Musical Musings

Following are actual answers from students on music exams. Although they may not fit into the category of "traditional" quotes, they are utterances (of a sort) and they are memorable! Thanks go to Deb for sending these to us!

• The principle singer of 19th century opera was called pre-Madonna.
• It is easy to teach anyone to play the maracas. Just grip the neck and shake him in rhythm.
• Gregorian chant has no music, just singers singing the same lines.
• Sherbet composed the Unfinished Symphony.
• At one time singers had to use musicians to accompany them. Since synthesizers came along, singers can now play with themselves.
• All female parts were sung by castrati. We don't know exactly what they sounded like because there are no known descendants.
• Young scholars have expressed their rapture for the Bronze Lullaby, the Taco Bell Cannon, Beethoven's Erotica, Tchaikovsky Cracknutter Suite, and Gershwin's Rap City in Blue.
• Music sung by two people at the same time is called a duel; if they sing with music it is called Acapulco.
• A virtuoso is a musician with real high morals.
• Contralto is a low sort of music that only ladies sing.
• Diatonic is a low calorie Schweppes.
• Probably the most marvelous fugue was the one between the Hatfields and the McCoys.
• A harp is a nude piano.
• The main trouble with a French Horn is that it is too tangled up.
• An interval in music is the distance from one piano to the next.
• The correct way to find the key to a piece of music is to use a pitchfork.
• Agitato is a state of mind when one's finger slips in the middle of playing a piece.
• Refrain means don't do it. A refrain in music is the part you'd better not try to sing.
• I know what a sextet is but I'd rather not say.
• Most authorities agree that music of antiquity was written long ago.
• My favorite composer was Opus. Agnus Dei was a woman composer famous for her church music.
• Henry Purcell was a well-known composer few people have ever heard of.
• Johann Sebastian Bach wrote a great many musical compositions and had a large number of children. In between he practiced on an old spinster which he kept up in his attic.
• Rock Monanoff was a famous post-romantic composer of piano concerti.