Thanks Musicat, I guess I did understand that much but didn’t think it was that funny - though perhaps there’s more to it that we’re all missing. And yes, “da-da-da-dum” is the opening two bars of Beethoven’s 5th, not his 9th. I think the 9th is more like “da-da-LUM! da-da-lum, da-da-lum, da-da-lum. Da-da-da da da da da dum.” followed by “[triplets] dit-da-da-la dadadadadadadadada dadadadadadadadadada dada dadadadadadadadadada…”, although I could be confusing it with his symphony in D.
To get the thread back on track, I’m surprised no-one has mentioned the “bottom of the ninth, scores are tied, bas(s)es are loaded” yet - possibly because it’s long and awful.
You have to know a bit about Schenker, yes. Schenker’s main thesis is that all great works can be broken down and simplified into a skeletal form, which can be further broken down ultimately into what is called the Ursatz: the underlying melodic and harmonic structure of the piece, usually consisting of two lines: the melody and the bass. The most basic Ursatz is a bass line going I-V-I over a three note descending melody: 3-2-1.
Hence, Schenker (who was trying to prove, among other things, that music such as Beethoven was superior to that of Wagner and Strauss) hears in hell all great master works reduced to this basic structure.
This is one of those jokes that made me laugh even though I didn’t really get it.
Drummers often want to leave their drums set up if they’ve got a multi-night gig–they don’t want to have to break them down just to bring them back the next day. This joke might have been funnier with a drummer.
It doesn’t make sense that a trombonist would find it inconvenient to pack up his instrument and take it with him, but maybe that’s part of the joke.
Also, the implication is that, as **LurkMeister ** says, it’s a long time between gigs for a trombonist. Or at least this particular trombonist.
The way I originally heard that joke was that the whole band was booked at the last minute, and at the end of the night when the party’s host asked if they’d play again next year they asked, “Can we leave our stuff set up?” Maybe a bit funnier that way…?
Anyway …
When Jerry Garcia died, he woke up in the afterlife with his guitar in his hands and found himself surrounded by all the great rock & rollers who had passed on before him. Elvis was there, John Lennon, Jim Morrison, Jim Croce, Buddy Holly, John Bonham, Bon Scott, Jimi Hendrix …
“Wow,” Jerry said as he looked around, “There really is a rock & roll heaven!”
Lennon gave him a puzzled look and asked, “Heaven?”
Just then Karen Carpenter walked in, sat down at the drums and said, “Okay, ‘Close To You’, one more time from the top!”
Nobody really got the joke. At least not the way it was explained to me.
The reason he asks if he can leave his trombone there until next Christmas is that he isn’t going to need it. Because he never practices.
Hmmm. That was the first thing that I thought when I read it. But then again, I’m a singer, not a musician.
I recently bought my nine year-old daughter a computer game that features Barbie® as a high school student preparing to compete in a “battle of the bands” competition along with a couple of her terminally shallow friends. When someone trashes their set, one of the friends, scoping the damage, declares that the culprit is “lower than a bass-baritone.” My daughter, ever the loyal one, was not amused. “My daddy’s a bass-baritone” she muttered dangerously at the computer screen.
Two prisoners were waiting to be executed. ‘Any last requests?’ asked the jailer ‘Yes’ replied one of the prisoners ‘I love music, so before I die could you play me ‘Everything I Do’ by Bryan Adams’, and the second prisoner said ‘Kill me first.’
