Your favorite(/questionable) musical quotes

[Dean E]

Don't bother to look, I've composed that already.
-- - Gustav Mahler to Bruno Walter, who had stopped to admire mountain scenery in rural Austria.

Already too loud!
- - - Bruno Walter at his first rehearsal with an American orchestra, as the players reached for their instruments

Never look at the trombones, it only encourages them.
- - - Richard Strauss

If a young man at the age of 23 can write a symphony like that, in five years he
will be ready to commit murder.
- - - Walter Damrosch on Aaron Copland

There are still so many beautiful things to be said in C major.
- - - Sergei Prokofiev

God tells me how the music should sound, but you stand in the way.
- - - Arturo Toscanini to a trumpet player

Oh how wonderful, really wonderful, opera would be if there were no singers!
- - - Gioacchino Rossini

Flint must be an extremely wealthy town: I see that each of you bought two or three seats.
- - - Victor Borge, playing to a half-filled house in Flint, Mich.

I love Beethoven, especially the poems.
- - - Ringo Starr

[MaryAnn]

My uncle, after I told him I was going for a BM in music:

"There is no such degree; the only degrees are BA and BS."

MA

[Teubonium]

Director to my section mate while warming up before rehearsal:

"Do you prefer that sound to the sound of a tuba?"

[KevinYoung]

During a Military School of Music concert band rehearsal, around March of 1986, the Master Chief who was the director once zinged me after I poorly sightread a short solo line. (I later learned that he used this line a lot.) He said, "PFC Rackley - Have you ever considered driving a truck?"

Maybe I could locate his home and send Schlepy over to bust on him a bit.

While at USAESOM, there were times I wished I was an 88M! Ahhh...the good ol' days.

-K
USAESOM 4/93-8/93

[tclements]

Years ago, I played for William Revelli. He could be pretty 'difficult' in rehearsal. Once he looked back at the tuba section and said, "Tubas, you sound like you are dredging a river." I almost pooped my pants!

[ljdalen]

When my son was about 4, we went to the 4th of July parade. Wandering around the staging area before the parade, there was a bagpipe group warming up. My son listened to the pipers and said "that's real music, it's chinese."

[USMCTuba]

I have a few favorites:

Just last week at a local Veteran's Day parade, a Vietnam vet in a wheelchair looked up at my section's sousaphones and said "Man, that's gotta suck!"

At the end of Recruit Training my battalion commander asked me what my job in the Corps was going to be. When I told him i was a tuba player his response, at the top of his voice in front of the whole company, was "Tuba?? Is that the big-a*%s metal thing that sounds like death on a pintle mount?!?" I paid dearly for the hint of smile that leaked onto my face.

And last, a lesson with Phil Sinder. After another futile week of range extensions on euphonium he sighed, looked me in the eye and asked "Have you ever tried playing tuba?"

[Brucom]

Many years ago in an Air Force field band we struggled to sightread a new piece.
At the end, the euphonium player shook my hand and said, "Nice playing against you."

[windshieldbug]

"Stop throwing things at the double reeds!"

[David Richoux]

Not sure if he coined it, but one of my band directors told the trumpet section:
'Tacit' is not Latin for 'Take It!'

[TubaBobH]

During an All State High School band rehearsal back in the early 70s, I remember thinking -
Man this is one powerful and impressive tuba section I'm playing in. However, we were all brought back down to earth when the guest conduct stopped the band during a piece that had a big low brass fortissimo section and said:

"Gentlemen, I am hearing far too much tuba testosterone, and far too little tuba musicianship, emanating from the back of this band. I want you to play obscenely big in this section, not obscenely loud."

Over 35 years later that admonishment/advice still occasionally comes to mind (and a slight smile comes to to my face) when I am playing a fortissimo section in the back of my community band.

[sffz]

In a college band rehearsal - conductor to a percussionist
"I had a drummer worse than you" (long pause)..."once" (long pause)..."he had one arm." OUCH!!!

Another - "Please...A little more music, a little less suck"

[eupher61]

Any time a listener says "I don't know anything about music, but you're good".

[tubabuddha]

This came from my college band director this year during the first marching band practice.

"Tubas.. lets hear that part...........that sounded like a moose in heat."

[Wyvern]

"p is not for powerful!" and
"key signatures are not optional!"
- two favourite comments of a previous conductor


And after someone played something different from written "I will give you manuscript paper if you wish to compose"

[windshieldbug]

"One measures loudness by how far you blow the violas forward. If they move back, the fact is, you suck!"

[UTSAtuba]

True story, I swear. File this under "probably should not have been said"…

In 1981 I was in a Wind Ensemble rehearsal at Holmes HS in San Antonio. If you are from there and re old enough you will know the clarinet-playing head band director who uttered these words (Ray)....

That's a pretty funny story. It's pretty neat that you've been at that high school before, since it's my alma mater (except about 25 years later). Interesting how small the world is...anywho...

Best thing I've ever heard anyone say. The director stopped rehearsal, and commented to the tuba section: "Hey tubas, try to be like musicians and...". That's when I exclaimed "WHAT?", and then he tried explaining that he didn't mean it like that. It was too late, the band cracked up, we "sort of" laughed, and he cracked up. I'd like to think the tubists are musicians too.

[windshieldbug]

"Musicians, places on stage, please. Oh, drummers, too!"

"What's the difference between a viola player and a terrorist?

Some terrorists actually have sympathizers... "

[Slamson]

I wasn't going to add my two cents until I had to endure yet another orchestra rehearsal where the strings should have had a separate rehearsal -

Several years ago, the orchestra I was playing in was rehearsing Brahms 2 (Really fun piece to play, especially the finale.) The violins were crapping all over this one section and the conductor had been working for heaven-knows-how-long on it. Finally, in a fit of frustration, he yells "look! I just can't bring myself to ask the brass to play loud enough to cover you up here!"

The back row lost it, of course....

[davidgilbreath]

It was either my junior or senior year at UK and we had an assistant director named Harold House. He was enthusiastic and personable and really seemed to enjoy his time with us.

We were reheasing something for a halftime show that had some nice flowing passages with lots of thick chords. We were playing along rather well and just as we began the passage Harold yelled out "make it BIG . . . like an ORGAN! !"

We put his picture up on our marching band board with those words emblazoned in the photo.