So now that I’m playing songs that I recognize, I’ve tried to tell people about them with mixed success.  These are not tunes that are known by their titles – Minuet 3 and Happy Farmer mean nothing to anybody except those of us who have played through Suzuki Book 1!  I do not have the best singing voice, but I try to let people in on the joy I have that I’m playing these recognizable classical tunes (well, technically Baroque and Romantic, but that takes up too much space), “you know, ‘da Da, da DA da DA…” and so on, but depending on the day it comes out worse than it sounds when I play it on the violin!

When I was younger and sang in choirs there was a running gag about the word “Elephant.” The idea is if you forget the words to the song you’re supposed to be singing on stage, just start mouthing the word “Elephant” over and over again and you’ll probably fool  the audience, at least, if not the conductor!

Tangents and corollaries to these observations abound – James Taylor forgetting  the words to Sitting on the Dock of the Bay and whistling, is one old story.  And did anyone ever really figure out what was going on with In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida?

And then there are times when you just don’t want to say the words, supposing younger ears might be listening – as I let my mind wander on this topic I was reminded of a truly wonderful rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody by everybody’s favorite puppets:

Thanks for reading.

Ryan