Here's one of my favourite musical quotes: from Albert Einstein - "He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would fully suffice." ........................... I wonder if Bert ever visited Norn Iron? Bet he didn't come here after saying it anyway!
Now, do you know any good musical quotations which do, or could, relate to ITM or any trad music for that matter? Mind, they don't have to be from the lips of famous folk. Feel free to quote yer fellow sessioner if he said something worth remembering.
Or if you don't know any yourself - then why not make one up? After all, have you noticed, there are a lot of very funny people hanging around here!
Does this one make you think of your local session? Oscar Wilde - "Of course the music is a great difficulty. You see, if one plays good music, people don't listen, and if one plays bad music people don't talk."
....But Maggie stood right sair astonish'd,
Till, by the heel and hand admonish'd,
She ventur'd forward on the light;
And, wow! Tam saw an unco sight!
Warlocks and witches in a dance;
Nae cotillion brent-new frae France,
But hornpipes, jigs, strathspeys, and reels
Put life and mettle in their heels.
A winnock bunker in the east,
There sat Auld Nick in shape o' beast:
A towzie tyke, black, grim, and large,
To gie them music was his charge;
He screw'd the pipes and gart them skirl,
Till roof and rafters a' did dirl.-
Coffins stood round like open presses,
That shaw'd the dead in their last dresses;
And by some devilish cantraip sleight
Each in its cauld hand held a light...
.......These three in the evening, harmonica and fiddle and guitar. Playing a reel and tapping out the tune, and the big deep strings of the guitar beating like a heart, and the harmonica's sharp chords and the skirl and squeal of the fiddle. People have to move close. They can't help it. 'Chicken Reel' now, andthe feet tap and a young lean buck takes three quick steps, and his arms hang limp..........
The Grapes of Wrath, chapter 23, by John Steinbeck.
When a volunteer at our session asks could he join in and sing a song our guitarist replies, "go ahead, I'll keep sketch"
Another time Someone was singing SAM HALL and it got to the part where he gets hung, and someone leaned and whispered in my ear, "you know, thats the last song he ever wrote" It was priceless.
When someone in Dublin asks "what key is that in" the answer is always "Aston Quay"
A fella came over to us one time to sing a song, he asked is there anywhere i can sit?, To which someone replied "sit over by the window and I'll help you out"
Then There's the one, "can you sing solo", " so low we cant hear you!"
What do Accordian players use as contraceptive? Their personality.
A real suspicious fella walks into a bar in belfast carrying a bag. The Barman is so worried he asks him whats in the bag, to which the man replies it's stuffed with highly explosive semtex, thank god the Barman replies, i thought it was a bodhran!!
Sorry to disappoint, the quote about the penknife was not Seamus Ennis. Seamus was a musician who appreciated the finer things in life. It was more than likely a struggling fiddle player.
Oscar Wilde again (I think) when asked the definition of "a Gentleman" said "someone who knows how to play the bagpipes but refrains from doing so..."
Also whoever it was who said in a recent thread about a bad piper, "I wouldn't have thought it physically possible, but your playing sucks, and blows!"
Q: What's the difference between a Scotsman and a Rolling Stone?
A: A Rolling Stone says "hey you, get off of my cloud!", while a Scotsman says "Hey McLeod, get off of my ewe!"
Q. How many bagpipers does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A. 5-one to do it, and four to criticise his fingering style.
In response to Rhod's reference to the sucks and blows comment, I always attribute this to Bart Simpson (or the show's writers if you want to be specific) on The Simpsons. I'm sure the comment or at least the concept is older than The Simpsons, but in an episode of The Simpsons probably about 10 years ago Bart is sitting at a concert and says "I didn't think it was physically possible, but this both sucks and blows at the same time." Great line regardless of who it originally came from.
An Irishman and Englishman and a Scot all walked into a bar and each ordered a whiskey; but when the bartender brought them out, 3 flys zoomed in out of nowhere and landed in each of the 3 drinks.....
The Englishman pushed his whiskey back in disgust and called out, "bartender,I'd like another whiskey please, a fly just fell in mine." THe Irishman looked at him in astonishment and quickly downed his before the bartender could take it away also. Then they both almost fell off their bar stools in surprise at the Scot who was purple, bellowing at the top of his lungs, "SPIT IT OOT YE BASTARD!!!"
Hey, Guernsey Pete - I think it works better as "you can't tuna guitar, but you can tuna fish", since then it's a pun on two meanings of "can", as well as on "tuna"="tune a".
I'm a Texan, so y'all tell me if this reference is too obscure. Whether or not you get it, I recommend a book by Orkney Islander Duncan McLean: Lone Star Swing: On the Trail of Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys.
Anyway, here it is:
During the Great Depression, Jascha Heifetz walks into the Palmer House in Chicago carrying his violin case. The doorman says, "I'm sorry, sir, you can't bring that in here."
Heifitz puffs up and says, "But I'M Jascha Heifitz!"
The doorman says, "I don't care if you're Bob Wills, you can't bring that fiddle in here!"
Speaking of Bob Wills, I heard that the band was once trying out a new peddle steel player. Bob told him that when he threw him a solo, he better make it exciting. So it came time for his big solo, and one of his leads didn't work. He fiddled with them all, knowing that this was mucking up his big chance. Finaly. he stood up and kicked his steel across the stage. Bob took his cigar out of his mouth and said "Now that's exciting"
Yes carolsviolin, it's too obscure. I'm an Arkansan and I didn't get it. But then, Texans don't get properly barbecued chicken, so I guess we'll just never understand one another.
The John Cage quote a while back reminds me of another: attributed to Sir Thomas Beecham, on hearing about Cage's slient piece, 4'33": "I look forward to a longer work by the same composer"
There are lots of quotes attributed to him. Another was where he was asked whether he'd heard any Stockhausen. His reply: "No, but I think I trod in some once"
Finally, one I like, where he was taking refuge from a very dissonant concert by escaping into the foyer. Someone there said "Has it finished yet?" to which he replied, "It's finished, it just hasn't stopped".
“I've never known a musician who regretted being one. Whatever deceptions life may have in store for you, music itself is not going to let you down.” Virgil Thomson
"Alas! all music jars when the soul's out of tune. "
Miguel De Cervantes
"A man must bring
To music what his mother spanked him for
When he was two ..." Gwendolyn Brooks
Music is the only sensual gratification which mankind may indulge in to excess without injury to their moral or religious feelings.
- Joseph Addison
Music exalts each joy, allays each grief,
Expels diseases, softens every pain,
Subdues the rage of poison, and the plague.
- John Armstrong,
Tunes and airs have in themselves some affinity with the affections,--as merry tunes, doleful tunes, solemn tunes, tunes inclining men's minds to pity, warlike tunes,--so that it is no marvel if they alter the spirits, considering that tunes have a predisposition to the motion of the spirits.
- Francis Bacon
Is there a heart that music cannot melt?
Alas! how is that rugged heart forlorn.
- James Beattie
Music is the fourth great material want of our natures,--first food, then raiment, then shelter, then music.
- Christian Nestell Bovee
Music, once admitted to the soul, becomes a sort of spirit, and never dies. It wanders perturbedly through the halls and galleries of the memory, and is often heard again, distinct and living as when it first displaced the wavelets of the air.
- Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton
Music is well said to be the speech of angels.
- Thomas Carlyle
Why should the devil have all the good tunes?
- Rowland Hill, Sermons,
At a session a fair while back, a guitarist friend of mine was approached by an elderly Irish lady, who we assumed was the leader of the session, came over and said “That’s a very nice guitar” “Yes my friend replied “It’s a…..” and continued to tell the lady all about it in great detail.
“Yes” she said reflecting on what she had just been told “……but do you think you can play it a lot quieter”
Screetch, I meant to say during Prohibition, you know, when gangsters carried their machine guns around in violin cases. Bob Wills was extremely popular; he popularized Western swing.
I don't think I've ever eaten barbeculed chicken in Arkansas. I know there are a lot of chickens there! But Texas has the best brisket and ribs.
"Life Gits Tee-just, Don't It" ~ Hank Williams Jr.
(A musician's woes)
The sun comes up and the sun goes down,
Hands on the clock keep goin' round.
I just get up and it's time to lay down,
Life gits teejus don't it?
My shoe's untied but I don't care
'Cuz I wasn't figurin' on goin' nowhere.
I'd just have to wash and comb my hair, and
That's just wasted effort...
Water in the well's gettin' lower and lower,
Ain't had a bath for six months or more.
But I've heard it said and it's true I'm sure, that
Too much bathin' will weaken yuh...
I open the door and the flies swarm in,
Shut the door and I'm sweatin' again.
And in the process I crack my shin
Jist one durn thing after another...
The old brown mule he must be sick,
I jabbed him in the rump with pin on a stick.
He humped his back but he wouldn't kick,
Sump'n cockeyed somewhere...
There's a mouse a chawin' on the pantry door,
He's been there for six months or more.
When he gets through he's sure gonna be sore, cuz
There ain't a durn thing in there...
Houn'dog howlin' so forlorn,
Laziest dog that ever wuz born.
He's howlin' cuz he's sittin' on a thorn
Just too tired to move over...
The tin roof leaks an' the chimney leans,
There's a hole in the seat of my ol' blue jeans,
An' I've et the last of the pork n' beans,
You can't depend on nuthin'...
The cow's gone dry and the hens won't lay,
Fish weren't bitin' last Saturday.
Troubles just keep pilin' up day by day, and
Now I'm gittin' dandruff...
Griefs and miseries, pains and woes
Debts and taxes and so it goes
I think I'm gettin' a cold in by dose,
Life gits tasteless, don't it?
Story told by Liz Carroll: "Why do you say you are going to play a set of three tunes, then just play one over and over?"
Epitath of a blues singer: "I didn't wake up this morning."
Quote from Oliver Wendell Holmes: "We don't quit playing because we grow old, we grow old because we quit playing."
If a banjo player and a dulcimer player jump out of a window, which will hit the ground first? The dulcimer player . . . because the banjo player will have to stop halfway down to retune.
Recent scene from "Family Guy" cartoon between Stewie (1-year old baby) and Brian (dog): Brian is singing a song. Stewie asks "Who sings that?" Brian says "James Taylor." Stewie replies, "Let's keep it that way."
Yup, BegF & BB ~ the pen knife quote was Ennis, but it wasn't in answer to a question, at least not originally ~ it happened at a concert in Clare, if memory serves me right, your man up on stage, the tale is already on this site somewhere but I'll condense it... He was upset with the off beat accompaniment he kept hearing, and getting angry, not that there wasn't some of the grease of booze causing a slip of his senses. It was his own foot beating the time and that travelling along the stage, up the sound to the mic and out the system ever so late. Of course, every time he stopped to try to find out who the hell the bodhran player was, his foot stopped beating time too, so silence. This aggravation grew and in the end he blurted out the comment ~ "The only way to play a bodhran is with an open penknife!" (The "f'n" removed...)
George Eliot ..... I think I should have no other mortal wants, if I could always have plenty of music.It seems to infuse strength into my limbs and ideas into my brain.Life seems to go on without effort, when I am filled with music.
When John Coltrane was answering a question about some of his tunes going on for the length of the show, he answered that he was trying to find the right time to end his phrase and stop the tune. Miles Davis answered "take the damn horn out of your mouth"
Musical compositions, it should be remembered, do not inhabit certain countries, certain museums, like paintings and statues. The Mozart Quintet is not shut up in Salzburg: I have it in my pocket. ~Henri Rabaud
A conductor of a university orchestra was upset with the percussion session, and said to one of them: "That's what happens to people with no musical talent - they give you two sticks to hold and put you at the back of the orchestra". The percussionist replied: "...and if you can't keep hold of both of them, they move you to the front".
"A jazz musician is a juggler who uses harmonies instead of oranges." - Benny Green
"The truest expression of a people is in its dance and music." - Agnes de Mile
Great stuff lads & lassies, thanks, there are some real crackers above.
Aye Strathfoyle, it's good to be back, but I find I do need a wee break from the world famous Mustard page, every now & then.
William Shakespeare:
Is it not strange that sheep's guts should hale souls out of men's bodies?
John Philip Sousa:
Jazz will endure just as long people hear it through their feet instead of their brains.
(this seems to apply to more than jazz)
Frank Zappa:
Remember, information is not knowledge; knowledge is not wisdom; wisdom is not truth; truth is not beauty; beauty is not love; love is not music; music is the best.
It's easy to play any musical instrument: all you
have to do is touch the right key at the right
time and the instrument will play itself.
- J.S. Bach
And this is my personal favorite-
I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain.
-John Adams
Mark Twain (allegedly):
“We consider that any man who can fiddle all through one of those Virginia Reels without losing his grip, may be depended upon in any kind of musical emergency.”
How about the Blues Brothers, enquiring in a redneck bar what sort of music they play there get the answer, "We got BOTH kinds - we got Country AND Western!"
hotsauce - no, you're not wrong. Cattle used to refer to livestock and, at one time, more especially to sheep, and that's *exactly* why it's called 'catgut'. I've said all this recently on some other thread ... can't remember which ... must be my great age!
My favourite came from this very site. Can't remember who said it but it was someone describing the young Irish dancers at a Paddy's Day gig, all dressed up in their garish attire - "They looked like someone had eaten the Book of Kells and then thrown up all over them.
Completing an earlier quote given from Albert Einstein ~
"He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would fully suffice."
~ and to finish that qoutation:
"This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, senseless brutality, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be part of so base an action! It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder."
"Einstein's playing is excellent, but he does not deserve his world fame" There are many others just as good."
~ a music critic commenting on Einstein's performance on the violin, not knowing that Einstein's greatest fame came from a different kind of music...
Albert Einstein:
"If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music...I get most joy in life out of music."
"Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods."
Dreamt this one up on the bus on the way to work today (though it sounds like something someone else would have said sometime, and it does need work -- I'll be holding a workshop to develop it at Cobargo -- bring a plate and the price of three pints of the sponsor's product to get yourself prepared -- shall I just spit it out and act like I'm not trying to pad while the next act gets their pick-ups picked up and their DIs.... whatever it is you do with a DI. I thought you'd get him to read the blagger his rights before throwing him in the divvy van and taking him back to Sun Hill. DI - geddit? Yeah, that sounds like something someone else would have said too. It's a bit like the gag I made about Andrew Winton at Illawarra on Sunday morning, about how I almost called him 'Tim', which would be close, but no cigar, except for the cigar Tim MAY have smoked when Andrew was born. Wonderful stage-craftsman that he is, Andrew, not Tim, although like their noses, it might run in the family, he just looked at me and without skipping a beat said, 'Yeah, that was funny.... 12 years ago.' Brilliant man, brilliant rapport with the audience, great music, wonderful family (and one year old Rory gets in on the act too. Enough now; I'm stealing my thunder from April's 'Trad and Now' -- available in some good newsagents but not in the crap ones, as I found this morning while trying to get extras for my mum and 27 of my closest friends and well-paid acquaintances):
"Please refrain from joining in on the chorus."
-- Overheard Productions, Friday 2 February, on the #40 ACTION bus at Aranda (coincidentally, the same bus that one Graham McDonald, luthier and archivist, uses -- check the spelling of the surname -- sometimes catches. I laid a gag on him last night about his cooking -- he was running late to make some trouble in the kitchen -- and left him lost for words, which is a strange thing for an archivist)
P.S. Do you know if you're stuck for inspiration, you can get it back by lightly tapping the number pad keys to the tune of 'Breen's Reel'?!
Johann Sebastian Bach:
"The aim and final end of all music should be none other than the glory of God and the refreshment of the soul."
"Music washes away from the soul the dust of every day life."
Martin Luther:
"Music is one of the fairest and most glorious gifts of God."
Quincy Jones:
"You can study orchestration, you can study harmony and theory and everything else, but melodies come straight from God."
Johnny Cash:
"All music comes from God."
~ hoping to avoid dogma and religious conflict, leaving 'God' to personal interpretation...Music for me is magic, it's a wonderful fireworks display, it is a fine meal, a great high, air, water, fire, earth, the muezzin of my soul ~ Adhan, namāz, zikr...
Henry David Thoreau:
"When I hear music, I fear no danger. I am invulnerable. I see no foe. I am related to the earliest times, and to the latest."
Alexander Pope:
"Light quirks of music, broken and uneven, Make the soul dance upon a jig of heaven."
Rabindranath Tagore: "The world speaks to me in colors, my soul answers in music."
Kenny Loggins:
"The Spirit speaks directly to our hearts through music. That’s why music has always had such power to move people into positive action."
He's conducting the dress rehearsal of an opera, one scene of which requires a horse ( a real live one) to be on stage. Of course, the inevitable happens. Sir Thomas stops the music and says, "Ladies and gentlemen, a distressing spectacle, but by Gad what a critic!"
On another occasion in a rehearsal he says to a lady cellist in the orchestra who is taking a solo, "Madam, you have the most beautiful instrument in the world between your legs. Don't scratch it."
Tommy Beecham usually conducted his concerts from memory, but things could sometimes go wrong, as when he and the orchestra started off the opening overture and after a few bars the leader got up and said to him, "Sir, we're playing Leonora Number 3. Are you?"
["Leonora Number 3" is one of Beethoven's overtures].
A couple of incidents I remember from BBC Radio 3 many years ago (God, how time flies, it may even have been called The Third Programme then!)...
Sir Malcolm Sargent and the BBC SO were playing the first performance of some impenetrable atonal symphony by one of Eastern Europe's madder modern composers (Nature is merciful, I do not remember his name, and neither could I probably spell it). Anyway, after 10 minutes or so the music stopped. "End of the first movement" I thought. But no, we could hear Sargent's voice saying "Sorry about that. I think we all got lost. We'll start again". They did, and this time it went on for 15 minutes. I couldn't tell the difference.
Another first performance, this time a lengthy work for percussion by Piotr Zak, followed by a live studio discussion with an eminent music critic. The discussion was as incomprehensible as the music, and then it was revealed to the eminent critic, and the listeners of course, that in fact "Piotr Zak" was a studio technician who had agreed to be let loose amongst all those percussion instruments with instructions to bang and wallop them at random until he got tired. The eminent critic was considerably put out by the whole affair and was even less amused when it was pointed out to him that the date was April 1st.
Soon after I started work I spent some of my hard-earned wages on a cheap (10 shillings = £0.50) LP from Woolworths of Beethoven's 5th piano concerto (the "Emperor"). The label was unfamiliar, and I hadn't heard of the orchestra, solo pianist and conductor, either then or since (not unusual, so I'm told, with some of the bottom of the market stuff even now).
What was unusual about the recording was that the last movement of the concerto on the reverse side sounded as if it had been recorded in a very different acoustic with a different orchestra and pianist. The pitch was even slightly different. As the needle trailed off the end of the recording I thought I could hear something so I replayed the playoff with the volume turned up high. I heard a voice saying "Right. We'll print that".
I wish I'd kept that LP.
I worked in the group that recorded music / did live stuff for Radio three. One sunday morning we had to arrive very early at one of the south bank concert halls in London. We rigged the microphones and the choir started rehearsing at 1030 or so - for a concert which was interspersed with "audio-visual" stuff (I never got to see what that was).
In the rehearsal, the choir would sing a bit of strange music, then they would sit down and a seemingly random group from them would stand up and all say things in unison, bits of old letters, for example, "Your obedient servant, May 14, 1843" - that sort of thing.
There was someone sitting at the back of the mixing area, who had been helping us with the carrying. I assumed he was a porter or something, taking a rest. I said to him, "Either this is a huge musical wind-up, or this is going to turn out to be the worst day of my entire career". I still clearly remember the exact words I said. As you can probably predict, this fellow was the composer. We spent the rest of the day avoiding each other.
More Sir Thomas Beecham.A lady once approached him and asked his advice.Her son wanted to learn an instrument abd she ddn't want to be subjected to the tortured scrapings if he chose the fiddle.He replied
"The bagpipes madam,because they sound just the same when you finish learning them as when you start"
He once compared the sound of the harpsichord to
"two skeletons making love in a birdcage"
He was conducting an opera and there was a live donkey in the production.At a dress rehearsal the donkey crapped on the stage and he said,
"A critic,by God!"
From Les Barker's poem "Arnold" (about an ill-fated affair between a nearsighted armadillo and a concertina):
Sex with a concertina is rarely accomplished discreetly.
Another one from Les Barker from one his hilarious poems about a love affair between two daschunds which was never consumated,the dog live on the ground floor and the bitch on the first and is the last line of the poem is
"because daschunds with erections can't climb stairs"
The Beecham line was, I think, two skeletons copulating on a tin roof. Sums up the harpsichord sound quite well, IMO. (And well before "Jason And The Argonauts", at that...)
I heard some band member once giving a spoof account of a Breton folk song. It was about two birds that fell in love but could not consummate their desire, because one was a golden eagle and the other was a canary. They committed suicide by jumping off a cliff.
Following on from the last two posts, here's an anecdote, not a quote - sorry.
My head keeper in Co Meath, way back in 1970, had a young Jack Russel terrier dog called Badger, & in his first year our hero, Badger, took a real shine to another of the keeper's dogs, a simple minded Alsation bitch.
Anyway, one day young Badger decided that he could stand it no longer & finding the Alsation seated, decided that it was high time he consumated their relationship. Unfortunately, this proved to be easier said than done & the upshot of his gallant efforts was that Badger suffered a six hour erection & only an injection from the local vet finally cooled his ardour!
Now a 6 hour erection might sound like something you might dream of lads but beware, for in truth, I've never ever seen a sadder looking dog than Badger, as he wobbled round the garden that afternoon. So I'd think twice before responding to any of those tempting Viagra e-mails, gentlemen!
Hey - it must be a Jack Russell thing. I had a Border Collie who was the smartest and bossiest bitch around......but when she went on heat.....she backed up to the wire gate to let this Jack Russell at her......and he was relentless! We tried hosing him, we tried physically dragging him away.....and really this little dog with a huge erection and gigantic ambitions was quite heroic in his determination to get the deed done!
The first time I saw Les Barker perform (NFF 2005) I nearly coughed out a lung -- and I hunted him down outside the CD Shop where I were working to tell him so in so many words.
The one lyric/line of Les's that will eternally remain with me is this one whereby an armadillo called Arnold tries to get it on with a folk instrument by the side of the stage: 'Sex with a concertina is rarely accomplished discreetly!'
Laugh? I nearly $%^& myself.
Anyhoo, back in the day, when I were a seond tenor horn player, a fellower blower (careful!) told me the tale of some friends of her family who had two animals.
In my travels I have come across many characters, I feel some guilt in that I didn't record everything they said, as the majority were full of local lore and humour. I did get some things, too much for here, but a few downs and ups follow...
The following few quotes are from one of the 'new wave', what I might also categorize as a 'git', keeping it in a safe range to avoid the asterisks. He was a 'composer' of sets (choreographer), steps and figures, with several sets to his name. In this case we're talking about the square sets of quadrilles which rose to stratospheric levels of popularity in the 80's. His clique of dancers have brought home the 'All Ireland' several times. In his area his influence has grown to the point that the older dancers had pretty much given up dancing, convinced they couldn't and that they somehow had it wrong. So the local sets dried up and the scene was dominated by his 'Frankenstein's Monsters' of sets, and his Igors and Igorinis... Here are some paraphrases from his way of thinking:
"I change the sets constantly to avoid boredom."
"Traditional sets don't have enough polish for competitions, they're boring."
At the time his 'sets' were danced only in preparation for and during competitions. Among other things, borrowing steps included, mixed into his music he used Kerry polkas and slides, remembering his base is Mayo. He used very little regional or uncommon tunes, sticking to the top 100 commonplace session tunes, or whatever was in vogue at the moment. His sets had a strong competition ceili-dance influence, styling and stepping, and all swings were that soft-ceili swing. This Coimisiun and stepdance influence included straight arms held back during some sets, even pointing toes and robot-like starts...
Alec Murphy: about modern 'costumes', and said with disdain ~ " ~ not quite the old days, they didn't dress that way..."
Junior Crehan: "Sets were danced till midnight, then there was tea, songs, and then stepdancers, then sets again until morning. (sunrise) The clegy and bishops and government thought bad thingsd were happening at house dances, so wanted them to go to the church halls, the government to get a percentage of the takes. Anyone who held a house dance or tournament (cards for prizes like turkeys, etc.) was taken in and fined. It was there, house dances, that we all learned our music, our dance, our song. My curse to the people who took them out, they were our singing, our music and dancing, I'll never forgive them, and lots of people feel like me."
Josie McDermott: "The young people go out to these big places now. They don't go around to the ramblihng houses anymore. It's all television and all hush-hush."
Bella McGurk: "Now dancing is so very much the same, too much hopping about in it."
Eileen Coyne: "This new style of flinging the feet, that's not dancing."
Harry McElwaine: "You'd think they'd be killin' mice nowadays, stompin' and trompin' in the same place all the time..."
Mick Hoy (unsure, couldn't find my notes): regarding the modern way with dancing the sets of quadrilles ~ "They're like worms on a hot rock, it's all squirming and jumping about."
Michael Cloonan (Inis Shark islander): "Every man, woman and child would come out to dance the set on Inis Shark. We were all as good as one another, young and old were all the same. Inish Shark was all one family. They helped each other work."
I once heard the late and sorely missed Martyn Bennet in concert, playing the smallpipes. After an age of tuning up he observed, " there's only one thing worse than tuning...and that's NOT tuning."
Overheard,the full joke as i heard it .Two dogs and a cat went to the opera and tried to get in,but the man in the box office said it was full.
The cat said in broken English
"But he bach,he offenbach and i'm debussy"
And the guy said
"go away I'm bizet "
"We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out."
~ Decca Recording Company rejecting the Beatles, 1962
"There is two kinds of music, the good and bad. I play the good kind."
~ Louis Armstrong
"You don't need any brains to listen to music."
~ Luciano Pavarotti
"Only the pure in heart can make a good soup."
~ Ludwig Van Beethoven
"I've come to realize that life is not a musical comedy, it's a Greek tragedy."
~ Billy Joel
"Talent works, genius creates."
~ Robert Schumann
"When you strum a guitar you have everything - rhythm, bass, lead and melody"
~ David Gilmore / Pink Floyd
"Without music, life would be a mistake."
~ Friedrich Nietzsche
"Play the music, not the instrument."
~ Author Unknown
"There's a basic rule which runs through all kinds of music, kind of an unwritten rule. I don't know what it is. But I've got it." ~ Ron Wood / Rolling Stones / Faces
"Music is the art of thinking with sounds."
~ Jules Combarieu
"Too many pieces of music finish too long after the end."
~ Igor Stravinsky
"I don't believe in having bands for solo records."
~ Mick Jagger / Rolling Stones
"I'm gonna put a curse on you and all your kids will be born completely naked"
~ Jimi Hendrix
"The pause is as important as the note. "
~ Truman Fisher
"...the elephant smoked too much."(explaining why the keys of his piano were so yellow)
~ Victor Borge
"Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds..."
~ Albert Einstein
Well done dudes - a pleasant diversion from the serious stuff!
"Harpists spend 90 percent of their lives tuning their harps and 10 percent playing out of tune."
~ Igor Stravinsky
"Musicians don't retire; they stop when there's no more music in them."
~ Louis Armstrong
"The wise musicians are those who play what they can master."
~ Duke Ellington
"Let a short Act of Parliament be passed, placing all street musicians outside the protection of the law, so that any citizen may assail them with stones, sticks, knives, pistols or bombs without incurring any penalties."
~ George Bernard Shaw
"There are more bad musicians than there is bad music."
~ Isaac Stern
Favourite urban myth (at least I think it's a myth).....is the one about the British Funeral parlour sued because instead of playing Vera Lynn singing Ave Maria, as the curtains closed on the cremation was heard "Wish me Luck as you wave me goodbye".
Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
Here's one of my favourite musical quotes: from Albert Einstein - "He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would fully suffice." ........................... I wonder if Bert ever visited Norn Iron? Bet he didn't come here after saying it anyway!
Now, do you know any good musical quotations which do, or could, relate to ITM or any trad music for that matter? Mind, they don't have to be from the lips of famous folk. Feel free to quote yer fellow sessioner if he said something worth remembering.
Or if you don't know any yourself - then why not make one up? After all, have you noticed, there are a lot of very funny people hanging around here!
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by Ptarmigan
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
"Better to be sharp than out of tune."
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by Alex Wilding
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
Benjiman Britten " The English don't particlarly like music, but they enjoy the noise it makes"
Cajun Music....I like both tunes!
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by woops
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
Mark Twain - "Wagner's music is better than it sounds."!
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by Ptarmigan
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
Never Bb, Sometimes B#, Always B natural
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by Bren
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
Does this one make you think of your local session? Oscar Wilde - "Of course the music is a great difficulty. You see, if one plays good music, people don't listen, and if one plays bad music people don't talk."
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by Ptarmigan
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
Tom Robbins - "You can tune a guitar, but you can't tuna fish."
On the other hand - see earlier discussions re tuning/ers.
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by Guernsey Pete
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
"Banjo players spend half the night tuning and the other half out of tune"
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by no39
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
Oscar Wilde reflecting on the sound of the bagpipes:
"Thank Heaven there is no smell".
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by Hanley
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
Q: What's the difference between a baritone sax and a lawn mower?
A: You can tune a lawn mower.
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by pn5jn
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
"Why were you playing that?"
Said to our guitar player by a 5 year old little girl on the occasion when he first played his banjo in public.
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by Phantom Button
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
Why do pipe bands march?
Because it's harder to shoot a moving target.
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by BE
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
What's no worse than a set of Northumbrian pipes out of tune?
A dozen sets of Norhumbrian pipes out of tune.
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by nicholas
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
If there's music in hell it will be bagpipes. That's not a quote, just an observation.
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by bodhran bliss
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
Why do pipe bands march? They're trying to get away from the noise...
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by TaoCat
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
....But Maggie stood right sair astonish'd,
Till, by the heel and hand admonish'd,
She ventur'd forward on the light;
And, wow! Tam saw an unco sight!
Warlocks and witches in a dance;
Nae cotillion brent-new frae France,
But hornpipes, jigs, strathspeys, and reels
Put life and mettle in their heels.
A winnock bunker in the east,
There sat Auld Nick in shape o' beast:
A towzie tyke, black, grim, and large,
To gie them music was his charge;
He screw'd the pipes and gart them skirl,
Till roof and rafters a' did dirl.-
Coffins stood round like open presses,
That shaw'd the dead in their last dresses;
And by some devilish cantraip sleight
Each in its cauld hand held a light...
from Tam O'Shanter by Robert Burns.
then there are these:
http://www.lyricart.net/other/quotes/quotes.html
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by Rudall the time
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
Another favorite; It's a Gary Larsen cartoon but w/e;
"Welcome to Heaven, here's your harp!" "Welcome to Hell, here is your accordion."
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by BE
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
What's the difference between an Uzi and an accordion?
The Uzi stops after 20 rounds.
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by mother
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
What's the difference between a Bodhran and a Radox bath?
Well, one bucks up the feet,......................
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by woops
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
How do you get 2 flute players to play in tune?
Shoot one of them.
How can you tell the viola player is on a level stage?
The drool is coming out of only one side of his/her mouth.
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by flutefry
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
"have you noticed, there are a lot of very funny people hanging around here! "
Ptarmi, do you mean funny-peculiar or funny-haha?
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by Trevor Jennings
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
.......These three in the evening, harmonica and fiddle and guitar. Playing a reel and tapping out the tune, and the big deep strings of the guitar beating like a heart, and the harmonica's sharp chords and the skirl and squeal of the fiddle. People have to move close. They can't help it. 'Chicken Reel' now, andthe feet tap and a young lean buck takes three quick steps, and his arms hang limp..........
The Grapes of Wrath, chapter 23, by John Steinbeck.
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by Rudall the time
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
Seamus Ennis, when asked whether a bodhran was better played with a stick or just with the hand he replied that it was best played with a penknife!
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by P@D22
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
Did that penknife thing really come from Seamus Ennis? It'd be great if it was true
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by ...
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
When a volunteer at our session asks could he join in and sing a song our guitarist replies, "go ahead, I'll keep sketch"
Another time Someone was singing SAM HALL and it got to the part where he gets hung, and someone leaned and whispered in my ear, "you know, thats the last song he ever wrote" It was priceless.
When someone in Dublin asks "what key is that in" the answer is always "Aston Quay"
A fella came over to us one time to sing a song, he asked is there anywhere i can sit?, To which someone replied "sit over by the window and I'll help you out"
Then There's the one, "can you sing solo", " so low we cant hear you!"
What do Accordian players use as contraceptive? Their personality.
A real suspicious fella walks into a bar in belfast carrying a bag. The Barman is so worried he asks him whats in the bag, to which the man replies it's stuffed with highly explosive semtex, thank god the Barman replies, i thought it was a bodhran!!
The old ones are the best!!
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by fap
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
Sorry to disappoint, the quote about the penknife was not Seamus Ennis. Seamus was a musician who appreciated the finer things in life. It was more than likely a struggling fiddle player.
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by bodhran bliss
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
"Whoever isn't drunk should start a tune!"
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by DrSilverSpear
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
Oscar Wilde again (I think) when asked the definition of "a Gentleman" said "someone who knows how to play the bagpipes but refrains from doing so..."
Also whoever it was who said in a recent thread about a bad piper, "I wouldn't have thought it physically possible, but your playing sucks, and blows!"
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by Rhod
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
Q: What's the difference between a Scotsman and a Rolling Stone?
A: A Rolling Stone says "hey you, get off of my cloud!", while a Scotsman says "Hey McLeod, get off of my ewe!"
Q. How many bagpipers does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
A. 5-one to do it, and four to criticise his fingering style.
-being a piper, i love how true these are!!!
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by rob_handel
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
Who TF are you?
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by Rudall the time
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
"More globular gentlemen, more globular" which I think is Thomas Beecham.
What's the best make of viola mute? Smith and Wesson.
How many folk singers does it take to change a light bulb? 50 - one to change the bulb and 49 to sing about how good the old one was.
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by ethical blend
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
A few of my favourites:
"Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep."
-- Scott Adams
"I have nothing to say and I'm saying it."
-- John Cage
Rap is to music what Etch-a-Sketch is to art.
And another one along the line of the one about Wagner posted above is this one:
"I can't listen to that much Wagner. I start getting the urge to conquer Poland."
-- Woody Allen
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by Crysania
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
In response to Rhod's reference to the sucks and blows comment, I always attribute this to Bart Simpson (or the show's writers if you want to be specific) on The Simpsons. I'm sure the comment or at least the concept is older than The Simpsons, but in an episode of The Simpsons probably about 10 years ago Bart is sitting at a concert and says "I didn't think it was physically possible, but this both sucks and blows at the same time." Great line regardless of who it originally came from.
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by Jason G
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
I love that!
An Irishman and Englishman and a Scot all walked into a bar and each ordered a whiskey; but when the bartender brought them out, 3 flys zoomed in out of nowhere and landed in each of the 3 drinks.....
The Englishman pushed his whiskey back in disgust and called out, "bartender,I'd like another whiskey please, a fly just fell in mine." THe Irishman looked at him in astonishment and quickly downed his before the bartender could take it away also. Then they both almost fell off their bar stools in surprise at the Scot who was purple, bellowing at the top of his lungs, "SPIT IT OOT YE BASTARD!!!"
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by BE
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
Why does the Yank never have any trouble with piles or diahorrea?
Because God made him a perfect @rsehole.
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by Rudall the time
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
How on earth did this turn into a thread on jokes?
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by Crysania
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
I don't know, but please don't stop!
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by BE
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
"If music be the food of love, get yer fish 'n' chips off the piano." Peter Glaze, Crackerjack
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by Steve Shaw
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
Hey, Guernsey Pete - I think it works better as "you can't tuna guitar, but you can tuna fish", since then it's a pun on two meanings of "can", as well as on "tuna"="tune a".
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by GaryAMartin
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
What's the difference between a dress maker and a Viola player?
Well, one tucks up the frills,......................
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by woops
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
What do you call a guy who sits around with a bunch of musicians?
A bodhran player.
Anyone know why Scots still wear kilts? Because sheep can hear a zipper from a mile away.
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by MR.
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
How far is it from the first chair to the last chair in the viola section?
About a half-step.
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by Marklar
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
What's the definition of a minor 2nd? Two whistles playing in unison.
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by woops
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
I'm a Texan, so y'all tell me if this reference is too obscure. Whether or not you get it, I recommend a book by Orkney Islander Duncan McLean: Lone Star Swing: On the Trail of Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys.
Anyway, here it is:
During the Great Depression, Jascha Heifetz walks into the Palmer House in Chicago carrying his violin case. The doorman says, "I'm sorry, sir, you can't bring that in here."
Heifitz puffs up and says, "But I'M Jascha Heifitz!"
The doorman says, "I don't care if you're Bob Wills, you can't bring that fiddle in here!"
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by carolsviolin
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
Speaking of Bob Wills, I heard that the band was once trying out a new peddle steel player. Bob told him that when he threw him a solo, he better make it exciting. So it came time for his big solo, and one of his leads didn't work. He fiddled with them all, knowing that this was mucking up his big chance. Finaly. he stood up and kicked his steel across the stage. Bob took his cigar out of his mouth and said "Now that's exciting"
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by woops
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
John Lennon was once asked if Ringo was the best drummer in the world, and he replied that he wasn't even the best drummer in the band. Ouch!
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by nofrets
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
Yes carolsviolin, it's too obscure. I'm an Arkansan and I didn't get it. But then, Texans don't get properly barbecued chicken, so I guess we'll just never understand one another.
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by Marklar
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
What's perfect pitch?
When you toss the accordian out the window and it lasnds in the dumpster- right on the banjo.
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by Snakefingers
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
Peter Sellers : You's played a bum note. I'll give yee's a tump.
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by lamh trom
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
"Music has to breathe and sweat. You have to play it live. "
-- James Brown
"If you learn music, you'll learn most all there is to know. "
-- Edgar Cayce
"Music is nothing separate from me. It is me... You'd have to remove the music surgically. "
-- Ray Charles
"Music is spiritual. The music business is not. "
-- Van Morrison
"It's the music that kept us all intact, kept us from going crazy. "
-- Lou Reed
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by FiddleFancy
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
Peter Sellers: "Mind me harp!" Crash!! "I'll never get to heaven now."
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by woops
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
Famous Epitaph:
Dúirt mé leat go raibh mé breoite
translation: "I told you I was ill"
— Spike Milligan
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by Lint - upon - Tweed
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
The trouble with real life is that there's no
danger music. (How's the one finger one armed typing thedon?)
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by FiddleFancy
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
The John Cage quote a while back reminds me of another: attributed to Sir Thomas Beecham, on hearing about Cage's slient piece, 4'33": "I look forward to a longer work by the same composer"
There are lots of quotes attributed to him. Another was where he was asked whether he'd heard any Stockhausen. His reply: "No, but I think I trod in some once"
Finally, one I like, where he was taking refuge from a very dissonant concert by escaping into the foyer. Someone there said "Has it finished yet?" to which he replied, "It's finished, it just hasn't stopped".
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by Mark Harmer
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
"Life's too short to stay in 4/4!"
I forget who said it, but I got it from my cousin who got it from...?
Cheers,
Armand
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by armandale
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
From Oscar Wilde; " It is said that swans sing before they die- it is even more true that some people should die before they sing."
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by Murph
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
“I've never known a musician who regretted being one. Whatever deceptions life may have in store for you, music itself is not going to let you down.” Virgil Thomson
"Alas! all music jars when the soul's out of tune. "
Miguel De Cervantes
"A man must bring
To music what his mother spanked him for
When he was two ..." Gwendolyn Brooks
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by FiddleFancy
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
Why were the bunch of viola players milling about outside the front door?
They can't find the key and none of them know where to come in.
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by ethical blend
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
"The older I get, the better I was".
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by Kenny
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
I think that a lifetime of listening to disco music is a high price to pay for one's sexual preference. -- Quentin Crisp
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by FiddleFancy
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
A VIOLIN SINGS....... A FIDDLE DANCES
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by session savage
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
A painter paints pictures on canvas. But musicians paint their pictures on silence. ~Leopold Stokowski
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by session savage
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
'All music is what awakes within you when you are reminded of it by the instrument." Walt Whitman
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by FiddleFancy
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
Music is the only sensual gratification which mankind may indulge in to excess without injury to their moral or religious feelings.
- Joseph Addison
Music exalts each joy, allays each grief,
Expels diseases, softens every pain,
Subdues the rage of poison, and the plague.
- John Armstrong,
Tunes and airs have in themselves some affinity with the affections,--as merry tunes, doleful tunes, solemn tunes, tunes inclining men's minds to pity, warlike tunes,--so that it is no marvel if they alter the spirits, considering that tunes have a predisposition to the motion of the spirits.
- Francis Bacon
Is there a heart that music cannot melt?
Alas! how is that rugged heart forlorn.
- James Beattie
Music is the fourth great material want of our natures,--first food, then raiment, then shelter, then music.
- Christian Nestell Bovee
Music, once admitted to the soul, becomes a sort of spirit, and never dies. It wanders perturbedly through the halls and galleries of the memory, and is often heard again, distinct and living as when it first displaced the wavelets of the air.
- Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton
Music is well said to be the speech of angels.
- Thomas Carlyle
Why should the devil have all the good tunes?
- Rowland Hill, Sermons,
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by FiddleFancy
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
There's nothing more abominable than music without hidden meaning.
- Fryderyk Szopen (aka Frederic Chopin)
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by Janek
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
Sorry Bliss, I'm afraid it was Seamus Ennis...
http://www.irelandseye.com/aarticles/culture/music/traditional/ulil2.shtm
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by BegF
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
Chomh díomhaoin le laidhricín píobaire.
As idle as a piper's little finger.
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by TOMMYB
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
Q. Whats the difference between a cow and an orchestra?
A. One has horns at the front and an @rse at the back.
Q. Dad, Can I be a musician when I grow up?
A. No, you can only do one thing at a time.
Some bands have passengers, this one has hi-jackers.
The guitar player fills a much needed gap.
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by geoffwright
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
Not so much a quote, but 'Overheard in the Green Room at Majors Creek 2006':
"Do you know you'd look a lot better if you coordinated your clothing?'
'No, but hum a few bars and we'll fake it.'
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by Overheard
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
Thanks Ptarmi.....this has been a lovely positive and affirming thread!
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by FiddleFancy
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
ceann eile daoibh
"Ní bhíonn meas ar an aonphort."
T= "there is little respect for the single tune."
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by TOMMYB
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
At a session a fair while back, a guitarist friend of mine was approached by an elderly Irish lady, who we assumed was the leader of the session, came over and said “That’s a very nice guitar” “Yes my friend replied “It’s a…..” and continued to tell the lady all about it in great detail.
“Yes” she said reflecting on what she had just been told “……but do you think you can play it a lot quieter”
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by mikk
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
and I have always liked….
“Music washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life” - Red Auerbach
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by mikk
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
"There's only one thing worse than tuning the pipes, not tuning them"....Sean Potts
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by mcg
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
Screetch, I meant to say during Prohibition, you know, when gangsters carried their machine guns around in violin cases. Bob Wills was extremely popular; he popularized Western swing.
I don't think I've ever eaten barbeculed chicken in Arkansas. I know there are a lot of chickens there! But Texas has the best brisket and ribs.
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by carolsviolin
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
What do you call a musician whose girlfriend broke up with him?
Homeless.
How many drummers does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
None. They have machines that do that now.
How many divas does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
One. She just holds it and the world revoves around her.
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by LIMatt
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
"The trouble with Beethoven was, he couldn't write tunes" - Igor Stravinsky
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by ethical blend
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
Here is a personal favorite:
Why is a banjo like an artillery shell?
Because by the time you hear it, it's too late.
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by AlBrown
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
"Life Gits Tee-just, Don't It" ~ Hank Williams Jr.
(A musician's woes)
The sun comes up and the sun goes down,
Hands on the clock keep goin' round.
I just get up and it's time to lay down,
Life gits teejus don't it?
My shoe's untied but I don't care
'Cuz I wasn't figurin' on goin' nowhere.
I'd just have to wash and comb my hair, and
That's just wasted effort...
Water in the well's gettin' lower and lower,
Ain't had a bath for six months or more.
But I've heard it said and it's true I'm sure, that
Too much bathin' will weaken yuh...
I open the door and the flies swarm in,
Shut the door and I'm sweatin' again.
And in the process I crack my shin
Jist one durn thing after another...
The old brown mule he must be sick,
I jabbed him in the rump with pin on a stick.
He humped his back but he wouldn't kick,
Sump'n cockeyed somewhere...
There's a mouse a chawin' on the pantry door,
He's been there for six months or more.
When he gets through he's sure gonna be sore, cuz
There ain't a durn thing in there...
Houn'dog howlin' so forlorn,
Laziest dog that ever wuz born.
He's howlin' cuz he's sittin' on a thorn
Just too tired to move over...
The tin roof leaks an' the chimney leans,
There's a hole in the seat of my ol' blue jeans,
An' I've et the last of the pork n' beans,
You can't depend on nuthin'...
The cow's gone dry and the hens won't lay,
Fish weren't bitin' last Saturday.
Troubles just keep pilin' up day by day, and
Now I'm gittin' dandruff...
Griefs and miseries, pains and woes
Debts and taxes and so it goes
I think I'm gettin' a cold in by dose,
Life gits tasteless, don't it?
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by ceolachan
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
Story told by Liz Carroll: "Why do you say you are going to play a set of three tunes, then just play one over and over?"
Epitath of a blues singer: "I didn't wake up this morning."
Quote from Oliver Wendell Holmes: "We don't quit playing because we grow old, we grow old because we quit playing."
If a banjo player and a dulcimer player jump out of a window, which will hit the ground first? The dulcimer player . . . because the banjo player will have to stop halfway down to retune.
Recent scene from "Family Guy" cartoon between Stewie (1-year old baby) and Brian (dog): Brian is singing a song. Stewie asks "Who sings that?" Brian says "James Taylor." Stewie replies, "Let's keep it that way."
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by Jiml
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
SEAMUS ENNIS & THE BODHRAN
Yup, BegF & BB ~ the pen knife quote was Ennis, but it wasn't in answer to a question, at least not originally ~ it happened at a concert in Clare, if memory serves me right, your man up on stage, the tale is already on this site somewhere but I'll condense it... He was upset with the off beat accompaniment he kept hearing, and getting angry, not that there wasn't some of the grease of booze causing a slip of his senses. It was his own foot beating the time and that travelling along the stage, up the sound to the mic and out the system ever so late. Of course, every time he stopped to try to find out who the hell the bodhran player was, his foot stopped beating time too, so silence. This aggravation grew and in the end he blurted out the comment ~ "The only way to play a bodhran is with an open penknife!" (The "f'n" removed...)
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by ceolachan
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
"Throw it outta ye like a feed of bad stout!"
Sam Murray.
Regards,
H.
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by Harry B
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
George Eliot ..... I think I should have no other mortal wants, if I could always have plenty of music.It seems to infuse strength into my limbs and ideas into my brain.Life seems to go on without effort, when I am filled with music.
When John Coltrane was answering a question about some of his tunes going on for the length of the show, he answered that he was trying to find the right time to end his phrase and stop the tune. Miles Davis answered "take the damn horn out of your mouth"
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by timK
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
The late Derek Bell on growing up with music in his family........
"dear aunt B once composed a VULGAR march and got it published"
I often wonder what he meant ? Was it a rough/crude composition etc etc ? or were there vulgar lyrics attached ? I think he was implying the former.
Didn't Paddy Moloney have a nickname for Derek, implying his eccentricities ?
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by Strathfoyle
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
Btw, how's it going Dick ? Long time no see/hear
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by Strathfoyle
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
Musical compositions, it should be remembered, do not inhabit certain countries, certain museums, like paintings and statues. The Mozart Quintet is not shut up in Salzburg: I have it in my pocket. ~Henri Rabaud
I like that one!
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by session savage
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
I understand this is attributed to Jazzman Zoot Sims:
"How do you guys play so well when you're so drunk?" - "We practice drunk."
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by flutedoog
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
A conductor of a university orchestra was upset with the percussion session, and said to one of them: "That's what happens to people with no musical talent - they give you two sticks to hold and put you at the back of the orchestra". The percussionist replied: "...and if you can't keep hold of both of them, they move you to the front".
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by Mark Harmer
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
"Bach had 20 children because his organ didn't have any stops."
-- Leo Kottke
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by cuchulain54
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
and she asked, "Why is your organ so small?"
I said, "I didn't know I was playing in a cathedral."
- Prince
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by ...
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
Don't know whether we've had this one:
What's the difference between an orchestra and a bull?
The bull has the horns at the front and the a*se*ole at the back.
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by ethical blend
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
"A jazz musician is a juggler who uses harmonies instead of oranges." - Benny Green
"The truest expression of a people is in its dance and music." - Agnes de Mile
Great stuff lads & lassies, thanks, there are some real crackers above.
Aye Strathfoyle, it's good to be back, but I find I do need a wee break from the world famous Mustard page, every now & then.
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by Ptarmigan
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
William Shakespeare:
Is it not strange that sheep's guts should hale souls out of men's bodies?
John Philip Sousa:
Jazz will endure just as long people hear it through their feet instead of their brains.
(this seems to apply to more than jazz)
Frank Zappa:
Remember, information is not knowledge; knowledge is not wisdom; wisdom is not truth; truth is not beauty; beauty is not love; love is not music; music is the best.
It's easy to play any musical instrument: all you
have to do is touch the right key at the right
time and the instrument will play itself.
- J.S. Bach
And this is my personal favorite-
I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain.
-John Adams
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by MR.
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
Mark Twain (allegedly):
“We consider that any man who can fiddle all through one of those Virginia Reels without losing his grip, may be depended upon in any kind of musical emergency.”
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by curamach
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
"God bless whoever had the novel idea of sawing on the insides of a cat with the tail of a horse." - Unknown
Ignores that fact that the 'cat' of 'cat gut' is short for 'cattle', but still fun.
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by hotsauce
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
Oh, I thought it was actually sheep gut. No?
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by Bob himself
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
Bob himself, I could be wrong, but I believe that an older meaning of the word "cattle" refers to any sort of livestock.
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by hotsauce
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
How about the Blues Brothers, enquiring in a redneck bar what sort of music they play there get the answer, "We got BOTH kinds - we got Country AND Western!"
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by RichardB
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
hotsauce - no, you're not wrong. Cattle used to refer to livestock and, at one time, more especially to sheep, and that's *exactly* why it's called 'catgut'. I've said all this recently on some other thread ... can't remember which ... must be my great age!
# Posted on February 1st 2007 by ethical blend
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
"Sorry, I really folked that up!" Self explanatory really :-0
# Posted on February 2nd 2007 by bowburner
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
:-o
# Posted on February 2nd 2007 by bowburner
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
D'oh! Folked that one up too!
# Posted on February 2nd 2007 by bowburner
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
My favourite came from this very site. Can't remember who said it but it was someone describing the young Irish dancers at a Paddy's Day gig, all dressed up in their garish attire - "They looked like someone had eaten the Book of Kells and then thrown up all over them.
# Posted on February 2nd 2007 by zookman2
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
Completing an earlier quote given from Albert Einstein ~
"He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would fully suffice."
~ and to finish that qoutation:
"This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, senseless brutality, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be part of so base an action! It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder."
# Posted on February 2nd 2007 by ceolachan
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
"Einstein's playing is excellent, but he does not deserve his world fame" There are many others just as good."
~ a music critic commenting on Einstein's performance on the violin, not knowing that Einstein's greatest fame came from a different kind of music...
Albert Einstein:
"If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music...I get most joy in life out of music."
"Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods."
# Posted on February 2nd 2007 by ceolachan
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
Dreamt this one up on the bus on the way to work today (though it sounds like something someone else would have said sometime, and it does need work -- I'll be holding a workshop to develop it at Cobargo -- bring a plate and the price of three pints of the sponsor's product to get yourself prepared -- shall I just spit it out and act like I'm not trying to pad while the next act gets their pick-ups picked up and their DIs.... whatever it is you do with a DI. I thought you'd get him to read the blagger his rights before throwing him in the divvy van and taking him back to Sun Hill. DI - geddit? Yeah, that sounds like something someone else would have said too. It's a bit like the gag I made about Andrew Winton at Illawarra on Sunday morning, about how I almost called him 'Tim', which would be close, but no cigar, except for the cigar Tim MAY have smoked when Andrew was born. Wonderful stage-craftsman that he is, Andrew, not Tim, although like their noses, it might run in the family, he just looked at me and without skipping a beat said, 'Yeah, that was funny.... 12 years ago.' Brilliant man, brilliant rapport with the audience, great music, wonderful family (and one year old Rory gets in on the act too. Enough now; I'm stealing my thunder from April's 'Trad and Now' -- available in some good newsagents but not in the crap ones, as I found this morning while trying to get extras for my mum and 27 of my closest friends and well-paid acquaintances):
"Please refrain from joining in on the chorus."
-- Overheard Productions, Friday 2 February, on the #40 ACTION bus at Aranda (coincidentally, the same bus that one Graham McDonald, luthier and archivist, uses -- check the spelling of the surname -- sometimes catches. I laid a gag on him last night about his cooking -- he was running late to make some trouble in the kitchen -- and left him lost for words, which is a strange thing for an archivist)
P.S. Do you know if you're stuck for inspiration, you can get it back by lightly tapping the number pad keys to the tune of 'Breen's Reel'?!
# Posted on February 2nd 2007 by Overheard
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
Confucius: "Music produces a kind of pleasure which human nature cannot do without."
Elvis Presley: "Music should be something that makes you gotta move, inside or outside."
# Posted on February 2nd 2007 by ceolachan
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
Friedrich Nietzsche:
"Without music, life would be a mistake."
"There are no facts, only interpretations."
"The essence of all beautiful art, all great art, is gratitude."
"One must have chaos in oneself in order to give birth to a dancing star."
# Posted on February 2nd 2007 by ceolachan
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
Johann Sebastian Bach:
"The aim and final end of all music should be none other than the glory of God and the refreshment of the soul."
"Music washes away from the soul the dust of every day life."
Martin Luther:
"Music is one of the fairest and most glorious gifts of God."
Quincy Jones:
"You can study orchestration, you can study harmony and theory and everything else, but melodies come straight from God."
Johnny Cash:
"All music comes from God."
~ hoping to avoid dogma and religious conflict, leaving 'God' to personal interpretation...Music for me is magic, it's a wonderful fireworks display, it is a fine meal, a great high, air, water, fire, earth, the muezzin of my soul ~ Adhan, namāz, zikr...
Henry David Thoreau:
"When I hear music, I fear no danger. I am invulnerable. I see no foe. I am related to the earliest times, and to the latest."
Alexander Pope:
"Light quirks of music, broken and uneven, Make the soul dance upon a jig of heaven."
Rabindranath Tagore: "The world speaks to me in colors, my soul answers in music."
Kenny Loggins:
"The Spirit speaks directly to our hearts through music. That’s why music has always had such power to move people into positive action."
# Posted on February 2nd 2007 by ceolachan
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
Whew! ~ That cleared the place out. I'd better put on the sunglasses and nose and sneak out the backdoor...
# Posted on February 2nd 2007 by ceolachan
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
Some more Tommy Beecham anecdotes -
He's conducting the dress rehearsal of an opera, one scene of which requires a horse ( a real live one) to be on stage. Of course, the inevitable happens. Sir Thomas stops the music and says, "Ladies and gentlemen, a distressing spectacle, but by Gad what a critic!"
On another occasion in a rehearsal he says to a lady cellist in the orchestra who is taking a solo, "Madam, you have the most beautiful instrument in the world between your legs. Don't scratch it."
Tommy Beecham usually conducted his concerts from memory, but things could sometimes go wrong, as when he and the orchestra started off the opening overture and after a few bars the leader got up and said to him, "Sir, we're playing Leonora Number 3. Are you?"
["Leonora Number 3" is one of Beethoven's overtures].
# Posted on February 2nd 2007 by Trevor Jennings
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
We've not had the OTHER Elvis quote yet:-
I don't know anything about music. In my line you
don't have to.
# Posted on February 2nd 2007 by FiddleFancy
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
A couple of incidents I remember from BBC Radio 3 many years ago (God, how time flies, it may even have been called The Third Programme then!)...
Sir Malcolm Sargent and the BBC SO were playing the first performance of some impenetrable atonal symphony by one of Eastern Europe's madder modern composers (Nature is merciful, I do not remember his name, and neither could I probably spell it). Anyway, after 10 minutes or so the music stopped. "End of the first movement" I thought. But no, we could hear Sargent's voice saying "Sorry about that. I think we all got lost. We'll start again". They did, and this time it went on for 15 minutes. I couldn't tell the difference.
Another first performance, this time a lengthy work for percussion by Piotr Zak, followed by a live studio discussion with an eminent music critic. The discussion was as incomprehensible as the music, and then it was revealed to the eminent critic, and the listeners of course, that in fact "Piotr Zak" was a studio technician who had agreed to be let loose amongst all those percussion instruments with instructions to bang and wallop them at random until he got tired. The eminent critic was considerably put out by the whole affair and was even less amused when it was pointed out to him that the date was April 1st.
# Posted on February 2nd 2007 by Trevor Jennings
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
Soon after I started work I spent some of my hard-earned wages on a cheap (10 shillings = £0.50) LP from Woolworths of Beethoven's 5th piano concerto (the "Emperor"). The label was unfamiliar, and I hadn't heard of the orchestra, solo pianist and conductor, either then or since (not unusual, so I'm told, with some of the bottom of the market stuff even now).
What was unusual about the recording was that the last movement of the concerto on the reverse side sounded as if it had been recorded in a very different acoustic with a different orchestra and pianist. The pitch was even slightly different. As the needle trailed off the end of the recording I thought I could hear something so I replayed the playoff with the volume turned up high. I heard a voice saying "Right. We'll print that".
I wish I'd kept that LP.
# Posted on February 2nd 2007 by Trevor Jennings
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
I worked in the group that recorded music / did live stuff for Radio three. One sunday morning we had to arrive very early at one of the south bank concert halls in London. We rigged the microphones and the choir started rehearsing at 1030 or so - for a concert which was interspersed with "audio-visual" stuff (I never got to see what that was).
In the rehearsal, the choir would sing a bit of strange music, then they would sit down and a seemingly random group from them would stand up and all say things in unison, bits of old letters, for example, "Your obedient servant, May 14, 1843" - that sort of thing.
There was someone sitting at the back of the mixing area, who had been helping us with the carrying. I assumed he was a porter or something, taking a rest. I said to him, "Either this is a huge musical wind-up, or this is going to turn out to be the worst day of my entire career". I still clearly remember the exact words I said. As you can probably predict, this fellow was the composer. We spent the rest of the day avoiding each other.
# Posted on February 2nd 2007 by Mark Harmer
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
More Sir Thomas Beecham.A lady once approached him and asked his advice.Her son wanted to learn an instrument abd she ddn't want to be subjected to the tortured scrapings if he chose the fiddle.He replied
"The bagpipes madam,because they sound just the same when you finish learning them as when you start"
He once compared the sound of the harpsichord to
"two skeletons making love in a birdcage"
He was conducting an opera and there was a live donkey in the production.At a dress rehearsal the donkey crapped on the stage and he said,
"A critic,by God!"
# Posted on February 2nd 2007 by dafydd
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
From Les Barker's poem "Arnold" (about an ill-fated affair between a nearsighted armadillo and a concertina):
Sex with a concertina is rarely accomplished discreetly.
# Posted on February 2nd 2007 by GaryAMartin
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
Another one from Les Barker from one his hilarious poems about a love affair between two daschunds which was never consumated,the dog live on the ground floor and the bitch on the first and is the last line of the poem is
"because daschunds with erections can't climb stairs"
# Posted on February 2nd 2007 by dafydd
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
The Beecham line was, I think, two skeletons copulating on a tin roof. Sums up the harpsichord sound quite well, IMO. (And well before "Jason And The Argonauts", at that...)
I heard some band member once giving a spoof account of a Breton folk song. It was about two birds that fell in love but could not consummate their desire, because one was a golden eagle and the other was a canary. They committed suicide by jumping off a cliff.
# Posted on February 2nd 2007 by nicholas
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
Back to some BAD jokes:-
What do you get when you play New Age music backwards?
New Age music.
What's the difference between a puppy and a singer-songwriter?
Eventually the puppy stops whining.
How do you tell the difference between a fiddler and a dog?
The dog knows when to stop scratching.
Two musicians are walking down the street, and one says to the other, "Who was that piccolo I saw you with last night?"
The other replies, "That was no piccolo, that was my fife."
Boom Boom! :-o
# Posted on February 2nd 2007 by FiddleFancy
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
Following on from the last two posts, here's an anecdote, not a quote - sorry.
My head keeper in Co Meath, way back in 1970, had a young Jack Russel terrier dog called Badger, & in his first year our hero, Badger, took a real shine to another of the keeper's dogs, a simple minded Alsation bitch.
Anyway, one day young Badger decided that he could stand it no longer & finding the Alsation seated, decided that it was high time he consumated their relationship. Unfortunately, this proved to be easier said than done & the upshot of his gallant efforts was that Badger suffered a six hour erection & only an injection from the local vet finally cooled his ardour!
Now a 6 hour erection might sound like something you might dream of lads but beware, for in truth, I've never ever seen a sadder looking dog than Badger, as he wobbled round the garden that afternoon. So I'd think twice before responding to any of those tempting Viagra e-mails, gentlemen!
# Posted on February 2nd 2007 by Ptarmigan
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
Hey - it must be a Jack Russell thing. I had a Border Collie who was the smartest and bossiest bitch around......but when she went on heat.....she backed up to the wire gate to let this Jack Russell at her......and he was relentless! We tried hosing him, we tried physically dragging him away.....and really this little dog with a huge erection and gigantic ambitions was quite heroic in his determination to get the deed done!
# Posted on February 2nd 2007 by FiddleFancy
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
My best friend On the Violin: The reason it's so difficult to play well is that there are so many ways to play poorly....
# Posted on February 2nd 2007 by pastrings
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
The first time I saw Les Barker perform (NFF 2005) I nearly coughed out a lung -- and I hunted him down outside the CD Shop where I were working to tell him so in so many words.
The one lyric/line of Les's that will eternally remain with me is this one whereby an armadillo called Arnold tries to get it on with a folk instrument by the side of the stage: 'Sex with a concertina is rarely accomplished discreetly!'
Laugh? I nearly $%^& myself.
Anyhoo, back in the day, when I were a seond tenor horn player, a fellower blower (careful!) told me the tale of some friends of her family who had two animals.
The cat: Claude de Pussy
The dog: Offenbach
Sad, but true!
# Posted on February 2nd 2007 by Overheard
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
In my travels I have come across many characters, I feel some guilt in that I didn't record everything they said, as the majority were full of local lore and humour. I did get some things, too much for here, but a few downs and ups follow...
The following few quotes are from one of the 'new wave', what I might also categorize as a 'git', keeping it in a safe range to avoid the asterisks. He was a 'composer' of sets (choreographer), steps and figures, with several sets to his name. In this case we're talking about the square sets of quadrilles which rose to stratospheric levels of popularity in the 80's. His clique of dancers have brought home the 'All Ireland' several times. In his area his influence has grown to the point that the older dancers had pretty much given up dancing, convinced they couldn't and that they somehow had it wrong. So the local sets dried up and the scene was dominated by his 'Frankenstein's Monsters' of sets, and his Igors and Igorinis... Here are some paraphrases from his way of thinking:
"I change the sets constantly to avoid boredom."
"Traditional sets don't have enough polish for competitions, they're boring."
At the time his 'sets' were danced only in preparation for and during competitions. Among other things, borrowing steps included, mixed into his music he used Kerry polkas and slides, remembering his base is Mayo. He used very little regional or uncommon tunes, sticking to the top 100 commonplace session tunes, or whatever was in vogue at the moment. His sets had a strong competition ceili-dance influence, styling and stepping, and all swings were that soft-ceili swing. This Coimisiun and stepdance influence included straight arms held back during some sets, even pointing toes and robot-like starts...
Alec Murphy: about modern 'costumes', and said with disdain ~ " ~ not quite the old days, they didn't dress that way..."
Junior Crehan: "Sets were danced till midnight, then there was tea, songs, and then stepdancers, then sets again until morning. (sunrise) The clegy and bishops and government thought bad thingsd were happening at house dances, so wanted them to go to the church halls, the government to get a percentage of the takes. Anyone who held a house dance or tournament (cards for prizes like turkeys, etc.) was taken in and fined. It was there, house dances, that we all learned our music, our dance, our song. My curse to the people who took them out, they were our singing, our music and dancing, I'll never forgive them, and lots of people feel like me."
Josie McDermott: "The young people go out to these big places now. They don't go around to the ramblihng houses anymore. It's all television and all hush-hush."
Bella McGurk: "Now dancing is so very much the same, too much hopping about in it."
Eileen Coyne: "This new style of flinging the feet, that's not dancing."
Harry McElwaine: "You'd think they'd be killin' mice nowadays, stompin' and trompin' in the same place all the time..."
Mick Hoy (unsure, couldn't find my notes): regarding the modern way with dancing the sets of quadrilles ~ "They're like worms on a hot rock, it's all squirming and jumping about."
Michael Cloonan (Inis Shark islander): "Every man, woman and child would come out to dance the set on Inis Shark. We were all as good as one another, young and old were all the same. Inish Shark was all one family. They helped each other work."
# Posted on February 2nd 2007 by ceolachan
I believe all the above quoted were post 60 in the 70's, so no longer with us...
# Posted on February 2nd 2007 by ceolachan
Except the 'choreographer'...
# Posted on February 2nd 2007 by ceolachan
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
I once heard the late and sorely missed Martyn Bennet in concert, playing the smallpipes. After an age of tuning up he observed, " there's only one thing worse than tuning...and that's NOT tuning."
# Posted on February 2nd 2007 by Alister
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
If I am not mistaken, I think that quote about dance dresses looking like someone vomited up the Book of Kells should be attributed to Phantom Button.
# Posted on February 2nd 2007 by AlBrown
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
On the subject of Irish trad music - "It's the only music that brings people to their senses." - Joe Cooley
# Posted on February 2nd 2007 by beanatiarlar
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
Overheard,the full joke as i heard it .Two dogs and a cat went to the opera and tried to get in,but the man in the box office said it was full.
The cat said in broken English
"But he bach,he offenbach and i'm debussy"
And the guy said
"go away I'm bizet "
# Posted on February 2nd 2007 by dafydd
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
"If music didn't have an impact then Victor Jara wouldn't have had his fingers broken for playing the guitar"
Tommy Sands - August 05
Conversation with JfiddlerH
# Posted on February 2nd 2007 by jfiddlerh
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
"We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out."
~ Decca Recording Company rejecting the Beatles, 1962
"There is two kinds of music, the good and bad. I play the good kind."
~ Louis Armstrong
"You don't need any brains to listen to music."
~ Luciano Pavarotti
"Only the pure in heart can make a good soup."
~ Ludwig Van Beethoven
"I've come to realize that life is not a musical comedy, it's a Greek tragedy."
~ Billy Joel
"Talent works, genius creates."
~ Robert Schumann
"When you strum a guitar you have everything - rhythm, bass, lead and melody"
~ David Gilmore / Pink Floyd
"Without music, life would be a mistake."
~ Friedrich Nietzsche
"Play the music, not the instrument."
~ Author Unknown
"There's a basic rule which runs through all kinds of music, kind of an unwritten rule. I don't know what it is. But I've got it." ~ Ron Wood / Rolling Stones / Faces
"Music is the art of thinking with sounds."
~ Jules Combarieu
"Too many pieces of music finish too long after the end."
~ Igor Stravinsky
"I don't believe in having bands for solo records."
~ Mick Jagger / Rolling Stones
"I'm gonna put a curse on you and all your kids will be born completely naked"
~ Jimi Hendrix
"The pause is as important as the note. "
~ Truman Fisher
"...the elephant smoked too much."(explaining why the keys of his piano were so yellow)
~ Victor Borge
"Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds..."
~ Albert Einstein
Well done dudes - a pleasant diversion from the serious stuff!
# Posted on February 2nd 2007 by Ptarmigan
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
Music is what happens between the notes...
# Posted on February 2nd 2007 by ceolachan
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
"Harpists spend 90 percent of their lives tuning their harps and 10 percent playing out of tune."
~ Igor Stravinsky
"Musicians don't retire; they stop when there's no more music in them."
~ Louis Armstrong
"The wise musicians are those who play what they can master."
~ Duke Ellington
"Let a short Act of Parliament be passed, placing all street musicians outside the protection of the law, so that any citizen may assail them with stones, sticks, knives, pistols or bombs without incurring any penalties."
~ George Bernard Shaw
"There are more bad musicians than there is bad music."
~ Isaac Stern
# Posted on February 2nd 2007 by Ptarmigan
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
Here's a ironic one to post on a Music Forum:
"Sometimes I think, to talk too much about music almost cheapens it."
~ Ben Harper
# Posted on February 2nd 2007 by Ptarmigan
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
On the other hand: "There is nothing more difficult than talking about music."
~ SAINT-SAENS
"If one hears bad music it is one's duty to drown it by one's conversation."
~ OSCAR WILDE
"When she started to play, Steinway himself came down personally and rubbed his name off the piano."
~ BOB HOPE on comedienne Phyllis Diller
# Posted on February 2nd 2007 by Ptarmigan
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
Here's one for Kenny: "Annie Lennox - (an) 'American' singer"
http://www.saidwhat.co.uk/quotes/favourite/annie_lennox
# Posted on February 2nd 2007 by Ptarmigan
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
Musicians don't retire, they decrescendo-decelerando...
# Posted on February 2nd 2007 by ceolachan
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
"Frets ain't nothing but speed bumps on a banjo..."
# Posted on February 2nd 2007 by gtag
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
Favourite urban myth (at least I think it's a myth).....is the one about the British Funeral parlour sued because instead of playing Vera Lynn singing Ave Maria, as the curtains closed on the cremation was heard "Wish me Luck as you wave me goodbye".
# Posted on February 3rd 2007 by FiddleFancy
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
Bad taste warning!
James Brown's last words
"I DON'T FEEL GOOOOOOOOOOD!!!!!"
# Posted on February 3rd 2007 by dafydd
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
Hey dafydd, you don't need to post a warning...
# Posted on February 3rd 2007 by ceolachan
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
One from our singer in the band:
"We've had some requests this evening, a few of which are not physically possible"
...and one from someone in a previous band, talking about the harp:
"It's like a musical instrument, but bigger"
# Posted on February 3rd 2007 by Mark Harmer
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
I can't stand Tom Waits's music, however, one of his performances is one that e'er shall stick in the mind:
'The Piano Has Been Drinking, Not Me.'
# Posted on February 3rd 2007 by Overheard
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
"I hate music, especially when it's played. "
~ Jimmy Durante
"Where there is music there can be no evil."
~ Cervantes
"Most people wouldn't know good music if it came up and bit them in the ass."
~ Frank Zappa
"Music can be made anywhere is invisible and does not smell."
~ W.H.Auden
# Posted on February 3rd 2007 by Ptarmigan
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
Not sure I believe that one: "Where there is music there can be no evil." ~ Cervantes. I mean, have you seen 'Reservoir Dogs'?
# Posted on February 3rd 2007 by Ptarmigan
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
"I am not handsome, but when women hear me play, they come crawling to my feet."
~ llig leahcim
No, only joking, it was ~ 'Niccolo Paganini'
"One should try everything once, except incest and folk-dancing."
~ Arnold Bax
When told that a soloist would need six fingers to perform his concerto, Arnold Schoenberg replied, "I can wait."
"Stuffing birds or playing stringed instruments is an elegant
pastime, and a resource to the idle, but it is not education."
~ Cardinal Newman
"Music with dinner is an insult both to the cook and the violinist."
~ G. K. Chesterton
Here's one to cheer you up:
"Music is essentially useless, as life is."
~ George Santayana
... & one for all you 'amateur musicians:
"Hell is full of musical amateurs."
~ George Bernard Shaw
# Posted on February 3rd 2007 by Ptarmigan
Re: Favourite musical quotes &/or proverbs.
Hell, There aint no notes on a banjo. You just play it.
# Posted on February 4th 2007 by bmckim