Musicians Don’t Die, They Decompose!

This contains actual quotes from elementary music students collected by a
teacher in St. Louis over a 22 year career.

* "When I learned we were going to take a trip to hear a symphony orchestra,
I told my feet to quiet down but they felt too Saturday to listen."

* "I would like for you to teach me to play the cello. Would tomorrow or
Friday be best?"

* "If you keep moving two fingers real fast on the piano, you get a thrill."

* "I can’t reach the brakes on this piano!"

* "The best way to tune up is to use a pitchfork."

* "A good thing to remember about trying to pick up a tuba is don’t."

* "Will we ever get to the point where music is no longer taught in schools?
The chances are 999 out of a hundred."

* "A diminuendo is something only encyclopedias know for sure."

* "Tutti means everybody toot at the same time."

* "I know what a sextet is but I would rather not say."

* "Fortissimo means real loud. It is the way a composer yells on music
paper."

* "Refrain means don’t do it! A refrain in music is the part you better not
play."

* "Poignant music is music you hear before the stork comes."

* "Flats are okay in music but bad in tires."

* "Pieces written in minor keys sometimes make me feel nervous, like when my
mom is looking at me under her breath."

* "Just about any animal skin can be stretched over a frame to make a
pleasant sound once the animal is removed."

* "By shortening and lengthening tubing filled with air, high and low sounds
can be made. Only wind instruments can understand this well enough to make
it work for them. When electric currents go through them, guitars start
making sounds. So would anybody."

* "When we blow into a whistle, the air is pushed together in some places
and pulled apart in others. Naturally it screams and that is the sound we
hear."

* "Many things about electronic instruments that were once thought to be
science fiction now actually are."

* Question: Who composed The Hallelujah Chorus? Answer: "George Fredric
Doorknob."

* "Although Rossini was once considered a great composer of operas,we now
know of operas he failed to compose."

* "I like to listen to the Sorcerer’s Appendix."

* "Richard Wagner was born in 1813, supposably on his birthday."

* "Bach died from 1750 to the present."

* "Beethoven expired in 1827 and later died from this."

* "Haydn got married when he was 28 years old and became the father of
classical music."

* "Handel was a deeply religious man because in some of his music he talks
about Ye and Thee and people like that."

* "Handel was half German, half Italian and half English; he was rather
large."

* "Felix Mendelssohn seems to have been happy, honest and well-liked,
although a musician."

* "Berlioz proved he was a wonderful composer by going insane."

* "Music is one of our most anesthetic arts."