Final Blog Before the Holiday Absence
Happy Fireworks Day world! Okay, it's a day early, but I probably won't be blogging over the next four days, so I had to say it now.
FRANTIC CROWD OF SCANTILY CLAD female READERS: No, Ryan! Don't go! Stay here and entertain us with your rapier wit and sarcasm.
RYAN: Sorry, ladies, but I must also visit the real world from time to time and attempt stilted conversation with actual people I don't know.
FRANTIC CROWD OF SCANTILY CLAD female READERS: We love you, Ryan! We want to remove your pants and. . .
RYAN: Ladies, please, don't make this any more difficult than it is. I shall be back on Monday. Till then. *smooch*
FRANTIC CROWD OF SCANTILY CLAD female READERS: Eeeeeeeek! *swoon*
Pupils Blow Raspberry at the Recorder
According to a Reuter's news report out of London, the humble recorder, played by generations of schoolchildren, received an unwelcome blow on Wednesday when researchers revealed the average child hates it.
I remember the recorder. Truth be told, my childhood recorder is still floating around somewhere in my parents' house, probably buried in with my scrapbooks and photo albums. Who doesn't remember fumbling through the scale with the plastic ear assaulting "recorder?" I can still, if I concentrate really hard, remember the fingering required to belt out a squeaky rendition of "Hot Cross Buns" or "Mary Had a Little Lamb."
Cheap and easy to play, the simple wind instruments have been the staple of any music teacher keen to get their pupils making a noise -- however excruciating the practice might be for their parents. However, a survey of more than 1,000 schoolchildren revealed most youngsters would far rather learn an instrument with a bit more street credibility.
Street credibility? Are schoolchildren today gathering in alleys after class to buy a kilo of trumpet?
CHILD #1: Hey, I've got some good instrument today. Check it out; 100 percent pure Kenny G. quality saxophone.
CHILD #2: *dips finger and tastes* What shit are you trying to pull here? That's been cut with at least 20 percent recorder. Get outta my face!
By the way, why in the hell is it called a "recorder" anyway? It doesn't record anything. At least I don't think it does.
Gawd those things were damned near impossible to play. You could barely breath into the things before they they started squeaking at such an impossibly high pitch, dolphins started washing ashore with broken eardrums thousands of miles away. In order to successfully play a note, you had to learn to puff so little air, it wasn't enough to make an ant blink.
There was nothing quite like the sound of a class of 30 children honking and tooting away at the same time. You could hear classroom doors slamming shut all the way down the hall as teachers tried to seek silence from the torturous wailing. I kept getting in trouble because I used my recorder to whack the girl I liked who sat in front of me in the back of the head.
Ah, the recorder, a child's introduction to winning a girl over with music.
Posted by Ryan at July 3, 2002 12:42 PM
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