Musical Bullying

 As a teacher, you have to be aware of bullying. Stamp it out at all costs.

However…

What if it makes you proud?

Musical bullying is a unique thing that can happen just because musicians have their own language. A conductor could shout, “Please can the plucking strings just get it together,” and it sounds like bullying but is, in fact, a technical term. Violins, violas, cellos and double bases playing without their bows do have to work harder to play at the same time.

Today, though, it was the other way round. The fact that they knew musical language allowed the situation to occur.

Musicians use Italian words to describe things and they then abbreviate those words, sometimes to a single letter. For example, the words for loud and quiet are forte and piano, which actually translate as strong and soft. These are then abbreviated to f and p. The louder or quieter something is, the more fs or ps you use. Pianissimo (very soft) would be written as pp.

My Huff and Puff club were working on God Save the King today. Huff and Puff are the loud instruments. I have Clarinet, Saxophones, horn, trumpets and Euphonium. It was a lovely sunny lunchtime and so they had already negotiated a shorter session, promising to practise at home, however, they were still a little distracted.

“We are all the loud instruments aren’t we?”

“Yes. Yes you are,” I agreed.

“Which one of us is the loudest, do you think?”

Stupidly, I said I wasn’t sure, so they decided on a scientific experiment (and I wonder why I have a headache) 

Once they had all played as hard as they could - fortississimo (fff) they decided who was the quietest and pointed to that person saying, “You’re the pee-pee.” (pp pianissimo)

I know that behaviour is unacceptable but I was quite proud of their musical knowledge.