Off-the-wall musical facts

Subject: Off-the-wall musical facts
From: The O'Meara
Date: 13 Aug 03 - 11:42 AM

If you drive on an American highway at exactly 55 miles per hour, the white lane-divider lines go by at exactly the rhythmn of "Duke of Earl." (Duke, duke, duke, duke of earl...etc.) Oh yes they do. And I'll bet you're going to try it first chance you get.

Got any others?

O'Meara

Subject: RE: Off-the-wall musical facts
From: Allan C.
Date: 13 Aug 03 - 12:16 PM

If you sing "Pretty Peggy-O" while holding your nose and brushing your teeth with baking soda and vinegar, you can approximate Dylan's version.

Subject: RE: Off-the-wall musical facts
From: Chief Chaos
Date: 13 Aug 03 - 12:24 PM

If you drive through the Hampton Roads Bridge tunnel at 70 MPH (speed limit is 55) the divisions in the road will match the beat of ZZ Top's "Sleeping Bag" causing your car to bounce down on the down beat.

Subject: RE: Off-the-wall musical facts
From: Cluin
Date: 13 Aug 03 - 12:29 PM

Ravel's Bolero isn't really all that good a tune to screw to. "Old Mountain Dew" sets a better beat.

(but Bo Derek can set whatever she wants on the damn stereo...)

Subject: RE: Off-the-wall musical facts
From: greg stephens
Date: 13 Aug 03 - 12:29 PM

AllanC:this is hardly suprising, as that is precisely the recording technique that Bob Dylan used.

Subject: RE: Off-the-wall musical facts
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 13 Aug 03 - 12:38 PM

Ravel's Bolero isn't for the screwin' part of it. It's great for the foreplay though (except it never lasts long enough).

John

Subject: RE: Off-the-wall musical facts
From: Don Firth
Date: 13 Aug 03 - 12:47 PM

Idiosyncratic (i.e., weird) pianist Glenn Gould was once stopped by a traffic cop.

"What's the problem, officer?" he asked.
"Sir, you just ran a red light back there," responded the policeman.
"But, office," said Gould, "I've stopped for a lot of green lights that I never got credit for."

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Off-the-wall musical facts
From: Deckman
Date: 13 Aug 03 - 01:46 PM

My Mothers 1948 Hoover vacumn cleaner sucked up dirt to C sharp! Bob

Subject: RE: Off-the-wall musical facts
From: Deckman
Date: 13 Aug 03 - 01:48 PM

You can't make a nose flute stay on pitch if you have a runny nose! Bob

Subject: RE: Off-the-wall musical facts
From: Deckman
Date: 13 Aug 03 - 01:51 PM

I used to tune my guitar to the radio. Bob

Subject: RE: Off-the-wall musical facts
From: Deckman
Date: 13 Aug 03 - 01:53 PM

Accordians burn longer than banjos! Bob

Subject: RE: Off-the-wall musical facts
From: Bill D
Date: 13 Aug 03 - 02:00 PM

now, there are some old fretless banjos of good hardwood that will burn quite awhile!

Subject: RE: Off-the-wall musical facts
From: Bill D
Date: 13 Aug 03 - 02:04 PM

"You can't make a nose flute stay on pitch if you have a runny nose"

but a BIG capo will help. (where?...why, on your neck, of course!)

Subject: RE: Off-the-wall musical facts
From: Deckman
Date: 13 Aug 03 - 02:07 PM

OUCH!

Subject: RE: Off-the-wall musical facts
From: dwditty
Date: 13 Aug 03 - 02:22 PM

When a basketball player completely misses the hoop, net, and backboard, the crowd yells in unison "Air Ball." Though no explanation is given, studies show it is always in Bflat.

Subject: RE: Off-the-wall musical facts
From: greg stephens
Date: 13 Aug 03 - 02:46 PM

Even if you havent got a banjo in the band, people still ask you to play "Duellin' Banjoes"

Subject: RE: Off-the-wall musical facts
From: Don Firth
Date: 13 Aug 03 - 02:49 PM

I once knew a rather sensitive fellow who lived in an apartment in the University District in Seattle. He was a music major at the same time I was in the music department. The poor fellow had to move because his refrigerator hummed in A and the buses went by in Bb. Woke him up at night and drove him crazy during the day. I don't think it was much of a drive, however. . . .

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Off-the-wall musical facts
From: Deckman
Date: 13 Aug 03 - 02:58 PM

Hey Don ... Do you remember that stupid jazz bass player that used to wake us up at the crack of dawn with his practising, while we were hanging out in Berkeley? Bob

Subject: RE: Off-the-wall musical facts
From: Oaklet
Date: 13 Aug 03 - 03:05 PM

Ford Focus light-on-but-key-out reminder tone as one opens the driver's door is the opening notes from Orchestral Manouvres in the Darks's early eighties hit......bollocks - I have been trying to remember the title for two months and it is driving me insane.

Subject: RE: Off-the-wall musical facts
From: Deckman
Date: 13 Aug 03 - 03:14 PM

Oh dear! How far is your drive going to be? Bob

Subject: RE: Off-the-wall musical facts
From: Noreen
Date: 13 Aug 03 - 03:20 PM

OMD Discography, Oaklet

Subject: RE: Off-the-wall musical facts
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 13 Aug 03 - 03:21 PM

oaklet-you spelled manouvers rong.

Subject: RE: Off-the-wall musical facts
From: Noreen
Date: 13 Aug 03 - 03:23 PM

I think it's Enola Gay.

Subject: RE: Off-the-wall musical facts
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 13 Aug 03 - 03:27 PM

anyway-them lights on warning things piss me off, i have got one on the company car, [a rover 214sli], i open the car door about 100 times a night, and if i had a wiring diagram for it, i would disconect it.john

Subject: RE: Off-the-wall musical facts
From: GUEST,amergin
Date: 13 Aug 03 - 03:31 PM

john from hull, you're a fine one to be critisising everyone's spelling....

Subject: RE: Off-the-wall musical facts
From: Noreen
Date: 13 Aug 03 - 03:33 PM

You spelt manoeuvres wrong too, jOhn.

Subject: RE: Off-the-wall musical facts
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 13 Aug 03 - 03:34 PM

man-hoovers.

Subject: RE: Off-the-wall musical facts
From: Bill D
Date: 13 Aug 03 - 03:42 PM

manoeuvres

manœuvers?

Subject: RE: Off-the-wall musical facts
From: GUEST,jennifer
Date: 13 Aug 03 - 03:46 PM

moves

Subject: RE: Off-the-wall musical facts
From: Cluin
Date: 13 Aug 03 - 03:46 PM

A fiddler friend of mine sometimes will use the dial tone to get his instrument into concert pitch. It's an E/B duotone, I think....

Subject: RE: Off-the-wall musical facts
From: Oaklet
Date: 13 Aug 03 - 04:07 PM

Sorry about the spelling, jOhn. The OMD discography does not help the Oaklet mind, Sireen. Get a Ford Focus and check. You need a deisel CDI. The notes are quavers, 4/4; starts on the first beat. DDDDDDDD (down)G#G#G#G#G#G#G#G# (up) C#C#C#C#C#C#C# (down) EEEEEEEE (repeat) or if you prefer cccccccc (down) F#F#F#F#F#F#F#F# (up) bbbbbbbb (down) ddddddddd.

Really bugging, me this.

Subject: RE: Off-the-wall musical facts
From: Amos
Date: 13 Aug 03 - 04:13 PM

My tuner reports the dialtone as a 440Hz "A" note.

A

Subject: RE: Off-the-wall musical facts
From: Cluin
Date: 13 Aug 03 - 04:15 PM

My guitar must be off concert pitch then.

*reaching for the electronic tuner*

Subject: RE: Off-the-wall musical facts
From: GUEST,McGrath of ALtcar
Date: 13 Aug 03 - 04:33 PM

I have tinitus
..............................in D

Subject: RE: Off-the-wall musical facts
From: rangeroger
Date: 13 Aug 03 - 05:01 PM

Back in the early 70's when Matra-Simca was competing in F-1, their v-12 engines were said to out-Ferrari the Ferraris.Having heard them at Ontario Motor Speedway I would agree. Loud and shrill.

An editor at Road and Track magazine,who was also a musician, worked out that a 12-cylinder engine running at 12,000 rpm produced a musical note at a frquency 3 octaves above middle C. At a volume that could be heard for miles.

rr

Subject: RE: Off-the-wall musical facts
From: Deckman
Date: 13 Aug 03 - 05:05 PM

In the Puget Sound region of Western America, Bluejaws squawk at E flat! Bob

Subject: RE: Off-the-wall musical facts
From: GUEST,celtaddict at work
Date: 13 Aug 03 - 07:37 PM

On the way to a gig in a Ford pickup once, Jon Campbell asked to have the horn blown so he could tune. He says Fords' horns are in E.

Subject: RE: Off-the-wall musical facts
From: Cluin
Date: 13 Aug 03 - 08:27 PM

Little known fact: Axel Rose stole all his dance moves from Davy Jones; he used to practice while watching old Monkees reruns.

Subject: RE: Off-the-wall musical facts
From: fat B****rd
Date: 14 Aug 03 - 03:21 AM

When I worked in a finishing shop the huge automatic zinc plating machine used to creak the opening four notes of Tchaikovski's Piano Concerto No. 1.

Subject: RE: Off-the-wall musical facts
From: Helen
Date: 15 Aug 03 - 09:40 PM

Unfortunately the full trasncript of this week's New Scientist article is not available at their website but.....

"Charles Babbage failed to finish any of his calculating machines. Were London's street musicians really to blame? p.42"

Babbage claims, and possibly rightly so, that buskers and street musicians outside his house prevented him from concentrating on his work. He waged a campaign to get the laws changed so that buskers could be asked to move along, especially from residential areas. After his death (luckily not before) an autopsy was done and revealed that he had a specific condition (forget which, but I'll look it up) which has a side effect of making the small hairs in the ear canal fall out and that means that noises become unbearably annoying. As he lay dying some of the musicians vindictively stepped up their retaliation campaign to make his last days unbearable.

Helen

Subject: RE: Off-the-wall musical facts
From: Helen
Date: 15 Aug 03 - 09:46 PM

The BHP steelmaking factory, now closed after about a century of association with Newcastle, Oz - used to hum very persistently and consistently in E.

Helen

Subject: RE: Off-the-wall musical facts
From: Jeremiah McCaw
Date: 16 Aug 03 - 08:13 AM

As Doo Wah (I'm assuming that's what the initials are for) observed, "When a basketball player completely misses the hoop, net, and backboard, the crowd yells in unison "Air Ball." Though no explanation is given, studies show it is always in Bflat."

I may have the explanation, at least for this side of the pond. The one pervasive almost-never-absent sound in all our lives is 60-cycle hum. Subconcious. Everpresent. Insidious. Which is approximately b-flat.

So I've read.

Subject: RE: Off-the-wall musical facts
From: Ebbie
Date: 16 Aug 03 - 11:13 AM

I think Americans tend to simplify words to the lowest denominator, JohninHull so we spell it 'maneuver'. (That observation of course doesn't really hold true- we say 'elevator' rather than 'lift', for example.)

Subject: RE: Off-the-wall musical facts
From: Blackcatter
Date: 16 Aug 03 - 11:26 AM

A group of more than 5 people will never sing "Happy Birthday" on key.

Subject: RE: Off-the-wall musical facts
From: Amos
Date: 16 Aug 03 - 11:47 AM

I believe the B-flat an octave+ below middle C is the natural frequency of Spaw's rectal eructations while at rest and exerting no conscious influence. Once he's awake, of course, there's no predicting what tune he's gonna play!! :>) It has also been reported that the same note, an ocave lower, is the closest approximation to the note made by Big Mick walking across a shower-room floor with bare feet.

A

Subject: RE: Off-the-wall musical facts
From: Don Firth
Date: 16 Aug 03 - 08:24 PM

Bluejaws. Are they those birds that don't shave?

Don Firth

Subject: RE: Off-the-wall musical facts
From: Rapparee
Date: 16 Aug 03 - 08:34 PM

When I turn on my cell phone, it plays the music that was played whenever Mr. Rogers entered the Land Of Make Believe.

No, I haven't modified it to do that.

Subject: RE: Off-the-wall musical facts
From: GUEST,hrothgleas
Date: 16 Aug 03 - 08:36 PM

In the US, electricity comes into the house at a B-flat (just below middle C?)

I've ssen plenty of equalizers that had a specific lever to drop this specific 'hum' out of the mix.

Subject: RE: Off-the-wall musical facts
From: Chip2447
Date: 17 Aug 03 - 03:25 AM

Put a heavy load of jeans in my washing machine and wait for it to become like all musicians, UNBALANCED... and it does a perfect jig...
jiggity jiggity jiggity across the floor.

Chip2447

Subject: RE: Off-the-wall musical facts
From: Bassic
Date: 17 Aug 03 - 07:00 AM

Rest easy Oaklet, the song you seek is OMD`s SOUVENIR (1981). Paste the link below to hear a sound clip to confirm. :-)

http://www.hagen-schmitt-online.de/OMD/htm/omd_songclips.htm

Subject: RE: Off-the-wall musical facts
From: Oaklet
Date: 17 Aug 03 - 10:09 AM

Bassic, this is not the first time you have come to my rescue. Cheers.

The announcements in Geneva Airport are preceded by a series of tones to grab your attention. These are the first five notes of "How much is your doggy in the window", but they actually sound "How much is your dog".

Relief is a spendid thing.

Subject: RE: Off-the-wall musical facts
From: open mike
Date: 17 Aug 03 - 02:13 PM

at least it isn't to the tune of "my dog has fleas" which is how you tune a ukelele..

Subject: RE: Off-the-wall musical facts
From: Deckman
Date: 17 Aug 03 - 02:22 PM

I did'nt know you could TUNE a ukelele! Bob

Subject: RE: Off-the-wall musical facts
From: Leadfingers
Date: 17 Aug 03 - 03:26 PM

I Cant Bob

Subject: RE: Off-the-wall musical facts
From: Leadfingers
Date: 17 Aug 03 - 03:28 PM

And Johnny Dankworth,Ace alto Sax player and band leader once got off a speeding fine because he maintained the 'note' of his car engine at Thirty miles an hour was Aflat and that was the note it was sounding before he was stopped.