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Sargent Music Posts

One of my Favorite Jokes

An old geezer, who had been a retired farmer for a long time, became very bored and decided to open a medical clinic.  He put a sign up outside that said:  Dr. Geezer’s clinic. “Get your treatment for $500, if not cured, get back $1,000.”

Doctor “Young,”    who was positive that this old geezer didn’t know beans about medicine, thought this would be a great opportunity to get $1,000.

So he went to Dr. Geezer’s clinic.

This is what transpired.

Dr. Young: — “Dr. Geezer, I have lost all taste in my mouth.” can you please help me ??

Perfect Pitch

This is a delightful experience I had many years ago in about 1956 or 1957, about two years before my High School graduation (1959). I was taking piano lessons from Professor George Fitzroy, a student of Rachmaninoff, Emeritus piano faculty at BYU.

After one of my lessons, he said that he wanted me to know that his perfect pitch was better than mine. I told him up front that I believed him and he didn’t have to prove anything. He said that he did. So he showed me three silver dollars, with different dates on them, one was an 1847 silver dollar. He said he was going to put them in a hat, shake them and while shaking them, he would lift one and listen to the difference in the sound.   He then shook them just to let me hear the sound they made. They sounded like shaking the small metal slugs found at constructions sights—I couldn’t imagine anyone could really adequately determine pitch because they sounded like noise only.

Composer Effects

A new report now says that the ‘Mozart Effect’ is a fraud. Contrary to earlier claims, playing Mozart for your baby will not improve his IQ or help her get into a top college. (Of course, we’re all better off from listening to Mozart purely for the pleasure of it.) However, research on other composers’ effect on child development has revealed the following:

LISZT EFFECT: Child speaks rapidly and extravagantly, but never really says anything important.

BRUCKNER EFFECT: Child speaks very slowly and repeats himself frequently. Gains reputation for profundity.

WAGNER EFFECT: Child becomes a megalomaniac. May eventually marry his sister.

MAHLER EFFECT: Child continually screams at great length and volume that he’s dying.

SCHOENBERG EFFECT: Child never repeats a word until he’s used all the other words in his vocabulary. Sometimes talks backwards. Eventually, people stop listening to him. Child blames them for their inability to understand him.

BABBITT EFFECT: Child gibbers nonsense. Eventually, people stop listening to him. Child doesn’t care because all his playmates think he’s cool.

IVES EFFECT: Child develops a remarkable ability to carry on several separate conversations at once.

GLASS EFFECT: Child tends to repeat himself over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again.

BRAHMS EFFECT: the child is able to speak beautifully as long as his sentences contain a multiple of three words (3, 6, 9, 12, etc). However, his sentences containing 4 or 8 words are strangely uninspired.

CAGE EFFECT: child says nothing for 4 minutes, 33 seconds; preferred by 9 out of 10 classroom teachers!

STRAVINSKY EFFECT: Child is prone to savage, guttural and profane outbursts that often lead to fighting and pandemonium in the preschool.

SARGENT EFFECT: Child will crave chocolate milk, Dove’s dark chocolate bars and chocolatines.

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Hearing my “Interlude for Clarinet Choir” in France

In October 2001 I was privileged to be able to travel to France and participate in a rehearsal and concert with my “Interlude for Clarinet Choir” played by the Fribourg, Switzerland Clarinet Choir directed by Jean-Daniel Lugrin.

Mr. Lugrin was worried that I might want them to do certain things differently, but the played everything wonderfully. My only suggestion was to raise a dynamic level for the Eb Soprano Clarinet for several measures.