For the following reasons, courtesy of Osborn Music:
A young child says to his mother, “Mom, when I grow up I’d like to be a musician.” She replies, “Well honey, you know you can’t do both.”
Q: How do you make musicians complain?
A: Pay them.
Q: What do you call a beautiful woman on a trombonist’s arm?
A: A tattoo.
Q: What’s the difference between a banjo and an onion?
A: Nobody cries when you chop up a banjo.
Q: What do you call a drummer in a three-piece suit?
A: “The Defendant…”
And for these reasons, courtesy of Mountainside Music Academy:
Did you hear the one about the bass player who locked his keys in the car? It took him 45 minutes to get the drummer out.
A guy left his accordion in the back seat…When he got back to his car, the window was broken, and there were two accordions inside.
Q: What’s the difference between a guitar player and a pizza?
A: A pizza can feed a family of four.
Q: What’s the range of a tuba?
A: About 20 yards, if you have a good arm…
Surely, then, you can understand why there must be a National Hug A Musician Day, and there is, today, Nov. 13.
It is, of course, reasonable to assume most of the jokes above were written by musicians, but, seriously, where would we be without them? Don’t we all have a love of music in some form?
Today, says nationaltoday.com, there are more musicians than there has ever been before, creating art and trying to find ways to live off of what they love. However, there are 41 per cent fewer paid musicians today than in 1999.
Being a musician is a very specific career path. You can be a musician for hire that tours with different bands and records specific needed parts in studios, or you can be a part of a band that specializes in a particular genre and release your own albums. Either way, it takes a lot of hard work and commitment.
For National Hug a Musician Day…
• Go to a show (in a shameless plug, former Morning Star music columnist Dean Gordon-Smith and his band, Redfish, play Vernon’s Towne Theatre Saturday, Nov. 15. Tickets available through thetowne.ca/movie/redfish;
• Share music with friends. Nothing helps your musician friend more than sharing their music with people who would really enjoy it. Word of mouth is still the most effective form of advertising;
• Give them a good ol’ squeeze. Being a musician is hard. Not only are there more musicians in the world than there are gigs, but not every show you get will be your favorite. Sometimes, at the end of the day, musicians just need a well meaning, stress-relieving hug.
The accompanying photo for this story, from the Museum and Archives of Vernon, shows a quartet rehearsing for a school gig at Vernon High School in 1958. There are no names attached, so we don’t know if any of the group went on to musical fame or fortune.