 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Ed Palanker
Date: 2008-12-12 03:21
Quotes and sayings. I posted some of these on another post but I thought it might be interesting to complete them on a separate post.
Feel free to post your own.
Some I’ve identified by the author, some are mine and the others I’ve just grew up with.
My favorite, “Everybody should try to find a sound that really belongs to you. In the end, I think everyone should be different. Good teachers should help a student evolve in a natural way, not be a copy machine.” Concert pianist Lang Lang while giving a master class in Baltimore, Baltimore Sun Papers.
My second favorite, If it ain’t broke don’t fix it.
“None are so blind as those that can but won’t see”.
“None are so deaf as those that won’t listen”.
“Amateurs practice until they get it right, Professionals practice until they no longer get it wrong.” NFL today TV show, said at half time.
An opened mind is a terrible thing to waste.
A person that thinks that their way is the only way is way too closed-minded.
There is never only one way to do anything, especially on the clarinet.
There’s more than one way to skin a cat. (This applies to playing and teaching the clarinet as well, but not skinning it).
If you disagree with what a person says it doesn’t mean they’re wrong and you’re right.
Just because you can’t do it the way someone else does it doesn't mean they're doing it wrong and you’re doing it right.
Using a wrong terminology does not make a statement wrong; it simply means that the wrong terminology was used.
It’s easier to find fault in a person if you’re looking for it, or their playing, than it is to find the positive.
No one is always correct about everything. (That includes smart people and intellects too so that leaves me out.)
The truth is sometimes what a person wants to believe it is.
It’s really only a lie if the person telling it knows what is the truth.
Don’t mess with success.
Life is too short to be nasty.
And finally, Enjoy!
ESP www.peabody.jhu.edu/457 Listen to a little Mozart, live performance
ESP eddiesclarinet.com
Post Edited (2008-12-13 14:33)
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Author: GBK
Date: 2008-12-12 03:36
"I would rather play Chiquita Banana and have my swimming pool than play Bach and starve."
-- Xavier Cugat
...GBK
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Author: NorbertTheParrot
Date: 2008-12-12 08:35
Quoted by GBK above:
"I would rather play Chiquita Banana and have my swimming pool than play Bach and starve."
-- Xavier Cugat
Quoted by Sherman in another thread:
... one has to know that [Benny Goodman] studied straight classical at the beginning, and it was always in his head. Toward the end he was interviewed by a journal. The F minor Brahms was on the stand. The interviewer asked, Why is that on the stand"?
Benny responded with, "What am I supposed to play? "China Boy"all day long"?
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Author: graham
Date: 2008-12-12 09:14
The problem with :" if it ain't broke don't fix it" is it begs the main question, which is how to recognise before it is too late whether or not it may be broke.
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Author: huff n' puff
Date: 2008-12-12 09:54
Hi,.... heard this on the radio the other day-
"Was it Art for Art's sake?" "No, it was Money for God's sake"....H&P
Sums up most of human endevour.
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Author: Ed Palanker
Date: 2008-12-12 12:58
huff n' puff, I love your name. That should be a quote in itself. ESP
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Author: hans
Date: 2008-12-12 14:11
Friends come and go.... enemies accumulate.
I can't recall the source :-(
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Author: FDF
Date: 2008-12-12 15:13
“All generalizations are false, including this one.” Mark Twain, but I first heard it from a college prof.
Also by Mark Twain, “Get your facts first, then you can distort them as you please.”
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Author: Ed
Date: 2008-12-12 15:31
"If someone wants to play music you do not have to get a ruler or whips to make them practice."
~Thelonious Monk
"When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years."
-Mark Twain
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Author: William
Date: 2008-12-12 15:38
"If it sounds good, it is good". Duke Ellington referring to the question, what is good music.
"One should never play loud (FF) so as to stun small animals". "A good sound is an intune sound". Conductor James Smith, University of Wisconsin.
Never louder than lovely.
.
Post Edited (2008-12-13 22:28)
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Author: Sylvain
Date: 2008-12-12 15:50
"The Matrix is a system, Neo. That system is our enemy. When you're inside, you look around, what do you see? Businessmen, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. The very minds of people we're trying to save, but until we do, these people are still a part of that system and that makes them our enemy. You have to understand that most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inert, so hopelessly dependent on the system that they will fight to protect it."
Morpheus.
--
Sylvain Bouix <sbouix@gmail.com>
Post Edited (2008-12-12 15:53)
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Author: Andy Siegmund
Date: 2008-12-12 16:31
It's better to do less better than more less better
If you play it like that, you're going to sound like a black and decker, you know, a cheap tool
Both lines by Dave Seiler
Andy
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Author: Arnoldstang
Date: 2008-12-12 17:43
Graham, re "if it ain't broke", many of these quotes can be paired with another to counter it. In this case "a stitch in time saves nine" is a possible match for the "if it ain't broke". Just because it isn't broke doesn't mean it can't be improved.
Freelance woodwind performer
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Author: Arnoldstang
Date: 2008-12-12 17:53
Re "all generalizations". All factually accurate generalizations are true. They aren't true in every specific case because they are generalizations. Being false in a specific case doesn't alter the "trueness" of the generalization. It's like saying 55% of time I wear a green hat to work. If I walk out of the house one day without a hat that doesn't contradict my statement. "Generally" differs from "Specifically".
I think there is a place for generalizing. Many people counter them with...".well that's just a generalization." Generalizing gives an overview of a subject.
Freelance woodwind performer
Post Edited (2008-12-12 17:59)
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Author: FDF
Date: 2008-12-12 18:57
Arnoldstang, for the sake of adding to your discussion about “generalizations.” My college professor was talking about the type of generalizations that end a well researched essay, or what might be called a “meaningful generalization.” He threw Mark Twain’s, conundrum in to make us aware that even meaningful generalizations that smack of truth are subject to scrutiny and relative to truth. He also had a good sense of humor that helped us learn. In your generalization that stemmed from opinion, I found six generalizations that led up to your concluding generalization, giving Mark Twain’s humorous observation greater credibility.
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Author: arundo
Date: 2008-12-12 19:12
My favorites are from Ambrose Bierce's The Devil's Dictionary, arguably the greatest collection of epigrams ever written. Here's a musical example:
"Fiddle, n. An instrument to tickle human ears by friction of a horse's tail on the entrails of a cat."
mark dickman
7738565490
markdickman82@hotmail.com
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Author: MichaelR
Date: 2008-12-12 22:01
My my favorite photo teacher:
It's not a problem unless it's chronic.
Paraphrased from a drawing teacher I had:
You should only practice when you want. But you should want to all the time.
--
Michael of Portland, OR
Be Appropriate and Follow Your Curiosity
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Author: clarinetguy ★2017
Date: 2008-12-13 01:04
Thinking about all the popular entertainers out there who earn so much in the music industry even though many of them have little formal musical training,
and
Thinking about all serious performance majors out there who spend thousands of dollars working on masters degrees and doctorates and are happy if they obtain positions in regional orchestras that pay $20,000 per year,
"If you want to earn a good living as a music performer and you're trying to decide how much formal training you'll need, remember that less is better."
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Author: clariknight
Date: 2008-12-13 01:51
"I was working on the proof of one of my poems all the morning, and took out a comma. In the afternoon, I put it back again." -Oscar Wilde
"I reject your reality and substitute my own." Adam Savage (of the popular TV series Mythbusters).
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Author: Arnoldstang
Date: 2008-12-13 06:36
Hi FDF, The example I gave was "wearing a green hat". Is this based on opinion?. If you would , lead me to my six generalizations. I would offer another example....."Men are generally stronger than women". I wish I had taken that course that you spoke of. All the best.
Freelance woodwind performer
Post Edited (2008-12-13 07:37)
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Author: huff n' puff
Date: 2008-12-13 14:43
Hi, Arundo...... I recollect someone describing an orchestra as "a bunch of cat-scratchers".
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Author: johnniegoldfish
Date: 2008-12-13 15:26
Hire a teenager, while they still know everything
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Author: george
Date: 2008-12-13 17:11
Jackie Mason:
I have enough money to last me the rest of my life, unless I buy something.
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Author: mrn
Date: 2008-12-13 19:24
From my youth symphony days:
"You can sight read something only once. After that, it's practice."
"You don't have a pencil on your stand? Better get the lead out..."
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Author: Shi-Ku Chishiki
Date: 2008-12-15 23:04
My signature says it all.
"It's not the clarinet that makes the player, but the player that makes the clarinet!"
Shi-Ku Chishiki ShiKu.Chishiki@Gmail.com
It's not the clarinet that makes the player, but the player that makes the clarinet!
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Author: Ed Palanker
Date: 2008-12-15 23:34
"A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing."
Larry Bocaner
National Symphony Orchestra, Washington (retired)
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Author: Mike Clarinet
Date: 2008-12-16 07:52
I can't remember the exact wording of this one from Jack Brymer, but the sense of it is that a good musician is someone who learns to work around the shortcomings of their instrument.
My teacher used to say, when I was confronted with a page full of semiquavers (32nds to the Yanks  ) Don't panic, you only have to play one at a time. My piano teacher was not impressed by this.
Another one - I don't know where this came from. Playing the notes is the easy bit. It's getting from one note to the next that causes the problems.
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Author: awm34
Date: 2008-12-16 08:43
To extend Ed Palanker's quote:
"A little learning is a dangerous thing; drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring: there shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, and drinking largely sobers us again." -- Alexander Pope (1709)
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Author: skygardener
Date: 2008-12-16 10:29
From my college professor's door:
"If a person studies only one craft in their life then it should be music because it contains all crafts."
-Plato
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Author: Jamietalbot
Date: 2008-12-16 11:10
"The clarinet was invented by two men, who unfortunately never met."
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Author: Wendy
Date: 2008-12-16 17:04
"Whether you think you can, or whether you think you can't - you are right."
- Henry Ford
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Author: Arnoldstang
Date: 2008-12-16 21:41
My usage of " A little knowledge" actually predates Alexander Pope.... I said it in 1708 if memory serves me correctly. Unfortunately I didn't know much back then.
Freelance woodwind performer
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Author: clariknight
Date: 2008-12-16 23:00
"If you think you can't you won't, if you believe you can you might, and if you prepare throughly with the thought that you can, you will."
My cross country coach.
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Author: Alphie
Date: 2008-12-16 23:33
Nobody can do everything, but enybody can do something (to make the world a better place). I bought a car that runs with ethanol instead of petrol and got rid of my oil burner for heating. What did you do?
Alphie
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Author: clariknight
Date: 2008-12-16 23:42
Well, to start, I didn't buy a car that runs on a fuel that is steadily killing the environment more quickly than gasoline (or coal, natural gas, propane, or oil).
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Author: tictactux ★2017
Date: 2008-12-17 00:47
What good is a car for when you can have public transportation and you're not hauling a tuba, a harp or a pair of kettledrums?
--
Ben
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Author: Don Berger
Date: 2008-12-17 01:33
Oboe, the ill wind that nobody blows good [not yet posted?] . I prefer the malady to the harmonica . Don
Thanx, Mark, Don
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Author: rgames
Date: 2008-12-17 03:11
What - no Eugene Ormandy quotes yet? These are some of my favorites:
"Did you play? It sounded very good."
"Who is sitting in that empty chair?"
"During the rests -- pray."
"I know this music from memory, not from the music."
"Bizet was a very young man when he composed this symphony, so play it softly."
"Long note? Yes. Make it seem short."
"Percussion, a little louder." / "We don't have anything." / "That's right, play it louder."
And my absolute favorite:
"Why do you always insist on playing while I'm trying to conduct?"
rgames
____________________________
Richard G. Ames
Composer - Arranger - Producer
www.rgamesmusic.com
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Author: GBK
Date: 2008-12-17 03:24
"Parsifal is the kind of opera that starts at six o'clock and after it has been going three hours, you look at your watch and it says 6:20."
--David Randolph
...GBK
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Author: awm34
Date: 2008-12-17 10:59
"The more I practice, the luckier I get." (Ben Hogan)
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Author: Jamietalbot
Date: 2008-12-17 15:13
By the late Derek Healy- a London session trumpet player.
"The older I get, the better I was"
and
"I didn't get where I am today playing the way I do today"
Priceless!
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Author: Don Berger
Date: 2008-12-17 15:14
Very Good, RGA [initials of my co-inventor !!], a bit sarcastic perhaps? Another Mark 2 'ism. "Reports of my demise are slightly exaggerated" , a fav. quote by fellow retirement-home "inmates". Don
Thanx, Mark, Don
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Author: Nasubi77
Date: 2008-12-17 18:12
"You don't have a pencil on your stand? Better get the lead out..."
To go along with this one from a college symphonic band director I had...
"I'd rather see a short pencil than a long memory."
And beyond music, on a more philosophical note:
"To the world, you may just be one person. But to one person, you just may be the world." Can't source this one.
"Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known."
- Carl Sagan
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Author: GBK
Date: 2008-12-17 19:12
No Stravinsky quotes yet? Well, here are two famous ones:
"Why is it that whenever I hear a piece of music I don't like, it's always by Villa-Lobos?"
--Igor Stravinsky
"Harpists spend ninety percent of their lives tuning their harps and ten percent playing out of tune."
--Igor Stravinsky
...GBK
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Author: mrn
Date: 2008-12-17 19:18
Another favorite Stravinsky quote:
"Good composers borrow; great composers steal."
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Author: Dan Oberlin ★2017
Date: 2008-12-17 19:47
A pretty girl is like a malady.
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Author: Ed Palanker
Date: 2008-12-18 03:16
I forgot about these.
Intonation is a musicians disease. Former 2nd clarinets in the BSO.
Better to play sharp than out of tune. Oboe player in the other BSO, Boston
ESP
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Author: davyd
Date: 2008-12-18 20:47
If you don't have your pencil, you're as unequipped as if you don't have your instrument.
Look before you leap. But one who hesitates is lost.
Don't tell me why you can't. Tell me how you can.
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Author: kdolan01
Date: 2008-12-19 06:53
-Conductor- "2nd trumpet is too loud!!! please quiet down"
~starts conducting again~
~Stops short~
-Conductor- "2nd trumpet is tooo loud!"
-first trumpet- "Sir the 2nd trumpet isnt here yet"
-Conductor- "Well when he gets here tell him he's too loud"
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Author: DavidBlumberg
Date: 2008-12-21 15:27
"You know you're a band geek when you pass out while reading a book because they didn't put in breath marks."
I just saw that one one of my former student's band websites.
http://www.SkypeClarinetLessons.com
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Author: Ralph Katz
Date: 2008-12-21 15:36
Herodotus, "The Histories", c. 430B.C., writing about the Persians:
"It is also their general practice to deliberate upon affairs of weight when they are drunk; and then on the morrow, when they are sober, the decision to which they came the night before is put before them by the master of the house in which it was made; and if it is then approved of, they act on it; if not, they set it aside. Sometimes, however, they are sober at their first deliberation, but in this case they always reconsider the matter under the influence of wine."
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Author: Ralph Katz
Date: 2008-12-21 15:36
"Go back to your rooms and finger your parts."
William D. Revelli
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Author: Ralph Katz
Date: 2008-12-21 15:44
"We trained hard... But every time we were beginning to form up into teams, we would be reorganized. I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganizing ... And a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing inefficiency and demoralization."
Petronius
First Century A.D.
[I am not sure if this is a real quote or a legend created by Robert Townsend in "Up the Organization!" (1970), especially not in 210 BC as cited, a hundred years before Petronius' birth.]
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Author: Mark Charette
Date: 2008-12-21 15:54
Ralph Katz wrote:
> [I am not sure if this is a real quote or a legend created by
> Robert Townsend in "Up the Organization!" (1970), especially
> not in 210 BC as cited, a hundred years before Petronius'
> birth.]
http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/25618.html (attributed to Charlton Ogburn)
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Author: Ralph Katz
Date: 2008-12-22 00:43
Mark ,
Wiki also lists the Petronius mis-attribution:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlton_Ogburn
Thanks!
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Author: huff n' puff
Date: 2008-12-23 10:33
Hi, Ed......... just remembered Homer Simpson's advice to Bart- "Don't worry, Trying is just the first step to failure"............. H&P
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Author: chris moffatt
Date: 2008-12-23 15:04
Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how it's done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves. (Brendan Behan)
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Author: Bassie
Date: 2008-12-23 20:26
"To sound my horn
I had to develop my embouchure.
I found my horn
Was a bit of a devil to play."
Flanders & Swann
(to the tune of Mozart horn concerto K.495)
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Author: Tara
Date: 2008-12-24 20:32
"Imitation is the highest form of flattery, but the lowest form of artistry."
Not sure who originally coined this one, but I just heard it from Allan McMurray in a conducting workshop at the Midwest Clinic.
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Author: Rob Vitale
Date: 2008-12-25 04:57
Intonation is like B.O., sounds like this orchestra needs a shower - Tony Maiello On the GMU Symphony orchestra
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Author: Rob Vitale
Date: 2008-12-25 05:02
"Practice doesn't make perfect, perfect practicing makes perfect."
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Author: RLSchwebel
Date: 2008-12-25 15:53
"Practice doesn't make perfect, but it sure as hell (heck) doesn't hurt."
My old high school band director said this all the time in Ingleside, TX.
~robt
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Author: Ralph Katz
Date: 2008-12-25 16:54
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indestinguishable from magic." - Arthur C Clarke
"As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain, and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality." - Albert Einstein
"Every revolutionary idea seems to evoke three stages of reaction. They may be summed up by the phrases: (1) It's completely impossible. (2) It's possible, but it's not worth doing. (3) I said it was a good idea all along."
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The Clarinet Pages
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