Finally!
I finally got my class ring in today! It's about fricking time! I was supposed to have it a month ago but the chick who took my order lost it so it never got ordered!
And since I'm bored, I found a notebook from last year which had funny terms from Moma McG's "Musician's Dictionary book... We found it at the end of last year when we were cleaning things up from the art closet... They are amusing even if they arent true.
Baritone- male voice that lies between bass and tenor (not unlike a shortstop in baseball), combining the negative qualities of both. Have a tendency to sing a different piece of music from everyone else and to sound like a trombone filled with cold coffee. Term possibly derived from the Latin boro, meaning "dunce"
Bass- Lowest vocal line, sung by men, usually old and doddering, often also blind and deaf. Have a tendency to sing flat, or not at all and to sound like a pregnant foghorn. Derived from Latin bassus meaning "base" (but whether in the sense of "pedestal" or "debauched" isn't clear)
Conductor- Person at the front of the choir, facing away from the audience (usually out of embarassment). Primary function is to imitate a windmill, for the esthetic effect. Chief weapon is the baton, which everyone is pretending to watch carefully. If the performance goes well, the conductor takes all the credit; if badly, the performers get the blame.
Alto- second highest vocal line sung by women. Have a tendency to sing flat, and to sing like old molasses pudding. From Lating altus means "high" but originally meant "overfed".
Soprano- Highest vocal line. Have a tendency to sing sharp and to sound like fingernails scraped on a chalkboard. Not to be confused with a soaprano; a women who sprayed her throat from the wrong bottle on the bathroom counter. Derived from the Latin superius meaning "highest". this has given many sopranos a superiority complex, exceedingly unfounded. Sopranos tend to be the most feeble-minded of all the singing voices. This may be explained by the fact that notes of higher frequency travel directly to the brain and cause rapid decay.
Tenor- A high pitched male voice, akin to screaming. Extremely rare, so usually sung by frustrated baritones whose reach exceeds their grasp. Have a tendency to sing off-pitch, out of time, out of control, and to sound like a strangulating cat.
Sound- 1. Polite term for noise. 2. A type of mental attitude rarely obtained by musicians, even more rarely by conductors and never by singers.
Laryngitis- second most effective and convincing way to silence a singer. Most effective way is death- though somewhat drastic, perhaps. Only one of a large number of similar afflictions- such as the flu, colds, strep throat- all of which have been known to affect singers at the least-opportune times. Such catastrophes are extremely prevalent among soloists, and have been known to lay waste to entire choirs at Christmas time.
Bright- with many singers, especially sopranos or tenors, a term that may be used to describe their sound quality- though rarely their intelligence.
Brain- Cranial space usually reserved for the brain is, in musicians, given over to lung capacity (so they have quite literally blown their brains out) in singers, the absence of brain matter leaves extra room for resonance. Science has been unable to discover whether conductors have been provided with any sort of replacement for the missing brain- but its highly unlikely.
And since I'm bored, I found a notebook from last year which had funny terms from Moma McG's "Musician's Dictionary book... We found it at the end of last year when we were cleaning things up from the art closet... They are amusing even if they arent true.
Baritone- male voice that lies between bass and tenor (not unlike a shortstop in baseball), combining the negative qualities of both. Have a tendency to sing a different piece of music from everyone else and to sound like a trombone filled with cold coffee. Term possibly derived from the Latin boro, meaning "dunce"
Bass- Lowest vocal line, sung by men, usually old and doddering, often also blind and deaf. Have a tendency to sing flat, or not at all and to sound like a pregnant foghorn. Derived from Latin bassus meaning "base" (but whether in the sense of "pedestal" or "debauched" isn't clear)
Conductor- Person at the front of the choir, facing away from the audience (usually out of embarassment). Primary function is to imitate a windmill, for the esthetic effect. Chief weapon is the baton, which everyone is pretending to watch carefully. If the performance goes well, the conductor takes all the credit; if badly, the performers get the blame.
Alto- second highest vocal line sung by women. Have a tendency to sing flat, and to sing like old molasses pudding. From Lating altus means "high" but originally meant "overfed".
Soprano- Highest vocal line. Have a tendency to sing sharp and to sound like fingernails scraped on a chalkboard. Not to be confused with a soaprano; a women who sprayed her throat from the wrong bottle on the bathroom counter. Derived from the Latin superius meaning "highest". this has given many sopranos a superiority complex, exceedingly unfounded. Sopranos tend to be the most feeble-minded of all the singing voices. This may be explained by the fact that notes of higher frequency travel directly to the brain and cause rapid decay.
Tenor- A high pitched male voice, akin to screaming. Extremely rare, so usually sung by frustrated baritones whose reach exceeds their grasp. Have a tendency to sing off-pitch, out of time, out of control, and to sound like a strangulating cat.
Sound- 1. Polite term for noise. 2. A type of mental attitude rarely obtained by musicians, even more rarely by conductors and never by singers.
Laryngitis- second most effective and convincing way to silence a singer. Most effective way is death- though somewhat drastic, perhaps. Only one of a large number of similar afflictions- such as the flu, colds, strep throat- all of which have been known to affect singers at the least-opportune times. Such catastrophes are extremely prevalent among soloists, and have been known to lay waste to entire choirs at Christmas time.
Bright- with many singers, especially sopranos or tenors, a term that may be used to describe their sound quality- though rarely their intelligence.
Brain- Cranial space usually reserved for the brain is, in musicians, given over to lung capacity (so they have quite literally blown their brains out) in singers, the absence of brain matter leaves extra room for resonance. Science has been unable to discover whether conductors have been provided with any sort of replacement for the missing brain- but its highly unlikely.