Many moons ago I had the opportunity to read a number of essays written for a general music appreciation class. Because this class fulfilled a requirement and was geared toward non-musicians (or even to people with very little musical experience at all), and because the particular group of students seemed somewhat disinterested…the essays sometimes contained very interesting observations.
On musical structure (like…A B A form…):
“This piece is a ba ba ba. It is a beautiful pea.”
On Chopin and his many nocturnes:
“Chapping Nocture is one of many noctures. It was not played by a large scup.”
On live music:
“Mr. Brian was whaling away on his trumpet.”
“The cello is a string. It is a family of four strings. Mr. Enzo was playing with his fingers, which looked difficult and hard. He was playing Pitsy Cato.”
“One of the older students composed his own songs, presumably from scratch.”
“At one point the teacher got up to give a speech and I think she said I hate to give the pitch, but I thought she said I hate to be the bitch, and I hope so because that would be funny.”
On Tchaikovsky’s “The Seasons”:
“Then on to winter, the season of the freezin…and spring, when I could picture the happy pheasants dancing in the square.”
Some pieces went over better than others:
“At the end it sounded like one of them was going to be gnashed with a sword. I didn’t really like it. It seemed to gruesome.”
“I listened to this piece while sitting on my bed with my little tweety bunny aside of me.”
Composers are very prolific:
“At the age of 75, Beethoven became death and started composing music.”
