Chips!

8th-grade boy: "Let me start over.  I was hustling it a bit."

Me: "Are you going to carve pumpkins this year for Halloween?"
9th-grade boy: "Nah...." 
Me: "That's not a tradition for you?"
9th-grade boy: "No, my tradition is to hide in the bushes and throw hard candy at people." 

7th-grade boy: "I put on a new reed today, and it tasted like a chip!"

Senior Boy: "I lost my mouthpiece over break and found it yesterday.  I practiced my balls off...."

Human Aren't Plants

Me: "Louder!"
8th-grade boy: "Louder... What a weird word... It's like if someone's name was Lou, it would be like, 'Lou, DER!!!'"

Me: "What did you have for lunch?"
7th-grade boy: "Ham and Cheese...What? Don't you like Ham and Cheese?"
Me: "I'm a vegan... I only eat plants."
7th-grade boy: "So nothing that even comes from animals, like milk or eggs?"
Me: "Yes, exactly."
7th-grade boy: "So no fish?"
Me: "Fish aren't plants."
7th-grade boy: "OK. So you might as well be a cannibal and only eat humans."
Me: "Humans aren't plants."

7th-grade boy: "Is it make fun of [John] day?"
Me: "No, it's make John better day."
7th-grade boy: "When will it be accept John the way he is day?"
Me: "This isn't personal.  It's my job. I'm paid to make you better at the saxophone."
7th-grade boy: "But don't you get paid either way?"

8th-grade girl: "I eat when I feel scared..."
8th-grade boy: "I crawl up into a ball when I'm scared..."
Me: "You, scared??? Never!"
8th-grade boy: "Oh, yeah I am... like when I'm at home and I think of zombies."

Ta-Ta-Ya

Me (talking to someone else): "We should play that Ibert chamber piece with sax... harp..."
Junior Boy: "What's a sax-harp?"


Me: "I'm going to say something harsh.... You're playing like a--"
Senior Boy: "Girl?"
Me: "No! I'm a girl and I play better than you! I was going to say 'wimp'... Don't be sexist.."
Senior Boy: "I'm not sexist... I LOVE women..."

8th-grade boy: "I wrote in the dynamics on the lyrical etude... but they're hard to read.... because I wrote them in with my left hand."


8th-grade boy: "Do you know Chris? [another student]"
Me: "I've seen him around."
8th-grade boy: "He's a background person."
Me: "And you're a foreground person?"
8th-grade boy: "Yes." 

Me (singing articulations to him): "It goes ta-ta-ya-ta-ya-ta-ya-ta-ya."
7th-grade boy: "So do you want me to tongue when you say ta or ya?"

Acting Skills

Me: "You have to play those high notes like you aren't afraid of them."
8th-grade girl: "That's going to take some serious acting skills."

8th-grade boy: "I'm tired."
Me: "Me, too.  I have a long teaching schedule every day except Friday."
8th-grade boy: "I have a long learning schedule..."
 
Me: "Do you need a scale sheet or do you have them all memorized?"
Sophomore Boy: "I know all of them. I just need to know what it is, and then I'll know it."
Me: ".......?"

Me: "That note isn't staccato and it needs vibrato."
8th-grade girl: "That was a crime of rhyme."

Heiroglyphics

Me: "What kind of note is it?"
7th-grade boy: "It's a thirty-tooth note."
Me: "Well, yes, sortof."

Me: "How was the pep rally?"
8th-grade girl: "I think they're pointless. I don't see why school needs that much pep."

11th-grade boy: "Don't worry, next week my music will look like hieroglyphics..."
Me: "Like you're going to practice and mark your part?"
11th-grade boy: "Yeah."
Me: "Good."

Me: "You don't strike me as a normal cheerleader."
8th-grade girl: "What's a normal cheerleader?"
Me: "Well, when I was in high school most of the cheerleaders were jerks."
8th-grade girl: "Oh, yeah, most of them are... no offense to them."

Me: "Quit whining. Don't be a whiner."
11th-grade boy: "I'm not a whiner... I only whine when things are hard."

Just Wing It

‎Me: "Did you bring any payment today?"  

Sophomore boy: "No, it's Harold's fault... you don't know about Harold... he's our car... there was clanking and parts fell off...." 

Me: "OK, bring it next week."

 

Me: "OK, Let's look at this etude.."

Senior boy: "So you just want me to wing it?"

Me: "If by wing it, you mean, sight-read it, then yes... wing it."

 

 8th-grade boy: "I'm tired..."

Me: "You're probably about to have a growth spurt, and you need a lot of energy to grow new cells.."

8th-grade boy: "Yeah, for like, bone cells... muscle cells.... bone marrow cells.... and dendrites.  Do you know what a dendrite is?"

Me: "Aren't those the branches that come off of nerve cells?"

8th-grade boy: "No, they're what you lose if you sniff Sharpies.... or dry-erase markers.... or if you hit your head too many times..."

Me: "Pack up your saxophone quickly so you get to your next class on time."

8th-grade boy: "It's just Spanish... we don't do anything in there anyway... except sit around and talk... ... ...in Spanish."

Sign in the practice room: "Please do not touch the harp stools or the harps."

7th-grade boy: "Makes you want to destroy them all so no one can use them, doesn't it?"

Me: "No."

Me: "Turn on your metronome."

7th-grade boy: "The actual metronome or the metaphorical one in my head?"