Groan's Dictionary of Music and Musicians - Revised Edition

[Flay]

Tutti – reaction to talking during a performance

[notnerb]

nobilmente - either free of charge or erectile dysfunction.

[Flay]

Modulation – worship of a certain Olympic champion

[Roehre]

suite: multimovement bathroom

[LeMartinPecheur]

aria - posterior (declam., vulgar)

F sharp - excessively pointy (vulgar)

fantasie - futile maritime gesture (See also: King Canute)

Harmonie - footballing injury (Ger.)

invention (2 or 3-part) - well-rehearsed joint lie

madrigal - agitated convulsion

metronome - small person on Underground

miniature score - small amatory success (vulgar)

polyphony - fake cage-bird

scherzo - frighten a bit

###

Plus one I really love, genuine, from Micheal Kennedy's Concise Oxford Dictionary of Music, 3rd edition:
Kettledrum. See Timpani.
Timpani (It.) See Kettledrums.


Still trying to work out what the damn things are...

[Anna]

Tonic - ice with a slice
Espressivo - served with coffee
Conspirito - served with brandy
Bass Viol - the fish is off

[Serial_Apologist]

Exposition - she/he is out of my life
Development section - Friends of Radio 3
Coda - opposite of decoder
Vibrato - aid to marital bliss
Tremolando - obstacle to marital bliss
Sound envelope - suitable for posting cheques off in

[Serial_Apologist]

Church modes - ecclestiastical fashions
Fiddle - MPs' expenses

[EdgeleyRob]

Papa Haydn (you'll never find him!).
Suggestion Diabolique - the reply I received when I asked if we could have more British music at the Proms.

[Anna]

Interrupted Cadence - early family planning.

[Flay]

Interrupted Cadence - early family planning.

Best seek planning permission first....

[Serial_Apologist]

Papa Haydn (you'll never find him!).
Suggestion Diabolique - the reply I received when I asked if we could have more British music at the Proms.

I hope you told them to prokofiev

[LeMartinPecheur]

Interrupted Cadence - early family planning.

For homework then, construe Perfect and Imperfect Cadence

Plagal Cadence sounds a bit nasty though...

[EdgeleyRob]

Cantatas - tinned potatoes

[Don Petter]

Plus one I really love, genuine, from Micheal Kennedy's Concise Oxford Dictionary of Music, 3rd edition:
Kettledrum. See Timpani.
Timpani (It.) See Kettledrums.


Still trying to work out what the damn things are...

This humour from musical indices reminds me of an example from, surprisingly, Sir Donald Tovey in his six volume 'Essays in Musical Analysis', from 1939. (Who said he was as dry as dust?)


In the index volume, there are these entries:

Sand, see Sugar.
...
Sugar, see Grocer.
...
Grocer, see Hindemith.
...
Hindemith, Paul, ... and sugar, iv. 174


Sure enough, in Volume IV, page 174, one reads (in the entry for Kammermusik Number 1, Op.24/1):

"The work requires eleven players, one of whom, the person in charge of the percussion is to 'serve' (as Hindemith puts it) nine instruments. ... The 'servant' of nine has to deal with a xylophone, a side-drum, a Holztrommel (a Chinese block-drum; or the head of a professor), a small pair of cymbals, a tambourine, a triangle, a tin canister full of sand, a siren, and one note of a glockenspiel. ... The canister full of sand has, I am informed, sometimes presented difficulty, owing to the fact that the sand obtainable from the grocer is so frequently adulterated with sugar; but in Edinburgh it is convenient to import the finest West Indian sand from Portobello."