Posts Tagged ‘Music Review’

Limerick-Off Monday – Rhyme Word: CHAIN at the end of any one line (Submission Deadline: February 15, 2020)

Saturday, February 1st, 2020

It’s Limerick-Off time, once again. And that means I write a limerick, and you write your own, using the same rhyme word. Then you post your limerick(s) as a comment to this post and, if you’re a Facebook user, on Facebook too.

I hope you’ll join me in writing limericks using CHAIN at the end of any one line. (Homonyms or homophones are fine.)

The best submission will be crowned Limerick-Off Award Winner. (Here’s last week’s Limerick-Off Award Winner.)

Additionally, you may write themed limericks related to STRING INSTRUMENTS, using any rhyme word. And of course I’ll present an extra award — one for the best STRING INSTRUMENT-related limerick.

How will your poems be judged? By meter, rhyme, cleverness, and humor. (If you’re feeling a bit fuzzy about limerick writing rules, here’s my How To Write A Limerick article.)

I’ll announce the winners on February 16, 2020, right before I post the next Limerick-Off. So that gives you two full weeks to submit your clever, polished verse. Your submission deadline is Saturday, February 15, 2020 at 10:00 p.m. (Eastern Time.)

Here’s my CHAIN-rhyme limerick:

My treasured gold chain has a knot,
Which I’d meant to repair, but forgot.
I returned to the chain
Where I bought it … in vain;
Now it’s naught but a large, empty lot.

And here’s my STRING INSTRUMENT-themed limerick:

A work that was written for strings
Debuted and received many zings;
The audience booed it,
Reviewers all rued it.
But in its defense, no one sings.

Please feel free to enter my Limerick-Off by posting your limerick(s) in my comments. And if you’re on Facebook, I hope you’ll join my friends in that same activity on my Facebook Limerick-Off post.

To receive an email alert whenever I post a new Limerick-Off, please email Madkane@MadKane.com Subject: MadKane’s Newsletter. Thanks!

Musical Fictoids

Thursday, April 25th, 2013

One month ago, The Washington Post Style Invitational challenged us to create “fictoids — totally bogus trivia — about music and the music world.” Having worked as an oboist for many years, I couldn’t possibly resist such a contest. So I’m posting all my entries, one of which earned an Honorable Mention.

I’m curious as to which of mine is your favorite. And of course feel free to make up your own musical trivia in my comment section, and to guess which of my musical fictoids won that Honorable Mention. (I reveal my winning fictoid at the end of this post — upside down to make it harder to cheat. :)

Here are my entries:

  • Greedy J.S. Bach descendants tried to patent his Two and Three-Part Inventions.
  • Antonio Vivaldi once sued himself for plagiarism … and won.
  • Ludwig van Beethoven’s “Ode To Joy” (from his Symphony No. 9) was originally entitled “Oy, Oy, Oy.”
  • The world premiere of Verdi’s “Aida” ended in tragedy when the lead soprano accidentally crushed an elephant to death.
  • Female harp players are so loathsome, that shrewish women are now referred to as harpies.
  • For several years during George W. Bush’s presidency, the Dallas Symphony’s concert programs id’ed its brass section as trumpets, trombones, tubas, and Texas shorthorns.
  • Composers George Frideric Handel, Georg Philipp Telemann, Antonio Vivaldi and Johann Sebastian Bach were all so impoverished, they died of starvation. Hence, the name “Baroque composers.”
  • Famed French flautist Jean-Pierre Rampal never appeared on stage without a chilled glass of champagne. That’s why flautists are now known as flutists.
  • Ludwig van Beethoven didn’t actually go deaf; he just pretended to be deaf because his wife and mother-in-law were so annoying.
  • In a 1980 New York Philharmonic April Fools’ Day performance of Mozart’s Concerto for Flute and Harp, flutist Julius Baker and harpist Ursula Holliger played each other’s instruments. The New York Times proclaimed theirs the best ever performance of the work.
  • The Eastman School of Music was known as the Polaroid School of Music, until Kodak’s George Eastman won it in poker game.

And my Honorable Mention-winning entry is:

˙ɥʇɐǝp oʇ ʇuɐɥdǝןǝ uɐ pǝɥsnɹɔ ʎןןɐʇuǝpıɔɔɐ ouɐɹdos pɐǝן ǝɥʇ uǝɥʍ ʎpǝƃɐɹʇ uı pǝpuǝ ”ɐpıɐ“ s’ıpɹǝʌ ɟo ǝɹǝıɯǝɹd pןɹoʍ ǝɥʇ

CD Review: Mark Westin’s Dark Humour

Saturday, January 28th, 2012

If you enjoy funny song lyrics, you need to give Mark Westin’s latest album a listen. Dark Humour is packed with songs whose cleverness is the envy of humorists like me.

I, for one, can’t resist titles like Narcissistic As Me, Open Mike, When Beautiful People Break Up, and this soon to be classic Falling In Love On Facebook.

In fact, Falling In Love On Facebook was the song that made me fall in love with Mark Westin’s lyrics: A couple of years ago I heard Westin perform it live at one of his regular performance venues: Whistling Willie’s, an excellent restaurant in Cold Spring, New York.

So check it out — you’ll love the lyrics. Besides, Mark Westin plays a mean guitar.