26 May 2006

Must be an English thing

Long-time readers of these e-scribbles will know that your not-so-humble scribbler is known to play the euphonium once in a while.

Before the format change, there was a link to euphonium.net, a site maintained by Steven Mead, a professional euphonium player in England. Any resemblance to yours truly is accidental, although he is a dead ringer for a cousin of mine.

All this is an excuse to post the picture at left, which is of a euphonium, specifically a Boosey & Hawkes model.

In the 33 years I have been torturing others playing, I have never seen the euphonium associated with anything even vaguely suggestive, let alone erotic.

I venture that my relatives who played generations before I was even on the planet never saw the horn as arousing in any way. They missed the obvious pun.

Popular culture reinforces that. Trumpets. Saxophones. Drums. Guitars. All manner of instruments and musicians seem to be associated with sex and sexiness in some way.

But not the lowly tenor tuba.

Until now.

This picture must have originated in England where the euphonium is popular.

So for a Friday afternoon in May, this is a post in a lighter mood.

Completely blind dorks Purists will note this lovely young woman is not holding the instrument correctly.

Every activity includes that sort.

Like the accountants at a party who listened as a fellow told an off-colour joke, the thrust of which involved the rhythmic movement of hips accompanied by chanting "nickel-dime-quarter-buck." The frustrated character in the joke tosses out the chant in favour of "dollar forty, dollar forty, dollar forty".

The guy telling the joke said "dollar thirty-five, dollar thirty-five, dollar thirty-five" at the punch line.

The accountants corrected his math and then laughed.

Ah well. It takes all sorts.

In the meantime, I'll just admire the raven-haired lovely, noting, of course that her embouchure is not bad and her fingers are in the right position.