Band Definitions

Courtesy of Dr. Wayne Dyess, Professor Of Trombone, Lamar University

Band - 1) a group of musicians who get together to upset the orchestra members. 2) slightly organized noise.

Band director - 1) person who organizes noise.

Assistant band director - 1) person who organizes less important noise

Percussion section - area of study designed as an enhancement course for students who never perfected the techniques of rhythm band in kindergarden and the first grade.

Percussionist - person who could not pass the Selmer test.

Percussion director - organizer of tribal and primitive cacophonies of sound to help cover up the noise of the band.

Drum major - student band director who thinks he or she is directing the band but merely moves hands in the same tempo on every song like a robot.

Band booster club - group of bored mothers who raise money to send the band far away.

Flautist - person who plays the flute. orchestras need only three but bands seem to require about four hundred.

Piccolo - a more annoying flute.

Clarinetist - person who leaves old and broken reeds on the floor.

Oboe - woodwind instrument which never works.

Bassoonist - someone who can’t count or play rhythms and is always flat.

Trumpeter - 1) trumpet player who no matter how hard he or she tries can only seem to play fortissimo. 2) someone who is constantly emptying his or her spit valve.

French hornist - French horn player who has to tear apart their instrument to empty his or her spit valve.

Tubist - person who mindlessly chose to play the biggest, heaviest and smelliest instrument.

Saxophonist - 1) retard. 2) big retard. 3) person who is only needed to play in loud bars where people are too drunk to know the difference, but some people feel the need the write parts for them in orchestral scores.

Baritone horn players - persons for whom music is written in either bass or treble clefs thus explaining the continual outpouring of wrong notes. ie. “This is in bass clef and I read treble”.

Trombone - Musical instrument with extendible slide mechanism designed for the purpose of poking people in the butt and raising majorette’s short dresses while standing at parade rest.

Bell lyre - Musical instrument designed for pretty girls who can’t read music or march and play at the same time.

Musical Definitions

Courtesy of Adrian Drover

DAL SEGNO - A place in the music where everyone stops playing while they look for the Sign.

RALLENTANDO - What happens when the pizz bass player gets a cramp.

MAJOR INTERVAL - One in which too much refreshment is consumed.

DIMINISHED INTERVAL - Time set by the conductor to avoid the effects of a Major Interval.

FIFTH - Amount needed by the lead trumpet player to see him through the gig.

FORTE-PIANO - Make your own choice of dynamic.

PENTATONIC SCALE - Used by composers who don't know how to voice a Dominant 7th chord.

HARP - Instrument that needs a calculator and Fred Astaire feet to play chromatically.

DODECAPHONIST - Person who has finally discovered the limitations of being a pop guitarist.

OPERA - Music which would undoubtedly sound much nicer without the singers.

ORGAN SWELL- (see biology).

ALTO CLEF - Antique symbol retained by composers for the soul use of violas, in the hope that no one would take the trouble to learn it.

EQUAL TEMPERAMENT - Orchestra in which the string and brass players are compatible... metaphorically speaking.

SEMITONE - Wrong mouthpiece.

MICROTONE - Wrong instrument.

OVERTONE - Sound produced by a player who believes he/she is the only one right.

MICROPHONE - Single reed brass instrument invented by Adolphe Sax that was accidentally swallowed on its first test run. Ask Tom Izzo for more details.

MEGAPHONE - Member of the same brass-reed family as the Microphone, which toppled over during its first solo performance and killed the entire string section.

Last Updated January 18, 1998 by Robyn L. Jenkins

Return to Table of Contents