These are stories and test questions accumulated by music teachers
in the state of Missouri, circa 1989. Source Missouri School Music
Newsletter.

I can't reach the brakes on this piano!

Just about any animal skin can be stretched over a frame to make a
pleasant sound once the animal is removed.

It is easy to teach anyone to play the maracas. Just grip the neck and
shake him in rythym.

My favorite instrument is the bassoon. It is so hard to play people
seldom play it. That is why I like the bassoon best.

I would like for you to teach me to play the cello. Would tomorrow or
Friday be best? 

Music instrument has a plural known as orchestra.

Tubas are a bit too much.

A contra-bassoon is like a bassoon, only more so.

The most dangerous part about playing cymbals is near the nose.

The flute is a skinny-high shape-sounded instrument.

Instrumentalist is a many-purposed word for many player-types.

Anyone who can read all the instrument notes at the same time gets to
be the conductor.

The main trouble witha French horn is it's too tangled up.

For some reason, they always put a treble clef in front of every line
of flute music. You just watch.

The concertmaster of an orchestra is always the person who sits in the
first chair of the first violins. This means that when a person is
elected concertmaster, he has to hurry up and learn how to play a
violin real good.

Question: Is the saxaphone a brass or a woodwind instrument?
Answer: Yes.

Last month I found out how a clarinet works by taking it apart. I both
found out and got in trouble.

A bassoon looks like nothing I have ever heard.

Cymbals are round, metal CLANGS!

Question: What are kettle drums called?
Answer: Kettle drums.

When electric currents go through them, guitars start making sounds. 

The double-bass is also called the bass viol, string bass, and bass
fiddle. It has so many names because it is so huge.

While trombones have tubes, trumpets prefer to wear valves.

A trumpet is an instrument when it is not an elephant sound.

Another name for kettle drums is timpani. But I think I will just
stick with the first name and learn it good.

Instruments come in many sizes, shapes and orchestras. You should
always say 'celli' when you mean there are two or more cellos.

A tuba is much larger than its name.

A harp is a nude piano.

My favorite composer is Opus. 

My very best liked piece of music is the Bronze Lullaby.

Probably the most marvelous fugue was the one between the Hatfields
and McCoys.

Most authorities agree that music of antiquity was written long ago.

Morris dancing is a country survival from times when people were
happy.

A good orchestra is always ready to play when the conductor steps on
the odium.

Caruso was first an Italian. Then someone heard his voice and said he
would go a long way. And so he came to America.

I know what a sextet is but I would rather not say.

Music sung by two people at the same time is called a duel.

When a singer sings, he stirs up the air and makes it hit passing
eardrums. But if he is good, he knows how to keep it from hurting.

In the last scene of Pagliacci, Canio stabs Nedda who is the one he
really loves. Pretty soon Silvio also gets stabbed, and they all live
happily ever after.

An opera is a song of bigly size.

Aaron Copland in one of your most famous contemporary composers. It is
unusual to be contemporary. Most composers do not live until they are
dead.

Henry Purcell is a well known composer few people have ever heard of.

Beethoven wrote music even though he was deaf. He was so deaf he wrote
loud music. He took long walks in the forest even when everyone was
calling him. I guess he could not hear so good. Beethoven expired in
1827 and later died from this.   

Handel was half German, half Italian, and half English. He was rather
large.

John Sebastian Bach died from 1750 to the present.

A virtuoso is a musician with real high morals.

Refrain means don?t do it. A refrain in music is the part you better
not try to sing.

Agnus Dei was a women composer famous for her church music.