[Dixielandjazz] You think OKOM music is complicated? Try Music Theory

[David Richoux]

This was just posted on the Contrabass list - no idea who the  
original author was...



(Hope a lot of you had fun at Sacto - this was the first year i  
missed in over 20! )

Dave Richoux

=====================================

You might be a music theory geek if . . .

1) you whistle in style brise.

2) your favorite pickup line is, “What's your favorite augmented  
sixth chord?”

3) your second favorite pickup line is, “Would you like to raise my  
leading tone?”

4) you only sing tunes that make good fugal subjects.

5) you have a poster of Allen Forte in your room.

6) you know who Allen Forte is.

7) you dream in four parts.

8) those “parasitic” dissonances make you queasy, especially when  
left unresolved.

9) you can improvise 16th century counterpoint with no trouble, but  
you frequently forget how to tie your shoes.

10) you can look at a piece by Bach and say, “You know, I think he  
could have gotten a better effect this way . . .”

11) you can answer your phone with a tonal or a real answer.

12) you like to deceive your friends and loved ones with deceptive  
cadences.

13) you only drink fifths, and then you laugh at the pun.

14) you feel the need to end Tchaikovsky's Pathetique Symphony with a  
picardy third.

15) instead of counting sheep, you count sequences.

16) you find free counterpoint too liberal.

17) Moussorgsky's “Hopak” gives you nightmares.

18) you wonder what a Danish sixth would sound like.

19) you long for the good old days of movable G-clefs.

20) the Corelli Clash gives you goosebumps.

21) you have ever quoted Walter Piston.

22) you can hear an enharmonic modulation coming a mile away.

23) you like to march to the rhythms of Stravinsky’s “Le Sacre du  
printemps.”

24) your license plate says: T351.

25) you have ever tried to do a Schenkerian analysis on “Three Blind  
Mice.”

26) you have ever tried to do a Schenkerian analysis on John Cage’s  
4'33''.

27) you confuse fishsticks with ground bass.

28) you found No. 27 funny.

29) you have ever had a “Gurrelieder” party.

30) you have ever pondered on what an augmented seventh chord would  
sound like.

31) bass motion by ascending thirds or a sequential pattern with  
roots in ascending fifths immediately strikes you as “belabored.”

32) you lament the decline of serialism.

33) you know what the ninth overtone of the harmonic series is off  
the top
of your head.

34) you have ever dressed up as counterpoint for Halloween.

35) you can name ten of Palestrina’s contemporaries.

36) you enjoy the tang of a tritone whenever you can.

37) you have ever found a typographical error in a score by Berio,  
Stockhausen, or Boulez.

38) you have ever heard a wrong note in a performance of a  
composition by Berio, Stockhausen, or Boulez.

39) you have ever played through your music as if the fingering markings
were figured bass symbols.

40) you suspiciously check all the music you hear for dangling sevenths.

41) when you're feeling prankish, you will transpose Mozart arias to  
locrian mode.

42) you keep a notebook of useful diminutions.

43) you have composed variations on a theme by Anton Webern.

44) you know the difference between a Courante and a Corrente.

45) you have trained your dog to jump through a flaming circle of  
fifths.

46) you have ever used the word “fortspinnung” in polite conversation.

47) you feel cheated by evaded cadences.

48) you liked differential calculus because it reminded you of set  
theory.

49) every now and then you like to kick back and play something in  
hypophrygian mode.

50) you wonder why there aren't more types of seventh chords.

51) you wish you had twelve fingers.

52) you like polytonal music because, hey, the more keys the merrier.

53) you abbreviate your shopping list using figured bass.

54) you always make sure to invert your counterpoint, just in case.

55) you have ever told a joke with a punchline of: because it was  
polyphonic!

56) you know dirty acronyms for the order of sharps.

57) you consider all music written between 1750 and 1920 to be  
“rather elementary.”

58) you memorize dates and times by what they would sound like in set  
theory.

59) you can not only identify any one of Bach’s 371 Harmonized  
Chorales by ear, but you also know what page it is on in the  
Riemenschneider edition and how many suspensions it has in the first  
seven bars.

60) you got more than half of the jokes in this list.