Dennis González
I'm sure you've heard bunches of 'em, but here goes a few:
A young child says to his mother, "Mom when I grow up, I'd like to be a musician." Mom replies, "Well, hon, you know you can't do both!"
What's the difference between a banjo and an onion?
Nobody cries when you chop up a banjo.
What's the difference between an opera singer and a pit bull?
Lipstick
What do you call a guitar player who only knows two chords?
A music critic.
What's the difference between an oboe and a bassoon?
You can hit a baseball further with a bassoon.
Notice I didn't put up any trumpet jokes?
OK, Next!
03-08-2003 12:21 PM
graypencil
WEll ..we'll fix THAT . Dennis
Trumpet Citations & Infractions
NAME OF OFFENDER_____________
INFRACTION DATE _____________
MUSICAL OFFENSES:
[] Playing highest note possible in warm- up-$100
[] Sound-checking mic with obnoxious jazz licks-$15
[] Raising hand after mistake-$15
[] Practicing multiple tongueing not called for on gig-$15
[] Blacking out after high note-$20
[] Obnoxiously show-offy warm-up-$25
[] Taking tuning note up an octave-$25
[] Vibrato on unison passage-$50
[] Failure to use 3rd valve slide-$50
[] Playing B-flat when band tunes to A-$75
[] Being told by conductor to play louder-$400
[] Failure to swing-$1000
LEAD PLAYERS:
[] Changing mouthpieces mid-song-$15
[] Faking section into early entrance-$10
[] Faking self into early entrances-$50
[] Missing high lick, then mentioning previous gig(s)-$25
[] Asking conductor if it's OK to take a lick up-$25
[] Asking conductor if it's OK to take a lick down-$400
[] Taking a lick down that you took up in rehearsal-$100
[] Missing last note of "In the Mood"-$200
SECTION/NON-LEAD PLAYERS:
[] Missing entrance when lead drops out-$15
[] Pointing out to the lead that guy on the record took that last lick
up-$20
[] Attempting unassigned lick biffed by lead-$50
[] Asking lead what mouthpiece he uses-$75
[] Hanging over past lead on last chord-$100
[] Attempting to out-screech lead on last chord-$100
[] Successfully out-screeching lead at any time-$500
EQUIPMENT VIOLATIONS:
[] Playing with screw on rim-$10
[] Polishing horn on stage-$15
[] Dropping mute-$10
[] Dropping horn-Repairs + $20
[] Dropping Dead-Warning
[] Forgetting pencil-$20
[] Forgetting Mute(s)-Each $50
[] Forgetting Bow-Tie or socks-$30
[] Forgetting Mouthpiece- $30
[] Forgetting Mags-$100
[] Blaming mistake on sticky valves-$25
[] Getting marble or similar object stuck down bell-$750
CRIMINAL BAD TASTE:
[] Having nicest gig-bag in section-$10
[] Talking about the great deal you got on a new horn-$10
[] Hawking old horn on Bandstand-$10
[] Quoting Herb Alpert or Mangione Song-$250
[] Farting on bandstand-$25
[] Defecating on bandstand-$75
[] Practicing legit style on swing gig- $35
[] Discussing how plentiful gigs were in the old days-$50
[] Beginning a sentence with "when I played for Kenton"-$50
[] Casually mentioning to Musical Director of cheap theater that you
also play Keyboards-$100
BASIC STUPIDITY
[] Wearing old MF tour shirt-$15
[] Wearing new MF tour shirt-$25
[] Playing on a Jet-tone mouthpiece-$20
[] Continually asking "where are we?"-$25
[] Drunkenness on stage-$25
[] Stonedness on stage-$50
[] Sobriety on stage-$75
[] Pretending to be friends with a bone player-$50
[] Actually being friends with a bone player-$200
[] Dating a bone player- $7500
[] Loaning money to bone player-4x amount loaned
[] Sitting next to conductor at meals-$100
and yet another non sectarian series of musician to musican putdowns ..from over the years:
"He'd be better off shoveling snow" -
- Richard Strauss on Arnold Schoenberg.
When told that a soloist would need six fingers to perform his
concerto,
Arnold
Schoenberg replied, "I can wait."
"I would like to hear Elliot Carter's Fourth String Quartet, if
only to
discover what a cranky prostate does to one's polyphony."
-- James Sellars
"Exit in case of Brahms"
-- Philip Hale's proposed inscription over the doors of Boston
Symphony
Hall
"Why is it that whenever I hear a piece of music I don't like,
it's always by
Villa-Lobos?"
-- Igor Stravinsky
"His music used to be original. Now it's aboriginal."
-- Sir Ernest Newman on Igor Stravinsky
"If he'd been making shell-cases during the war it might have
been better for
music."
-- Maurice Ravel on Camille Saint-Saens
"He has an enormously wide repertory. He can conduct anything,
provided it's
by Beethoven, Brahms or Wagner. He tried Debussy's La Mer once.
It came out
as Das Merde."
-- Anonymous Orchestra Member on George Szell
Someone commented to Rudolph Bing, manager of the Metropolitan
Opera, that
George Szell is his own worst enemy. "Not while I'm alive, he
isn't!" said
Bing.
"After I die, I shall return to earth as a gatekeeper of a
bordello and I
won't let any of you enter."
-- Arturo Toscanini to the NBC Orchestra
"We cannot expect you to be with us all the time, but perhaps you
could be
good enough to keep in touch now and again."
-- Sir Thomas Beecham to a musician during a rehearsal
"Jack Benny played Mendelssohn last night. Mendelssohn lost."
-- Anonymous
The great German conductor Hans von Buelow detested two members
of an
orchestra, who were named Schultz and Schmidt. Upon being told
that Schmidt
had died, von Buelow immediately asked, "Und Schultz?"
"Her voice sounded like an eagle being goosed."
-- Ralph Novak on Yoko Ono
"Parsifal--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
"One can't judge Wagner's opera Lohengrin after a first hearing,
and I
certainly don't intend hearing it a second time."
-- Gioacchino Rossini
"I liked the opera very much. Everything but the music."
-- Benjamin Britten on Stravinsky's The Rake's Progress
"Never look at the trombones, it only encourages them."
--Richard Strauss
"You can't possibly hear the last movement of Beethoven's Seventh
and go
slow."
-- Oscar Levant, explaining his way out of a speeding ticket.
"Wagner's music is better than it sounds."
-- Mark Twain
"Already too loud!"
-- Bruno Walter at his first rehearsal with an American
orchestra, on
seeing the players reaching for their instruments.
"I would rather play Chiquita Banana and have my swimming pool
than play Bach
and starve."
-- Xavier Cugat
"[Musicians] talk of nothing but money and jobs. Give me
businessmen every
time. They really are interested in music and art."
--Jean Sibelius, explaining why he rarely invited musicians to
his home.
"In opera, there is always too much singing."
-- Claude Debussy
"Oh how wonderful, really wonderful, opera would be if there were
no singers!"
-- Gioacchino Rossini
03-08-2003 01:31 PM
Dennis González
I remember hearing Lester Bowie warming up backstage with Chuck Mangione's "Feels So Good" - is that the name of his big hit? Anyway, I wanted to pull out a citation book, but didn't have one! Cracked me up.
03-08-2003 01:55 PM
Captain Hate
Having seen Lester a number of times with Brass Fantasy (and AEC), I'm surprised he didn't play a particularly Lester version of it and call it a "great jazz classic".
03-08-2003 02:00 PM
cookie
I heard this one at rehearsal the other night:
"What do you call a drummer in a suit?"
"The defendant."
03-08-2003 06:08 PM
Nathaniel Catchpole
How do you get two soprano saxophone players to play in tune together?
Shoot one.
03-08-2003 08:15 PM
Squaredancecaller
Cookie: I heard it as "What do you say to a banjo player in a three piece suit?"
"Will the defendant please rise?"
or
A fiddler and a banjo player were riding together in a brand new car. Who was driving?
The sherriff.
What's the differen between an Irish and an Appalachian dulcimer?
The Irish burns hotter, but the Appalachian burns longer.
And of course,
What do you call a guy who likes to hang out with musicians?
A drummer.
03-08-2003 08:29 PM
Squaredancecaller
How can you tell if the stage is level?
The guitarist is drooling out of both sides of his mouth.
03-08-2003 08:33 PM
Dennis González
An accordion player had to make a quick stop at a very ghetto convenience store, and very stupidly left his accordion in plain view in the back seat of his car. He was only gone a coupla minutes, but sure enough, when he returned, his back window had been smashed out. A second accordion lay in the back seat! Har har har.
Very good, Squaredancer!
03-08-2003 09:11 PM
Tipitina
Har har har indeed. I like that one!
03-08-2003 09:31 PM
cookie
Steve Martin said on the Letterman show last week that he became an actor instead of a musician because there is one phrase that will never be uttered in any language: "Wow! Did you see the banjo player's new Porsche?" (or something to that effect).
03-08-2003 10:05 PM
Dr Dave
I wonder what Bela Fleck drives.
Definition of an optimist: A trombonist with a pager.
