lessons learned from musical experience (M)

These are but a few of the most important things I have learned over the years. I welcome any additions if you feel there is something I have missed.

1) F# major is a hazard to the environment.
Not only does the key signature use more ink to print than say, F major, but the key signature is also bigger, and thus takes up more of the staff, forcing the music down an inch or so per line. This wastes paper. We try to use recycled paper, then we go print music in F# major? Such hypocrites we are. NB Not only does this apply to F# major, but to any key other than C, F, Bb, G, or D.

2) Composers are lazy.
Repeat signs and Da Capos are a way of making the piece longer without bothering to write more content. Composers who get tired of writing new sections for the piece they are currently working on just add a few repeats, D.C.s and D.S. al codas, and poofbang you've got yourself a performance-length piece!

3) French horns hate being called French horns.
If you ever meet a serious French horn player, you'd BETTER defer to them as a "Horn-in-F" player or they'll smack you with all 40 feet of tubing. To keep things short you can also call them "horneneff."

4) Wind quintets happened because the French horns, excuse me "horneneffs," wanted to hang with the cool people.
aka the woodwinds. So the saxes got kicked off the list in favor of the horneneffs, which is why a typical wind quintet has flute, clarinet, oboe, bassoon, and horneneff.

5) The bass players were too cool for the strings, so they took off for jazz ensembles and left the string quartets to their own devices.
When left to their own devices, string players' solutions are almost always "add a violin." Hence the setup of today's string quartets.

6) Double sharps are simply a way for the composer to change a note's pitch without rewriting the whole measure.
They got tired of rewriting everything for one puny note, so they decided to invent a handy-dandy X and use that to alter pitches.

7) Cadenzas should be played expressively at first, but go faster as you run out of air. The effect is good.
Usually a huge piano chord will be played at the end of a cadenza, and that's a good place to take a breath.

8) Pieces with names like "Sonata no. (insert number here)" or "Melodie from (insert Italian or French word here), Opus (insert ridiculously high number here)"always end with a ridiculously high note at pianissismo, which is to be held for a ridiculously long time.

9) Any time you see a new Italian word, if in doubt it means "slow down."
There are about 372946171 ways to say "slow down" in Italian. (They talk fast.)

10) Mordents are different from trills. 'nuffsed.

11) Being a trumpet or trombone player is a state of mind.
One that always seems to say, "I'm better than you."