Richard's Poor Almanac by Richard Thompson for September 30, 2013

Please, stop.

Very insightful! I always was suspicious of the String Family, but could never prove anything….

Stop it, I got a masters degree concentration in Glockenspiel from Harvard.

Any brass instrument with a spit valve is a good choice. They can develop an ice block when playing in cold weather unless the player is drinking enough alcohol to permanently damage a Breathalyzer.

Ain’t a glockenspiel. A glockenspiel is laid out horizontally, has tubular resonators, and is played with a mallet in each hand. The instrument shown is a bell lyre, strictly for marching, played with only the right hand because the left hand is needed to support the instrument. Since it is used only for marching, it is commonly played by oboe players, since oboes don’t, as a rule, march.

One also doesn’t usually encounter a viola in a band, but Sullivan called what he used in his comic operas a “band”, even though it differed from an orchestra only in using cornets instead of trumpets, so I’ll let it slide.

Makes me grateful I took up the clarinet.