Early Music Jokes




Lauda: the difference between shawms and krummhorns.

Neums: Medieval midgets.

Trope: A malevolent neum.

Quaver: beginning viol class.

Cantus Firmus: the part you get when you can only sing four notes.

Hocket: the thing that fits into a crotchet to produce a rackett.

Neumatic Melisma: a bronchial disorder caused by hockets.

More, along with a ton of banjo jokes, here.

(The picture is of a baroque rackett or rankett--you can buy one at the website linked to above, if you have $2000. It's a double-reed instrument, a relative of the bassoon and oboe.)