Other reasons people would get voted off:
-playing out of tune
-giving hard-to-read cues
-arguing that maybe we shouldn’t actually take time here bc the score doesn’t say rit.
-being a double reed player
-pianist playing too loud

Reality show idea: Survivor but it’s a bunch of 20-something classical musicians at a chamber music festival getting increasingly annoyed with one another. People getting voted off because who really needs two violists anyway

Orchestras should program an entire concert of works by Strauss and Feldman. Then they could advertise it as “Rick and Morty”

My harmless conspiracy theory is that there are exactly two reasons people repeated the exposition back in the day:
-you fucked up the first time and want a second chance
-someone arrived late to the concert and you don’t want them to be confused or feel left out

And now we all suffer as a result

Pre-performance talking to the audience starter pack:
-clearly more nervous to speak than for the performance itself
-joke about how many notes the pianist has
-biographical fact nobody asked for
-pianist in background staring off into the distance
-“anywayyyyy hope you enjoy!” *awkward bow*

"Do unto others as Henri would Dutilleux." - @collabpnomemes.bsky.social

Cedez who?

Cedeez Nuts

*knock *knock* Who’s there?

If you could only change one letter of the title of any piece of classical music, what would it be?

I’ll start: Beach’s Garlic Symphony

What is it about trills that suddenly cause people to stop counting and lose their pulse? I swear 99% of all rhythmic errors with my collaborators are due to 1) trills, 2) ties, or 3) rests

Recently started my doctoral thesis, I really hope my advisor loves it

You’re telling me a gae licked this symphony?

Not sure why everyone always needs to be accompanied by a pianist. I want to hear Sibelius concerto with bagpipes, Erklönig with electric guitar, Schwanendreher with accordion, or Franck with cowbell - you get the idea

We all know most social media is a cesspool of horrible takes these days, but there’s truly nothing more toxic than the live chat during the Chopin competition. People be airing out their piano lesson trauma and casual racism and sexism and suddenly, bam, the world’s armchair rubato expert shows up

This is a very unfortunate time in history to be teaching students the difference between natural, harmonic, and melodic minor. Any hint of mentioning scale degrees 6 and 7 and all hope is lost

So I’m teaching a section of class piano for music major non-pianists, and they have to pick a repertoire piece from a list of five that I gave them. And I kid you not, literally every she/they and they/them picked the Florence Price. Iconic

There’s no feeling quite like accidentally running into one of your students in public. Like what tf you doing at the grocery store, you just failed your class piano midterm, go practice

Commenting “but how will this affect Lebrun’s legacy?” under every classicfm post (referring, of course, to German 18th-century female composer Francesca Lebrun)

Last, but certainly not least:

-“outside of music” sentence is definitely the most interesting part of your bio

-“has won multiple prestigious competitions” - one of them is your school’s concerto competition, and the other is your only legitimate claim to fame
-“champion of new music” - you were the only one gullible enough to say yes to the local student composer population

-“interested in under-represented composers” = learned one Florence Price piece when every one else started doing it in 2020
-“medalist in ___ competition” - definitely did not come in first
-“faculty at _____ university/conservatory” - taught a few non-major lessons as a grad student

4/

-“shared the stage with members of ____ Symphony ” - played in one chamber group with a colleague who actually went on to get a job
-“studied with” someone you had two lessons with at a summer festival in 2019
-at least four or five more name-drops with tenuous at best connections

3/

-“performed in Carnegie Hall” (your school orchestra rented it out and you were in the back of the second violins)
-“international performing career” (your youth orchestra went on tour somewhere in Europe 12 years ago)
2/

Early-career classical musician bio starter pack:

-starts with loosely attributed quote that makes you seem important
-“innovative programming"
-“dynamic performer”
-lists competition from high school (without the year, of course)
-way-too-long paragraph

1/

“We should start a piano trio!” feels like a classical musician’s version of “let’s start a podcast”, except upstart chamber groups don’t usually last quite as long

No one:
Cliburn competition semifinalists choosing their “free choice” concerto:

Literally what the fuck is this

Alternative date idea: we read all of the Cliburn competitors’ cheesy quotes and laugh at them (we’re really just envious and wish we were that good)

Date idea: we look through the Cliburn competition semi-finalists’ programs and take a shot for every composer who’s not a dead white male (we’ll still be sober at the end of the night)

When you attend a piano trio concert and the program is the two Schubert trios: