Instructions

Alternate sections are marked Say and Play. The Say sections are spoken or sung to an improvised tune in a stentorian and condescending manner, as a traffic court judge lecturing a recidivist speeder. Read as though the text makes perfect sense, even though its grammar and meaning may make sudden, unexpected turns.

The Play sections use an ordinary five-line staff with oval note heads () interspersed with diamond () and cross () note heads. Play in a manner that contrasts with the lecturer's attitude. Be mocking or solicitous or calm or resigned or anything else appropriate.

• I've used bar lines set off groups of notes. Groups should be observed by accent, phrasing, pauses or some other way.
• The cross () indicates some non-standard noise, like a multiphonic or a strum behind the bridge or a dropped drumstick or a cheese-grater arpeggio or something else. Use your imagination.
• The diamond () indicates a note that is one semitone (in either direction) different from the preceding note.
• Rhythm, tempo and dynamics are entirely up to the performer. Since no clef is specified, you can pick that as well.

You can play in concert with other performers, who may play other versions of this piece, or other any other materials, composed or improvised. When playing with others, the Say sections should be performed as disruptively as possible, and the Play sections should be played sensitively, with utmost regard to enhancing the performance of the other players.

Score

Say: Have you listened to the rec.music.classical type.

Play:

Say: How is that the comparison is restricted to how the variation jumps from instrument to instrument or section to section, just as in the first line above, it looks like it's about Monty Python. If you trace it backward far enough, you'll find that it's shorter than the average non-professional wind musician has better intonation than the so-called "masterwork". Obviously length isn't the criterion.

Play:

Say: Just more trolling on your part.

Play:

Say: You prefer verbosity?

Play:

Say: On the contrary, it's quite relevant to that judgment.

Play:

Say: You're erroneously presupposing that there is no such composition.

Play:

Say: Or his horse Concorde?

Play:

Say: No, he isn't. Is that how you intend to explain how your statement applies to yourself is interesting, if not amusing.

Play:

Say: That is a difference between a rhetorical question and rhetoric.

Play:

Say: I can't impersonate that with which I was the one who admitted to not recognize what a "loonie" is.

Play:

Say: Non sequitur.

Play:

Say: Apparently you have some musically-inclined friends who don't mind a little knock-knock joke, try "knock knock" "who's there" about twenty times (if they'll even play along that long) and then finally spring "Philip Glass" on them. Usually gets pretty good laugh, if they get that far. You'll have to listen to the "Fantasy Variations" to be perpetrated on the E-flat soprano clarinet. The Tokyo Kosei musician handled the sustained notes amazingly well.

Play:

Say: Doe hasn't tried.

Play:

Say: What alleged "cards"?

Play:

Say: An illogical question, given that I also mentioned the length of another piece that is being pointlessly argumentative, because he hasn't tried to use an argument. He simply pontificates that it's too long for its own good. He simply pontificates that it's a fact doesn't necessarily make it so. Witness the thread titled "Professor Plum Gets Snippy!"

Play:

Say: On your part.

Play:

Say: Where's Pudge when you say "we" don't mention a name?

Play:

Say: How did I say it was John Doe did.

Play:

Say: Yes.

Play:

Say: On the contrary, I do understand.

Play:

Say: Let's hope your flurry of emails are directed at Doe's multiple ISPs.

Play:

Say: That's your problem.

Play:

Say: As opposed to logically.

Play:

Say: On what basis do you call twelve accordions at the newsgroups line.

Play:

Say: It's hard to figure out people like Doe.

Play:

Say: Whose tradition? Mozart's Symphony No. 11 is less then 10 minutes long. Now let's compare to Beethoven's Ninth, which has been on every post of mine.

Play:

Say: On the contrary, I do understand.

Play:

Say: Have you listened to is for "Scheherazade", in which the solo cellist, who was playing with her eyes closed and didn't quite play the innocent routine. Of course, I'm willing to accept my own evaluation of myself?

Play:

Say: Non sequitur, given your reference to the recording to refresh my memory about how the string section. Do you consider the "Fantasy Variations".

Play:

Say: On the contrary, it was "good"?

Play: