Just for fun: similes
  • Chris Garton-Zavesky
    Posts: 6,902
    In a context I won't bore you with, I just wrote that I would have to leave my home tomorrow "like a modern liturgist leaving a traditional Mass" (and then added, "quickly, not fuming")

    What good, colorful similes or metaphors can we use to enliven our musical life?

    Here are a few starters:

    He played the organ as .....

    When he led the choir, ....

    It wasn't so much that he was late to rehearsal as .....

    Thanked by 1williamjm
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,500
    Once I was told to tell an organist to "play like Diane Bish on crack."
    Thanked by 1CHGiffen
  • melofluentmelofluent
    Posts: 4,160
    He played the organ as .....did Teddy Roosevelt charge up San Juan Hill.

    When he led the choir, .... the horses, chariots and charioteers fell into the sea, but the congregation did not sing "I am free!"

    It wasn't so much that s/he was late to rehearsal as ..... his/her vibrato meandered in even later and slower after s/he'd sung her/his first phrase.
  • williamjm
    Posts: 19
    He played the organ as did the Phantom of the Opera. ( Perhaps that would be a compliment. That dude can play!)

  • ClemensRomanusClemensRomanus
    Posts: 1,023
    He played the organ like a donkey eating a waffle.
    Thanked by 3Adam Wood Kathy Ben
  • williamjm
    Posts: 19
    Which Phantom would you be referring to? I was thinking the '20s incarnation.
  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,451
    I describe the traditional Solesmes non-accent as "the driest martini: pour gin while thinking about Vermouth." (That is, think about an accent, without trying to create one.)
  • williamjm
    Posts: 19
    Er, ClemensRomanus, were you referring to the Phantom?
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,160
    Since we've just passed into Easter, this one comes to mind: "as lost as a Jesuit in Holy Week".
    Thanked by 1eft94530
  • Chris Garton-Zavesky
    Posts: 6,902
    Thanks, all. Keep these coming.
  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,451
    image
    Thanked by 6M. Jackson Osborn CHGiffen bonniebede eft94530 nun_34 Ben
  • JulieCollJulieColl
    Posts: 2,465
    Like a trapeze artist stepping out on a high wire stretched over a hushed crowd, Lucille begins the incipit to Gounod's Gloria, with all in the little church clutching their hands, hearts in mouths, Easter hats askew, as she tentatively climbs and weaves---everyone swaying and straining in anticipation until she reaches her "A", subsiding in relief as the parish's prized soprano returns to safer ground.
    Thanked by 6CHGiffen EMH Kathy bonniebede StimsonInRehab eft94530
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,500
    I used to rehearse the youth schola walking up the loft stairs like a herd of wild elephants.

    Then like a herd of tiny mice, as light as a feather.

    Which doesn't exactly make sense.
  • SalieriSalieri
    Posts: 3,177
    Much to my chagrin: my choir often sings chant like a herd of mastodons stuck in a tar pit.
    Thanked by 1eft94530
  • SalieriSalieri
    Posts: 3,177
    image
    Thanked by 3JulieColl CHGiffen janetgorbitz
  • melofluentmelofluent
    Posts: 4,160
    Young Beatrix, mistakenly charged with bringing the Offertory Gifts in addition to cantoring the Offertory hymn, kills two birds with one feeding.image
    girl in garden.jpg
    183 x 275 - 11K
    Thanked by 2JulieColl CHGiffen
  • eft94530eft94530
    Posts: 1,577
    He played the organ as .....

    though it were An Instrument Of Guilt.


    With special thanks to
    http://forum.musicasacra.com/forum/discussion/12254/timeline-for-church-in-transition#Item_9
  • eft94530eft94530
    Posts: 1,577
    He played the organ as .....

    though Correct Notes Did Not Matter.


    With special thanks to
    http://forum.musicasacra.com/forum/discussion/12279/confirmation-music#Item_32
  • StimsonInRehabStimsonInRehab
    Posts: 1,916
    He played the organ as though he were flying another mission against the Vietcong - carpet bombing notes with extreme prejudice.
    Thanked by 3eft94530 bonniebede ZacPB189
  • ClergetKubiszClergetKubisz
    Posts: 1,912
    The cantrix sang as a goat suffering from a debilitating neck wound inflicted by a ravenous lioness.
    Thanked by 3EMH Ben M. Jackson Osborn
  • Chris Garton-Zavesky
    Posts: 6,902
    He played the organ like the Facebook addict he was: obsessively, insisting that everyone keep up with him, and constantly changing his settings.
    Thanked by 3EMH eft94530 chonak
  • David AndrewDavid Andrew
    Posts: 1,204
    That organist plays about as good as a bear cub with boxing gloves on.
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,500
    So I've been listening to the Iliad on my kindle, and Homer's similes so far are better than ours. But hopefully they are adaptable to use in describing certain dysfunctional parish dynamics?

    ...

    So were the hearts of the Achaeans split in their breasts.
    Just as a evil-minded lion comes upon cattle,
    that are grazing in countless numbers in the low land in a great marsh.
    Among them is a herdsman not yet experienced
    in fighting a wild beast over the carcass of a crooked-horned cow;
    but he walks with the herd, first in front

    ...


    [Hector] ... swooped as a high-flying eagle
    which dives to the plain through black clouds
    to seize either a tender lamb or a cowering rabbit.

    ...

    as a lion easily crushes the gentle young
    of a swift deer, snatching them with his strong teeth,
    once he has entered into their lair, and he devours their tender hearts;
    and even if the mother happens to be near,
    she cannot give them aid, for a severe trembling comes over her.
    Swiftly she darts through the thick brush and woods,
    rushing and sweating beneath the attack of the powerful beast

    ...
    Thanked by 3CHGiffen gregp M. Jackson Osborn
  • MaryAnn Carr WilsonMaryAnn Carr Wilson
    Posts: 1,738
    When the women (incl several super teens) sing with an undernourished, breathy, and slightly insecure sound, I sometimes ask them to sing as if they've gained 20 years and 20 pounds.

    When tenors sing in their own tonal center and rhythm, I ask them to sing as if they are in the same orbit as the rest of us.

    When young singers are trying to access their upper range, I ask them to hoot like an owl, baby owl, etc. Then we sing simple exercises on [u] to reinforce the feeling.
  • StimsonInRehabStimsonInRehab
    Posts: 1,916
    By the last of many excruciating verses, the choir was bringing new life to Shakespeare's words, as they "descanted upon their own deformity."
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,500
    In happy high spirits the heroes of Troy on the edge of the war zone
    Sat through the night by the numerous watch-fires burning among them.
    Just as when stars in the heavens around all sides of the bright moon
    Show themselves splendidly poised in the cloudless and clearing and calm air,
    Lighting up all high mountains and far off jetties and vast wood
    Vales, and unspeakable sweetness of air from the atmosphere bursts forth,
    And all of the stars by a shepherd are seen, and they gladden his spirit,
    In numbers as great, in between swift black hulled ships and the river,
    Troy's watch lights burned brightly in front of the city of Ilium.
    One thousand watch fires blazed on the plain, and beside every beacon
    Two score and ten men sat having kindled the flames that they tended.
    Close by, far-famed horses with stashes of barley and rye grain,
    Chewed by their chariots waiting for morning and what day might bring.
    Thanked by 1gregp
  • G
    Posts: 1,397
    He played the organ...
    .... as if settling an old grudge.

    (Save the Liturgy, Save the World)
  • ronkrisman
    Posts: 1,388
    His chant accompaniments rivaled Liszt's piano transcriptions of Wagnerian operas.
  • melofluentmelofluent
    Posts: 4,160
    The boy's voice resounded as if he were Lassus or Palestrina as a child, thus Bartolucci dismissed him from the choir post haste.
  • mahrt
    Posts: 517
    He played the organ...

    as if he were riding a motorcycle.
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,500
    As a woman with a grudge against her mother in law, who has never approved of her cooking, finally decides one day to let loose, so earnestly did the tenor sing the high harmony on the final verse.
  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,451
    +1 for Homeric structure.
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,500
    Thanks! A bit of a knack, really. I'm trying to catch on.

    As when a car whose tire has gone flat slows down and comes to a lopsided halt, so did the funeral Mass conclude in five awkward eulogies.
    Thanked by 2janetgorbitz Jenny
  • Adam WoodAdam Wood
    Posts: 6,451
    I think the key for a truly Homeric style is for the description of the compared thing to go on for such a long time that one completely forgets we are in the middle of an analogy. It also helps if there is an analogy in the middle of the analogy.

    As when an old and senile man
    Wanders forth to the grocery store in a Buick
    (Ah! Ye Gods --- what days we had when such cars we drove)
    and, stopping several times along the way to rest,
    as if weighed down by the gear of ten Spartans,
    does --- at length --- both arrive and shop,
    forgetting all that was needed and purchasing only those items he once desired
    When he was young, and ate such things,
    just so does a Homeric simile roll off the fingers
    of a typist more familiar with Shakespeare.
    Thanked by 7Kathy EMH CHGiffen janetgorbitz Jenny eft94530 JDE
  • EMH
    Posts: 47
    Mr. Wood, that was epic.
    Thanked by 1Adam Wood
  • Chris Garton-Zavesky
    Posts: 6,902
    It was as organized as a Children's liturgy.
    Thanked by 2EMH bonniebede
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