddle, n. An instrument to tickle human ears by friction of a horse's tail on the entrails of a cat.

Cass Tech (aka leatherlip)

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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: Mark Charette 
Date:   2008-02-07 15:34

Cass Tech wrote:

> Having recently re-re-read Ambrose Bierce's classic The
> Devil's Dictionary (which I recomend to you all as arguably the
> greatest collection of epigrams in world literature),

For a few of us, the 2nd best was Stan Kelly-Bootle's "The Devil's DP Dictionary" ...

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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: Katelyn 
Date:   2008-02-07 16:12

"The clarinets are the violins of the band world - you can never have too many!"

"Higher, Faster, Louder!" - Unofficial motto of my high school pep band's clarinet section.


"Among adults some pretext in the way of Jokes is usually provided, but the facility with which the smallest witticisms produce laughter at such a time shows that they are not the real cause. What that real cause is we do not know. Something like it is expressed in much of that detestable art which the humans call Music, and something like it occurs in Heaven - a meaningless acceleration in the rhythm of celestial experience, quite opaque to us..." - Screwtape, from Lewis' "The Screwtape Letters"


"I have no use for cranks who despise music, because it is a gift of God. Music drives away the Devil and makes people gay; they forget thereby all wrath, unchastity, arrogance, and the like. Next after theology, I give to music the highest place and the greatest honor." - Martin Luther

In high school, my band had 120+ members, and my director said a few times every year:

"You know, we don't need to be this big. I'd much rather have 5 people who care than 125 who don't. I'll take them and make them the best quintet in the state!"

If only I could get my college director to believe the same thing...



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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: Don Berger 
Date:   2008-02-07 16:59

A Whole Bunch of fine sayings, the last few really represent my feelings also. After having recovered from a period of depression, family/job worries, I regained ?equanimity? with the help of music playing/listening, which, requiring attemtion, made the troubles go away. Noon thots, Don

Thanx, Mark, Don

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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: Cass Tech 
Date:   2008-02-07 19:45

Don:
This one's for you.

"Music is a thing which delighteth all ages, and beseemeth all states; a thing as seasonable in grief as in joy."
Richard Hooker. 1594.

Cass Tech (aka leatherlip)

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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: 68fordfalcon 
Date:   2008-02-15 15:57

"The last time I played the Saint-Saens Sonata, I left out the slow movement, and no one seemed to mind"

"Isn't it interesting that a performance ALWAYS feels different than a rehearsal?"

-Mitchell Lurie

Campbell MacDonald

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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: Iacuras 
Date:   2008-02-15 21:56

"Its gotta be like a can of whup-ass!"-My college band director during a rehearsal of David Maslanka's "Give us this Day".

Steve
"If a pretty poster and a cute saying are all it takes to motivate you, you probably have a very easy job. The kind robots will be doing soon."
"If you can't learn to do something well, learn to enjoy doing it poorly."

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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: David Stringer 
Date:   2008-02-15 23:10

"Wagner's music is not as bad as it sounds"... Mark Twain

David

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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: beejay 
Date:   2008-02-16 08:48

Speaking of Wagner, I believe it was Rossini who described his rival's music as:

"Dei bei momenti, ma delle terrible mezz'ore"

(beautiful moments, but terrible half hours)

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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: Marcuin 
Date:   2008-02-17 08:07

Somebody writes (maybe here):
"Life is like box of Vandoren reeds; you will never know what you get"
(or something like that :) )

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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: JJAlbrecht 
Date:   2008-02-17 12:26

I think that was Forrest Stadler. :) Or maybe Anton Gump.

Jeff

“Everyone discovers their own way of destroying themselves, and some people choose the clarinet.” Kalman Opperman, 1919-2010

"A drummer is a musician's best friend."


Post Edited (2008-02-17 12:27)

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 Re: Favorite Musical Saying or Quotation
Author: skygardener 
Date:   2008-02-18 04:00

I don't know remember who it was, but I heard this when I was in university: (paraphrase)
"Too many dynamic markings in the music are pointless. Bad musicians can't follow them and good musicians don't need them."
and, Berlioz talking about recient changes in orchestra instrumentation- "And then came the big instruments of Sax, which are to the orchestra what a canon is to a hand pistol."

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