Fun_People Archive
21 Dec
Musical Cross Dressing

Date: Tue, 21 Dec 93 17:13:43 PST
To: Fun_People
Subject: Musical Cross Dressing

 From: Marie Eaton <eaton@henson.cc.wwu.edu>

A little guide to proper dress code for musicians.
-Marie

 From: Jim Barrett <JBARRETT@astro.sunysb.edu>
 Subject: Musical Cross Dressing

... you can't play in C wearing blue jeans, flannel shirt and denim jacket.
     Blues jeans are the proper dress for tunes in G, D and A, the open
string fiddle tune keys.  The musical theory behind this is that when the
fiddle players' blue jeans are so tight they can't bend their little
fingers, they have to be able to use all the open strings -- G, D, A and E.
That's called supply-and-demand music theory.  And you can't do that in C.
     To play in C -- you can sing in C, the people's key, wearing anything
you want to -- but to play in C you have to be wearing a sport coat, or at
least loafers with no socks.  C and F are, in musicology, what we call the
folk-preppie keys, not blue jeans keys.  If you have any khaki pants, you
might get by with the flannel shirt.
     Now if you want to play in B-flat, E-flat or A-flat, that takes a suit.
You've got to have matching pants and jacket, white shirt, dark tie and
black, tie-up shoes for these keys.  You also have to have someone else
count the beat for you and tell you when to start in these keys. You cannot
count for yourself and keep up with more than one flat at a time.  It has
never been considered proper to begin a piece in A-flat on your own, without
someone else to give the starting signal.
     D-flat and all the minor keys are tuxedo music. You have to sit down
to play in these keys, and you must look straight ahead while you play
in a minor key, and never at a another musician.  He already knows he's
playing the wrong note, and doesn't need your glance to show everyone else
he's the one.
					--- Anon. (Dan Rowles ?)

© 1993 Peter Langston