Instruments

The Picard Maneuver@lemmy.world to Memes@sopuli.xyz – 459 points –
74

I faked trombone all the way through middle school. Adam, the kid next to me, knew how to play trombone and could read the music as well. What I did was create my own system of trombonal slide positions, numbered 1 through 6. Then I would watch where Adam moved his slide with each note played, and I would write the corresponding number from my system above each note on my paper.

I leached you like a vampire, Adam.

you created your own system for actively refusing to learn to play normally. lol

i mean good job too I guess but I think just practicing would have been less effort.

This is especially funny because I think there's only 7 positions on a typical trombone anyway, and unless you have godlike lips can only hit 3 or 4 octaves across those. i played trombone through high school and it's like the easiest instrument, haha.

I did the same for the piano tbh. I was better at rhythm games than parsing sheet music so I'd practice and memorise pieces on something like Synthesia.

That's harder when playing plinky plonk though.

Yeah, that's why I'm stuck playing with one hand, never properly learned notation

I think non-musicians can tell a cello from a violin and a tuba from a trumpet.

Exactly. This is not a musician vs a non musician, but a musician vs a 5 years old.

I wish it was that way. I've seen a 20 year old get brass instruments mixed up. Many reference squidward when talking about clarinet, oboe, English horn, and bass clarinet. Unfortunately it isn't just musician vs a 5 year old.

I've had multiple people call my baritone saxophone a trumpet... It's funny and sad everytime

The amount of times people have called my trumpet a saxophone, or my trombone a saxophone, or my clarinet a saxophone, or my melodica a saxophone, or my saxophone a saxophone apauls me.

Never call someone a saxophone; not only is it rude, it's a slur and against the law.

But can they tell a violin from a fiddle?

The difference is the bridge. Fiddle has a flatter bridge to make it easier to hit all four strings at once. Violin has a curved bridge to make it difficult to hit multiple strings at once.

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Soundwise or visually? I can see the difference (big vs little) but I don't think I could reliably pick out the sound between the two.

I was thinking visually. But even sound-wise I don't think most people would hear a cello and think that's a violin (even if they don't know it's a cello). But I've listened to a lot of Apocalyptica and 2Cellos, and I also grew up on cartoons that feature tubas frequently for comedic effect, so maybe I'm just biased.

I found this video and I really wouldn't be able to tell if it was just sound. I think I have like 2 categories I can reliably do for strings: bow or not.

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I only recognize one epic saxophone guy and it isn't george michael.

As a musician, this is how I feel when talking to percussionists. Pretty much anything that makes a sound can be used for percussion and plenty of them have been given specific names: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_percussion_instruments

My favorite percussion instrument, "alarm device"

Somebody had a fire drill during band class and said "write that down, write that down!"

Yeah, I'm an amateur musician and can tell the difference between different kinds of saxomophone, between cellos and violas, and so on. But, there are a lot of things I'd just call "drums" that have specialty names. I mean, how many names are there for "large upright drum that you play with your fingertips and thumbs while it sits between your legs"?

"Squidward flute" made me cringe so hard I almost passed out. God please tell me none of you are actually that lame

no one is. this is the most ridiculous caricature I've ever seen and the immense snobbery of the so-called musician is unbearable. no one calls cellos violins. no one says Squidward flute or plinky plonk. literally everyone knows what a saxophone is, no one says careless whisper, which hasn't been nearly as popular and ubiquitous as it was decades ago. i wouldn't be surprised if fewer people know about careless whisper than they do about epic sax guy from Eurovision.

bruh my guitarist friend calls all the orchestral instruments "violins"

that still goes against the image...

*careless whisper* is a really weird way to spell Baker Street

Wow, I know the saxophone reference but clearly have never heard the actual song. That transition to and from the singer on acoustic is jarring. The sax part is completely out of place in this song, or the singer is. It feels like they put two completely separate ideas together and shrugged.

Sing us a song, you're the plink-ploink man

Im pretty sure if the trombone is rusty both of those two people can distinguish it from the others.

(... then again, the adjacent color there is some shitty shade of green so ... kinda, I guess?)