MUSIC DICTIONARY

A PATELLA: Unaccompanied knee-slapping.

ACCIDENTALS: Wrong Notes

ADAGIO FROMMAGIO: To play in a slow and cheesy manner.

AGNUS DEI: A famous female church composer

ALLEGRO: Leg fertilizer

ANGUS DEI: To play with a divine, beefy tone.

CADENCE: When everybody hopes you’re going to stop, but you don’t.

CHROMATIC SCALE: An instrument for weighing that indicates half-pounds.

DA CAPO AL FINE: I like your hat.

DIATONIC: A low calorie Schweppes.

DILL PICCOLINO: A wind instrument that plays only sour notes.

FRUGALHORN: A sensible, inexpensive brass instrument.

HARMONY: A corn-like food, popular in the South.

INTERVAL: How long it takes you to find the right note.

INTONATION: Singing through one’s nose.

MEAN TEMPERAMENT: One’s state of mind when everybody’s trying to tune at the same time.

METRONOME: A dwarf that lives in the city.

TEMPO: This is where a headache begins.

TEMPO DE LEARNO: As slow as you have to go. (Dave Cross)

Yogi Berra explains “Jazz”

Interviewer: Can you explain jazz?

Yogi: I can't, but I will....90% of all jazz is half improvisation. The other half is the part people play while others are playing something they never played with anyone who played that part. So if you play the wrong part, its right. If you play the right part, it might be right if you play it wrong enough. But if you play it too right, it will be wrong.

Interviewer: I don't think I quite understand.

Yogi: Anyone who understands jazz knows that you can't understand it. It's too complicated. That's what's so simple about it.

Interviewer: So, do you understand it?

Yogi: No. That's why I can explain it. If I understood it, I wouldn’t know anything about it.

Interviewer: Are there any great jazz players still alive today?

Yogi: No. All the great jazz players alive today are dead, except for the ones that are still alive. But so many of them are dead, that the ones that are still alive are dying to be like the ones that are dead. Some would kill for it.

Interviewer: What is syncopation?

Yogi: That's when the note that you should hear, now happens either before or after you hear it. In jazz, you don't hear notes when they happen, because that would be some other type of music. Other types of music can be jazz, but only if they're the same as something different from those other kinds.

Interviewer: Now I really don't understand. I'm really confused!

Yogi: I haven't taught you enough for you to not understand jazz that well.

A Shepard Tone, named after Roger Shepard, is a sound consisting of a superposition of sine waves separated by octaves. When played with the base pitch of the tone moving upwards or downwards, it is referred to as the Shepard scale. This creates the auditory illusion of a tone that continually ascends or descends in pitch, yet which ultimately seems to get no higher or lower.

(From the bandstand) Knock, knock.

Who’s there?

Wilbur Wright.

Wilbur Wright who?

Wilber Wright back after this song!