Musical puns, jokes, and teasers

Anything musical that will not fit into the above fora
Timtin
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Re: Musical puns, jokes, and teasers

Post by Timtin »

No problem Brian - it wasn't too unexpected!
I'll carry on doing them from time to time, nevertheless.

One wonders how many folk who are classical music
buffs could actually reel off the names of all 10 symphonies
by Joseph Holbrooke. Not many, I suspect.

One also wonders when a work of his was last played at
a Proms concert. A shamefully long time ago, I suspect.

Regards, Tim.

(In fact, the last Holbrooke piece played at the Proms was
2 days before I was born. I'm 62!)
Timtin
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Re: Musical puns, jokes, and teasers

Post by Timtin »

This week on BBC Television, there have been a couple of musical jokes,
which I'd like to relate.

Joke no.1: On University Challenge, an otherwise exceptionally
bright team from Balliol College Oxford had a long excerpt played
from the most famous passage of the Berlioz Symphonie Fantastique.
They looked utterly bewildered and guessed the composer to be Gounod!

Joke no.2: On Eggheads, an otherwise bright team of competitors were asked
whether JSBach wrote 1. Air on a G String or 2. The Ride of the Valkyries or
3. The Messiah. After much debate, they opted for no.2!

These astonishing shows of ignorance make me wonder if classical music
has now become terminally detached from the psyches of the general population,
even those who are highly intelligent and otherwise well educated. What is really
depressing is that folk on these programmes invariably identify even fifth-rate
pop 'musicians' within a flash!

I wonder if anyone else finds these shows of classical music ignorance laughable
and depressing?
HullandHellandHalifax
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Re: Musical puns, jokes, and teasers

Post by HullandHellandHalifax »

Tim,
it is really much worse than you can possibly imagine and to prove it I will give you two examples that I was involved with and in one case still involved in.
1. When I worked for the civil service our office entered an inter-office quiz competition and I was selected to take part, this was approx. 1972 and you guessed it one of the rounds was on classical music. So with 8 points for our team and 4 bonus points if the other team didn't know their Bach from their Byte there was a lot at stake and thanks to yours truly we got all 12, naturally I was the hero because those 12 points put us in an unassailable position. The other team were sweating cobs at the easiest of questions and were frantically looking in my direction at the big smile on my face as each question left them all having heart attack moments as they knew that I knew the answer. However the biggest "laugh" was saved for the quizmaster who had to ask a question asking for the name of a very famous piece from Xerxes by Handel or should I say Ex-er-jeez according to his pronunciation. That was the level of knowledge over 40 years ago.
2. Fast forward to this week and I am asked to accompany an easter service for a local school, the music is available as a melody only version with a CD/mp3 of the melody sung by a choir or as just the "accompaniment" to the melody thus implying that there will probably be no instruments available or anyone that can play the piano. So the kids rehearse with the CD and of course the modern pop songlike religious songs have weird rhythms and a couple of bars of instrumental rambling at various points, the "melody"notes of which are not printed in the melody version of the songs. So when y.t. is asked to accompany the service I have to listen to the tripe and try to transcribe the interval ramblings because they must be played since the kids have rehearsed with the CD. The teachers are amazed that a) I can play at sight, b) can recognise the notes and play them just from listening, c) play in the style of the non-composer's scribblings. Oh and did I tell you, the school doesn't even have a piano now! not even a keyboard!! This is the third time I have done this and I am becoming more and more surprised at the musical level of the schoolkids when one or more of them have been pressganged into scraping away on their violin/guitar/recorder with absolutely no feel for rhythm or metre or even the notes. It is frightening and I don't see it getting any better since a number of schools I know have no regular music lessons at all because of the cost and the unavailability of music teachers from the colleges.
I wish I could make a joke of this but it really is too serious for words. It is as you say, they can recognise every pop musician that has ever breathed but cannot recognise one note of Bach or Wagner or Berlioz.
regards
Brian
Timtin
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Re: Musical puns, jokes, and teasers

Post by Timtin »

Thank you Brian for relating your experiences. I really don't understand why
it is that the vast majority of younger people nowadays just seem to regard
any enthusiasm for classical music as almost like some mental illness. And heaven
forbid, if you can actually read music, play an instrument (other than guitar
or drums), or attend classical concerts, they assume that you must be some sort
of alien from another planet.
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Re: Musical puns, jokes, and teasers

Post by Timtin »

Here's my attempt at a music and Easter quiz rolled into one.

The 10 clues are all anagrams. In no particular order, there
are the surnames of 5 composers whose music I've recently
encountered and 5 are things one might associate with Easter.

1. Balm, (4).
2. Cart, (4).
3. Share, (5).
4. Erotica, (7).
5. Press ova, (8).
6. No jam rack, (9).
7. Segregates, (6,4).
8. Tedium hurt, (3,7).
9. All one vocal, (11).
10.Panda pup loo, (11).
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Re: Musical puns, jokes, and teasers

Post by Nogbert »

Hi Tim

It's been quite some time since I tackled one of your quizzes. This one caused me some trouble, but here are some guesses.

Regards
Jo

1. Balm, (4). = Lamb
2. Cart, (4). = ??? This ought to be easy, but I can't for the life of me think of anything sensible. It it an acronym or abbreviation?
3. Share, (5). = Hares (March hares?)
4. Erotica, (7). = Catoire
5. Press ova, (8). = Passover
6. No jam rack, (9). = Mokranjac
7. Segregates, (6,4). = Easter eggs
8. Tedium hurt, (3,7). = The triduum
9. All one vocal, (11). = Leoncavallo
10.Panda pup loo, (11). = Papandopulo
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Re: Musical puns, jokes, and teasers

Post by HullandHellandHalifax »

Hi Nogbert,
glad to see you back amongst us, I have just nearly got to the end of a 12 day, 11 service stint of organ playing and thought I would relax with Tim's little contest. Like you I ain't got a clue with number two and 6 and 8 gave me headaches. I couldn't spell number 10 either so would have answered Popadopolopolis, Tim would know what I meant.
Mind you Tim has failed to see that there are two possible answers for number 3, true Catoire is maybe the most obvious but I also have piano music by a Roumanian composer called Tudor Ciortea so the right answer is either Catoire or Ciortea. As for the rest I concur but what the hell is a Triduum?
How about you posing an anagram test for Tim, could be interesting.
cheers both
Brian
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Re: Musical puns, jokes, and teasers

Post by Timtin »

Hi Jo and Brian,

Thanks for your feedback and congrats on almost completely
cracking my Easter egg!

The answer to No.2 is Aleksander Arct, a Polish composer. Examples
of his output are available on the Jagiellonian University website.

https://jbc.bj.uj.edu.pl/dlibra/results ... ions%3A184

Tudor Ciortea is a new name to me. It's quite rare to find two
composers with surnames satisfying the same anagram.

The Triduum is the three days of Easter: Thursday, Friday, Saturday,
and Sunday, although that doesn't seem to quite add up.

Later today, I'll upload a small file to this site. Here is a cryptic clue
to reveal what piece it is:-

Optimist's true content disturbed. (11).

Regards, Tim.
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Re: Musical puns, jokes, and teasers

Post by soh choon wee »

I just need some help..... must be aging, some information i used to remember is just BLANK now.

There is this concerto (not those regular Beethoven Chopin etc) that Solomon is said to have learned while crossing the Atlantic and after arrival he played the (possibly) world premier.... it may have been recorded by EMI.

Now, what is that concerto?
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Re: Musical puns, jokes, and teasers

Post by Jean-Séb »

Could it be Bliss ?
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