My Musings

PS-Ashley Rocks!

Monday, November 04, 2002

What’s a Saxophone?

Don’t get the wrong idea. I know what a saxophone is. Really. I play one.

A while ago Ashley and I had an online conversation that I unfortunately did not save. Basically it started as an argument, with me taking my favorite role of complainer/bitcher. This time the target of my incessant whining was: trumpets. I absolutely hate trumpets. Not the players, of course—many people I like play trumpet—Dan, Ben, Bouyack, Bouyack #3 (well, kind of; he switched to French horn, or F horn, or whatever the heck he plays now, but I know he’s a trumpet player at heart), Steven, Dan’s dad, Bouyack’s mom, Ashley, Nick (never met the guy but he seems cool), and I’m sure there are others that I forgot to mention. This is quite a contrast to, say, the percussion section, in which I like: precisely no one. But I absolutely hate the actual trumpets, as in, the instruments. Why? Let me count the ways…

1) They’re inexpensive
2) They’re small and easy to carry around
3) They take no time to assemble
4) They take no time to put away
5) They’re made out of hard metal and are extremely easy to swing around in a baton-like fashion; thus, they make good weapons
6) They get the melody EVERYWHERE they go—marching band, concert band, jazz band, full orchestra, pit orchestra, you name it: if they’re there, they’re playing the melody
7) They’re loud and their sound carries extremely well indoors and outdoors alike
8) They come with all sorts of accessories to make them sound funky, i.e. straight mutes, wah-wah mutes, those weird buzzy metal mutes, and so on
9) I was really kinda hoping to make a list of ten reasons, but it looks like I’m gonna have to top it off at nine
10) Oh, wait! You can get them wet and it doesn’t matter! Whew, that’s ten.

If you want to get technical about it, then I suppose I don’t really hate trumpets so much as I’m just jealous of them. Take saxophones, for instance—my instrument. They’re heavy. They’re expensive. They take forever to assemble and put away. They’re shaped funny and attached to your neck, so you can’t really fight with them. They never get the melody except for in jazz band. Their sound doesn’t carry but they sound loud up close, so what happens is that everybody in the band around you bitches constantly about how loud you are while the audience never hears a peep of your existence. No accessories. The pads get ruined in the rain. When they play anywhere except for jazz band they often as not get crappy-ass parts because nobody really wants to hear them in the first place and they’re only there because the director lacks the authority to, say, kick them out, or make them switch to a worthwhile instrument, such as clarinet or bassoon or something. And they tune like crap. So from my perspective, trumpets really have it nice, which is what I was complaining to Ashley about (she plays trumpet). I forget who first said it, but one of us (I think it was probably Ashley) eventually said something along the lines of, “You know, trumpets are the greatest!” And I was like, hey, they really are. Small, cheap, loud, melodic—the Greatest at everything. The Greatest of them all.

Ashley, I think, would have been perfectly content to let it end right there, but I, non-trumpet player that I am, was not. Sure, we’ve established that trumpets are the Greatest, I argued. But what about saxophones? What are They? My suggestion was that saxophones are the Coolest. They sound cool and they are the stereotypical jazz instrument, and jazz is cool. Also, saxophones can make all sorts of cool sounds despite not having any accessories. There’s growling and flutter-tonguing and dropping your jaw to make the note you’re currently playing turn really sour and drop half a step and all kinds of other neat stuff! Trumpets are the Greatest and saxophones are the Coolest, I proclaimed.

Ashley wouldn’t have it. Saxophones are definitely not the Coolest, she said. If I remember correctly, we brainstormed for a while in an effort to come up with some kind of fitting adjective, but no conclusive decision was reached. Throughout the whole thing Boris kept pushing for Coolest but Ashley was incorrigible. Which is why I need your help! What, I ask, is a saxophone? I still stand by Coolest. What thinketh you? Email me at chessman@columbus.rr.com and tell me what Adjective best fits the saxophone.

Heck, while you’re at it, you might as well just gimme an Adjective for ALL the freaking band instruments. Here’s my list:

And I’m not kidding! Please email me!

Seriously. I need to get some emails, people.

Seriously.

Trumpets: the Greatest
Drums: the Dumbest
Flutes: the Sweetest
Clarinets: the Jolliest
Drums: the Crappiest
Tubas: the Phattest (get it? Like, they’re fat, in that they’re big, but also phat, as in cool? Yeah. Don’t complain unless you plan to email me a better one)
Saxophones: the Coolest
Drums: the Worst
French Horns: the Roundest
Trombones: the Second Greatest After Trumpets
Frumpets: the Frumpiest (yeah, I know, this makes no sense, but Microsoft Word drew one of its infuriating squiggly red lines under “Frumpets”—there it goes again—and suggested I replace it with “frumpiest.” Saying that “frumpet”—arrrrgh, DAMN these squiggly red lines!!!—hold on a second—ahhhhh, much better—isn’t a word…really! That’s where *I* draw the line. Absolutely ridiculous. A frumpet is a musical instrument and therefore very much a word! But if Bill Gates, richest and most powerful man on Earth, thinks that Frumpets are the Frumpiest, then so it shall be, and if you disagree, then I just wanted to let you know who you’re messing with)
Drums: the Worthless
Oboes: the Meekest
Baritones: the Euphoniums
Euphoniums: the Trumpet Rejects
Drums: I Really Hate Them, and It’s Not Jealousy This Time
Bassoons: We Don’t Use Them In Our Band, So Who the Hell Cares

There you have it: my list of Band Instruments! For the love of god, please email me yours. Oh! Oh! Here’s a way I can get you guys to send me stuff: I promise I’ll make a blog entry out of your responses! Pretty cool, eh? A chance to appear in Boris’s blog?

Okay, maybe not. But please send me your lists anyway, and if you don’t want to appear in my blog, just tell me, and I promise I’ll completely ignore you. I look forward to reading your ideas!

Fine, fine. Compromise. If you don’t want to waste your precious time coming up with an adjective for every damn band instrument, at least send me an email with the following:

1) A simple “yes” or “no” saying whether or not you agree or disagree that trumpets are the Greatest
2) A simple “yes” or “yes” saying that you agree that saxophones are the Coolest.
3) All right, all right—you don’t have to agree that saxes are the coolest. But if you are at odds with me on this one, then please tell me what Adjective DOES fit the mighty saxophone—well, hey now! The Mightiest? Hmmmm!—because the failure to come up with one is what forced me to write this blog in the first place.

And if it just so happens that you’re some random person from Texas who I’ve never met and you got here via the link from Ashley’s blog (which, by the way, you should all check out!), then send me an email anyway! I don’t care. But please title your email “band adjectives” or something like that so I don’t think it’s spam and delete it. And I wouldn’t mind it if you stuck your name in the email somewhere so that I’d have some way other than your email address to refer to you when I make my blog (“But fartknocker@hotmail.com seems to think that Saxophones are the Swarthiest…”). And drop me your credit card number too so I can buy cool stuff online. All righty! Thanks a bunch, guys! The success or failure of the next blog hinges on YOU.

.: posted by Boris 9:56 PM

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