hey

im SO embarrassed, i was practicing with my bedroom window open about a week ago, as it was baking hot, and some kids started listenig to my horn playing. they started shouting "who's playing?" but i ignored them.

they soon got bored of no one replying, so as i'd finished practicing, one of them shouting "you sound really good. i just LOVE the saxophone"?

I've heard someone's baritone sax described as a musical central heating system....

My husband's hurdy gurdy has been described as all manner of things, although "a mechanical violin" probably comes the closest to how it actually works!

lol, hornplayer! No one at my school knows what a viola is. It's only when I say "big violin" that they start to realise what one is. It's so annoying.

when someone in my year saw my horn case on my back (a normal fixed bell case, not a screw bell) and said, "oh, that's a clavinova isnt it?" and i replied no, and then he said, "so its an oboe then?"

no joke, people at my school have NO clue...............

Can you mistake a flute for anything but a flute??!!

Well whenever I tell someone I learn the harpsichord. They reply,
'Oh the harp...yes I love the harp.'
I'm then forced to explain what a harpsichord is and seeing that they are beyond help I usually say , 'it's sort of like a piano' and the conversation finishes there.

People who have heard me play (via MP3 recording) think playing the bagpipes is really cool !

I'm learning the sax though.

My basssoon has been called a Diggerido!!!!!! And that person plays an instrument and is in my GCSE music class.

QUOTE

Can you mistake a flute for anything but a flute??!!

Well today, this boy started going to me about my flute: "That is just a recorder right because Yamaha make recorders..." Like come on!!!

most people at my school can understand that i play violin and piano and that's it. they think a French horn is something you find on the head of a French cow. as for the viola... i wish they'd learn to pronounce it correctly!!! oh well.

you are joking right?!

My viola is ALWAYS getting mistaken for a violin it's SO annoying! grrr...
jess

I'm not the only one who's had their flute mistaken for a recorder then. At least it was my neighbours and neither them or any of their children have played instruments so I can't expect too much from them.

QUOTE

when someone in my year saw my horn case on my back (a normal fixed bell case, not a screw bell) and said, "oh, that's a clavinova isnt it?" and i replied no, and then he said, "so its an oboe then?" no joke, people at my school have NO clue...............

lol! i've got one even worse than that! I was carrying my horn case once a couple of years ago (fixed bell) and some wise guy in the street shouted 'Why are you carrying a coffin?!'
the ignorance of some people is shocking!

My clarinet's been mistaken for a flute before. And my dad asked my why I didn't join a brass band. I told him it's because I played clarinet and that isn't a brass instrument, but he decided as the keys are shiny, then it must be a brass instrument!

hi again. i was at my school's second orchestra today, playing the french horn, and i was sitting next to a saxophonist... later on one of the flute players asked me "why is your saxophone a different shape?!?!" when i explained she went "oh. but it's LIKE a saxophone, isn't it?"

I play - well, am learning - the violin. My housemate plays the 'cello. Idiots on the bus frequently think both of these are guitars...

also, when i was about 11 and had a nice compensating horn, but it a really old and shabby light brown case, some annoying guy said, "why are you taking a car engine home form scholl?"

(i promise im not making these up btw, horns have a rough time at comprehensive/state schools, as so few people play them, let alone know what they are - in or out of the cases!)

saxophone is a bit of a grey area instrument family wise, a bit like the piano (stringed?) or the harp (percussion?)

a lot of ppl in my old gcse class didnt know if sax was brass or wind, and EVERYONE thought piano was a stringed instrument.

My bassoon was called OBOE for the 1st time, and CLARINET for the 2nd time..............

QUOTE (tamsin @ Sep 14 2004, 08:08 PM)

Can you mistake a flute for anything but a flute??!!

[QUOTE]

Dunno bout the actual instrument, but I'm getting really sick of non-musical (nd sumtimes even musical!) teachers cracking stupid jokes about the case when I'm carrying it around!!
e.g. "That's a mighty small machine gun you've got there" thinkin their dead funny!Next person who ses dat will be admiring their wonderful purple eyeshadow in a mirror!

QUOTE

Dunno bout the actual instrument, but I'm getting really sick of non-musical (nd sumtimes even musical!) teachers cracking stupid jokes about the case when I'm carrying it around!! e.g. "That's a mighty small machine gun you've got there"

That happens to me too when I take my viola to school. Today in music, my music teacher said that all violas should be burnt! I THINK she was just trying to wind me up, since she knows I play viola. I told her that violas were beautiful, beautiful things, as are the players (I think I heard that on one of the forums... I've stolen it from someone else... sorry, whoever that was)

Going into a pub. with my fiddle in its case with clear intent to play it in a session someone asked at the door: "Is that a machine gun you've got in there?" and I replied, "no, it's a *dangerous* weapon". In my hands anyway!

My Grandad always called my clarinet a flute - not sure why!!

My violin case is so big people always ask me what I've got in there... I'm sometimes tempted to give a response like Chateauferret's above!

QUOTE (tamsin @ Sep 14 2004, 09:08 PM)

Can you mistake a flute for anything but a flute??!!

Oh yes! I have had "Oh, you play the clarinet" and the ever popular "Is that a violin in there"????? Jeez, some people do not have a clue.

Is that a violin???

<Stares at computer screen in totla disbelief!>

Thats not clueless, its downright blind!!

well, ppl have said my cello is a guitar ...........but i have had no probs so far over piano !!!!
orchestral percussion usually gets people stumped tho....u get all kinds of ridiculous answers !!! hehe
ellie x

People never know what a viola is, they're like "isn't it the same as a violin?" I have to explain to them that its big violin that goes lower, some people have thought that viola is SMALLER that a violin, geez! And then theres the pronounciation of it, the amount of times ive heard v-I-ol-A

how come all instruments that aren't pianos or guitars always muddled up with different things

i have to explain wot a flute is by holdin up ma arms to the side
who can b sooooo dumb not to kno the basic instruments apart

its soooo annoyin

People I know think a flute is played like a recorder. Don't know how that'd work...

And I also get jokes from the movie 'American Pie' considering I play the flute. They're all the same, but everyone thinks they are so original when they say stuff like that!

I don't lug my piano around with me so no one has ever been able to mistake that (even if they could)!

However, I do have a friend who plays the cello. A couple of years ago, she brought it to school and when she arrived in the form room, one of the not-so-bright guys shouted "Hey, that's a big gun you've got there!". She was also once engaged in conversation in the middle of the street by a total stranger who first asked if it was a violin and then if it was a double bass. At least he realised it was a string instrument as opposed to a weapon...

piano... hmmm been mistaken as an accordian... heard me plahing... jeez mate i'm not that bad!!~

My flute has been mistaken for a clarinet many times and thats it out of the case!

Accordian?? Piano??
Ok, so they both have keyboards...

I get this stuff all the time;

'Cool, you play guitar?'
'Nope'
'Whats that then?'
'Bass guitar'
'Oh. But they're the same, right?'
'Nope, very much different'

Then they usually come to the conclusion that guitar and bass are virtually the same, but bass is easier 'cos it has less strings. Obviously very untrue.

QUOTE (fluteandbassoon @ Sep 15 2004, 03:13 PM)

My basssoon has been called a Diggerido!!!!!!

Me too!!!!
And an oboe?!
I've just giving up trying to explain it to anyone..... i just tell them I play the flute.
Most people can cope with that.

Someone came up to me after a concert where I'd been playing my beautiful hand-made bass recorder (with a crook mouthpiece) and said, 'I like your mediaeval saxophone!'

An old lady asked me during the interval of an orchestral concert I was playing in, 'What are those instruments that look like guns?'. After some false starts we worked out she meant the bassoons.

I sang at a choir concert on Saturday and one song included an oboe, which my family mistook for a clarinet!!!
Luckily, nobody has even mistaken my flute for something else!

QUOTE

Someone came up to me after a concert where I'd been playing my beautiful hand-made bass recorder (with a crook mouthpiece) and said, 'I like your mediaeval saxophone!'    :huh:

Heeheeeee oh wow. That cracked me up for ages.

QUOTE

Accordian?? Piano?? Ok, so they both have keyboards...

And thats about all they have in common.

Me and my friend were performing on the clarinet and the flute in a retirement home. Two of them started a very loud conversation going something like this:
person one:"It's very nice. What are the instruments?"
person two: trying to whisper"A saxophone and an oboe."
1:"What?"
2:"A saxophone and an oboe!"
This continued until both of them were bellowing at each other across the room! It was very funny, and extremely hard to keep a straight face!
At the end of the piece my dad stepped in to explain the instruments or we would have been there all night!

agree with the american pie flute jokes, get them all the time

My clarinet has been mistaken for a recorder (partly acceptable, but not much) a flute (barely acceptable) and a trumpet ( A trumpet?!?!?!)

Someone also called it a "clarifet"??

Try explaining what a viola is ...
'Is it smaller than a violin?' NO
'Do you play it like this?' [Does a very poor imitation of cello playing] NO WAY!!!!

It can be funny sometimes.... when I'm in a good mood...

Some of my colleagues at school had obviously seen too many Mafia films. I had my clarinet with me (in its case), and they were making jokes about wanting to see my machine gun. Obligingly I opened the case, to which the response was "blimey, it's a rocket launcher".

i was once walking to my band with my trumpet on my back, in an ordinary gig nag when i police man walked past, he slowed down really obviously n stared at me for a while before decidin that that trumpet was not infact some sorta gun, or bag of , money. You would be surprised how many people pretend to play the trombone when u say trumpet?

My oboe is ALWAYS being mistaken for a clarinet (in and out of the case) - nearly understandable as they are the same colour and shape.
But then, it was mistaken for a bassoon - hmmm I'm not so sure about that one.
And THEN once, someone asked me if I "enjoyed playing the trombone" - I mean WHAT?????

As for the saxophone (wind/brass), I overheard my mum telling someone that I played a brass instrument, so later I asked her what she was talking about, and she said "your saxophone! why what did you think?" Oh dear.

No one has confused the piano or the guitar with anything else though... Yet.

I took my daughters clarinet to the MUSIC SHOP to be cleaned, refurbished etc. This produced much heated discussion from the owners and staff as to what it was. Most thought it was a soprano sax, especially as it was in a long rectangluar case.

Why? Its about over 100 years old, sliver cased, very decorative left behind by an American Service bandsman (he never came back must have died) with my husbands grandmother back in the early 1940s. the only other member of the family to play it was my brother in law, who also got grief over what it was.

We rescued it from the attic restored it and now its regularly played, but still it is often refered to as a Soprano Sax. Even the other clarinets in her Orchestra have given it dubious looks! Its just a pretty Clarinet.