Readers--
Here's a question I posed to my good friend, Jeff, husband of Justcurious, as prompted by the very odd appearance of BOTH the UNC and V-Tech marching bands joining the football field to perform together.
Question: If you had to go to battle armed only with a musical instrument, what would it be?
Assume your opponents are also armed with instruments. You may use more than one type of instrument. You may do a MacGyver and jerry-rig instruments (and instrument parts) however you'd like. It is a battle to the death.
Discuss.
Answer: Trumpet
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37 comments:
I have two answers.
If we were talking about "the weapon is the music that comes from the instrument," my list would be
1. guitar
2. trumpet
3. pipe organ
in that order. If, however, you are talking about literally using the instrument as a weapon against my foe, as I suspect you are, then the list changes. In order,
1. bag pipes
2. crash cymbols
3. pipe organ
My word, "readn." "If I ain't talkn, I'm readn."
Literal weapons, yes. List two.
I'm going to go with my trusty old flute. Being made of nickel and silver means one end could be heated and reshaped and I'd have a shortish spear. I'm sure s-s could give it a more technical name.
Then I'm going to start forming alliances and look for grubs to eat. This is Band Survivor, right?
4. sledgehammer drum
5. flail trombone
6. rifle oboe
7. catapult sousaphone
8. polearm double bassoon
9. hot oil kettle drum
10. bullwhip flute
Oh, and if I leave the point end slightly open, it could also be a dart gun.
I am also going to go with a flute, which I am a little hesitant to call a shortish spear (which is usually a javelin, and may I say I love that not only does JC assume I know this stuff but that I actually do?) due to length and go with stiletto instead.
If I had an army, I would equip trombones as artillery, tuba players as a sort of heavy infantry, flutes and bassoons as a kind of light side skirmishers, and put the timpani on internal combustion engines for the most awesome cavalry ever.
Doesn't it seem obvious that the tuba would be the best for both killing literally and killing musically?
You tried running with a tuba lately?
Seriuosly? You're willing to put your tuba up against my bagpipes? With the pipe organ waiting in the wings?
What you fail to realize is, and this is a common, albeit rookie mistake, so it's somewhat understandable, other than that the price for this particular mistake is a fight to the DEATH -- is that a tuba might be large. But a bagpipe, is fast. Lightning fast. And sharp. And deadly, both in its accuracy and its mind-numbing ability to chant you to sleep... Reed-driven, drone-infused, built around an air chamber made from the lung of the King Elephant -- and featuring -- yes -- the "blow stick." There are three drone pipes plus a chanter, making four, count em, four pipes comin at your a$$, faster than you can say, "Grrreat Scott, Cap'n, I'm givin er all she's got!!!" You've heard of the 100-hand slap? Well this is the lightning round, baby, where we'll show off the 1000-pipe stab, mutilating any comers, all while the musical cascade is both confusing you into submission and laughing in your face.
So the bruiser tuba might get in one shot or two, and maybe on a good day with the right opponent could be thrown for one long shot. But the bagpipes -- the bagpipes, my friend, will chew you up and spit you out before you can work your way down to that first ultra-low E, and then go out for a pint and some haggis after just to laugh it off...
A.
PS. I will admit the elephant lung part is, most likely, not real. I was rollin. But you bring that tuba and we'll see. Tell DAT.
Andy D-the pipe organ is immobile. I march around it and leave it impotent. I giggle.
I see your bagpipes and remind you that they are largely fabric, and reeds fragile.
No one calls any organ of mine impotent, madam...
So now my bag pipes o' death are being mocked? And by someone who picked a flute because, allegedly, she can grind it into somekind of prison shiv??
I mean I can just see it. "The prison shower scene." S-S heads into the steamy room, a flute hidden and snaking up her arm. Suddenly, the larger prisoner clears an area -- the fight is on!!! S-S whips out her flute shiv, the prisoners circle, and -- S-S begings playing "Locomotive Breath" by Jethro Tull!! The really fast part. Meanwhile, larger prisoner grabs an oboe reed from her fellow prison gang member who snuck it in -- and I mean, watch out, because those oboe reeds are tender but really pointy!! -- ask any torture victim who's had their fingernails attacked -- and she stakes the young floutist right in the chest... Fight over. Or as a musician would say, "It turns out that song did not have a coda."
I think I'll stick with the pipes that brung me.
: )
Those pipes going to be whining a dirge for you, AD. Do you know how close you'd have to get to the shiv-bearer in order to give them a little scratch with your friend's reed?
Btw, what kind of musical group do they have in prison? A Contraband.
Dude...and Andy,
I have just one thing to say. I play the piccolo for a living. You're all goners.
Respectfully and with a tiny little can o' piccolo whopass,
Claudia
Contraband.
Nice!
(my word is hogeak...nerdy pig farmer?)
JC and Claudia (and S-S),
I have the utmost respect for each of you. And "contraband" is most certainly the joke of the week!
But I don't think you get it. And I'm tired of you sh*t-talkin flute players.
It ain't just the reed, ladies. It is also: a whirling cascade of FOUR pipes, each ranging from 2-4 feet long, raining down on your head like the British Navy parked off the coast of -- well wherever they prance around and play flutes and picolos. These pipes are individually lethal, whether spun quickly and cracked on your head, or whipping forth and knocking your flute to the floor. But together -- together my friends, the four pipes form a continuous whirring blade of death. They can be spun so quickly that it's like walking into a helicopter blade. A moving helicopter blade, let me clarify. Or alternatively, the stealthy ninja armed with this bagpipe can use each pipe alone as a blazing angel of death.
Side note -- in the history of the written word, I'm just wondering if the bagpipes have ever labelled a "blazing angel of death"? But I digress.
The point is, no flute is going to poke me fast enough to evade your imminent mortality once The Pipes are out. As Homer Simpson said about his foot, "The [pipe] is coming down, the [pipe] has spoken."
A.
Good morning, people.
A.
AD-with all due respect, particularly to your organ, have you tried throwing a bagpipe recently? They have all the aerodynamic properties of a cow. We are talking 4 pipes, yes, of differing sizes and weights, attached to a heavy piece of fabric. Now, if you were planning on equipping cows with bagpipes, that might be fearsome indeed.
JC-if this is going to end up like survivor, can I be in your alliance? We can hunt for grubs together and then I'll stab you in the back once we've demolished Andy and his organ.
While you are, pontificating your, flutatious next movementologies, I will be, uh, plotteering my way to your, how do I say, ultimate demisification.
I don't fight with the organ. It's back up. Plus, how would I get it to your survivor island - wait, no, it can be done. Like the Bomb dropping on Nagasaki, it can be done.
But the point is, call it fabric all you want - the bagpipe is coming for you. You'll be thinking "I didn't know he could throw a bagpipe" all right -- when you're stuck to the top of a tree, impaled by my thrown bagpipe.
A.
Trombones - all the way. You can lash out with a wicked right hand and knock any opponent out before they get to you. especially if they are armed with a flute or pipe organ.
TP - does this now give us official license to call you t-bone?
The thing about trombones is, they're flimsy. Plus, it won't be me against "76 trombones marching in the band," as I imagine you were humming as you wrote that. It'll instead be you v. me, Mano y Mano, b-pipe v. t-bone. Lord won't that be a glorious fight.
The music though, I'm very worried about. It might sound like the air rushing out of a blimp-sized balloon very quickly, yet taking all day and getting to lower and lower tones as it deflates...
A.
Okay, I can't believe that I'm going to admit this....but as we were lying in bed last night, I was recounting this posting and all of its witty comments to my husband. I believe that together we have come up with something to foil the ninja bagpiper. Bassoon used as a bazooka and loaded with....wait for it...castanets!
Winner!! : )
But all of you will be actually INSIDE my tuba with just your feet sticking out, running around bonking into organs and useless bagpipes and stepping on flutes while I laugh and laugh and laugh.
And you will hear my catch word "Zattat" as I bang on it from the outside as you stumble by.
I say a cello. You have a full body shield, a bayonet, storage space for actual weapons you've brought because you have ZERO regard for Mike Bailey's rules of this game, AND something to sit on in the mud.
I'm leaving out the utility of the strings on purpose.
Thank you for your kind "untetion".
Cello?
You left out -- that it's made of wood, would rot/crumble/smash apart instantly, and has more gaps between the strings than my bagpipe would know where to attack first.
Hvae you seen the footage of, say, Pete Townshend of The Who smashing his solid-body guitar apart on the stage in about 3 seconds flat? That's me, with your cello.
I mean even the Tuba could flatten that thing in a heartbeat.
Oh it's the bagpipe for sure.
A.
Cello beats bagpipe easy!
What??!!
Boy, when you first came in here, you was cryin like a [baby].
HA!
'Diontio', Andy D.
MB.
You're busy. We know this. But...
Post.
A.
(ala "Spam" by Monty Python)
"POST, POST, POST, POST,
POST, POST, POST, POST,
LOV-E-LY POST!!!, POST, POST,
LOV-E-LY POST!!!, POST, POST..."
In other news: today's word, "feckledi," meaning "Italian for 'feckled.'"
Ok now here's something.
Remember MB's effort within the last year or so to have a posting on his blog here from every state in the union -- and the final state South Dakota finally showed up?
cnn.com's "iReporters" has taken it to the next level. "They've done a twist on it."
They now have "iReporters" stationed in every COUNTRY in the WORLD, except two: Equitorial Guinea, and Nauru. I think these are both made-up countries. Well actually, I think Nauru is a "real" country, if you consider any other planet named in Star Wars Episode 1 to be either (a) real or (b) a country on Earth rather than a planet in a galaxy far far away. But anyway, they've one upped him.
Discuss.
All planets in Star Wars are real.
And I agree MB, post! You have coffee, you don't need sleep.
I'm detecting life here on Mars...
Indectivity
is gone. And in it's good place,
Repeatball Central.
word 1: "folycha," meaning "a seasons greetings (orig. fallalahlahlah) while delivering a judo chop."
word 2: "hollemo," meaning "slang for 'a religious gay'."
could use a little more jibber jabber these days. just sayin'
Is MB dead again do you think?
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