Seems to me there has been a lot of disagreement (some of it just this side of politeness) on this website, most of it sparked by genuine artistic controversy. However, instead of letting it get personal, how about choosing from a list of ready-made "curses." Allow me to begin the list:
- May your Kreisler shift always be locked in neutral.
May your chitlins spit nothing but prunes.
Greetings,
may your heifetz slide end in a broken ankle.
May your mute find a voice and leave.
Cheers,
Buri
May you break five strings in one concert.
May your sonata partner always play fortissimo.
May seven tubes of peg dope empty themselves on your pegs, and may they still be stuck.
May your orchestra perpetually tune an eighth of a tone flat.
May your bow hair all fall out at once. (dedicated to Henry Flory)
May fireworks go off directly outside the window near the stage while you're playing. (dedicated to Emil Chudnovsky)
Crap, now I'm just reminiscing...may my homework refuse to do itself...
Buri,
"May your mute find a voice and leave" is definitely gonna be a classic, LOL.
All I can think up is, "May your chinrest give you herpes."
Pardon my French :-P
"May your rosin melt."
"May a bloody cat sit in your case."
"May your bow wilt."
"May your violin hickey fester and crawl with pus-bloated maggots."
... that's all I've got.
you forgot
may your g string unwind in public.
May your stand partner's personal freshness escape during your solo.
May your fingers be as cold and stiff as your heart.
May your Beethoven solo be wonderful, but the orchestra is playing Brahms.
Greetings,
may your entry be loud and GP.
may your six children all opt for the violin.
Cheers,]
Buri
May you be inconsistent!
May your shoulder rest fall down your pimply cleavage.
May your fingers never be pronated
May your staccato never vole
May your E-string go false in E major and A minor!
Here are some curses that were apparently put on people I've heard:
May you begin your career in violin improvisation in the coda of the Prokofiev D minor.
May the slipping of a cello peg be renamed in your honor.
May your quartet be rechristened the Quarter Tone Quartet by popular acclaim.
May your competition accompanist sit in rapt silence through your first Sibelius cadenza - and thereafter.
May you forever be stricken with Suzuki book two.
May you become a violist
May 10,000 rabid fleas infest your bow hairs!
May you see yourself as others do!!!!
May the best performance you ever give be the one no one hears and the one you never played.
May you go to sleep and wake up with Lightly Row in your head.
May your solo be played with new strings.
May the cat sound better alive than on your fiddle.
May the cat sound better alive than on your fiddle.
And my cat has excellent intonation, so this bar is higher than you might think.
I hate to break the news, but gut strings are not made of cat gut. I believe it is sheep gut, so "May the sheep sound better alive than on your violin."
...which is even funnier. :)
"May all the cat hair in your case end up sticking to your bow hair."
May you make a recording - and have to listen to it over and over.
May you be appointed Concertmaster - of the Antartica Symphony.
May you be accepted into the Heaven Philharmonic. And may your first rehearsal begin tomorrow.
May your dog best you in a solo challenge.
may you end up with a violin with a strad label.
May your E-string break while you play the beginning of the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto Op. 64.
May you get into an eternal shoulder rest debate.
May you not end up with a violin attributed to Stradivari. In fact, may you not end up with a violin at all!
(this way you can curse the violin as well as the player)
Um, may the Sstraddivvari vio-lllll-in
you end ah-ooop wi-th-sht
May it be as nasal as an eternal cold.
May your E string whistle like a tea kettle.
May you have fingers like lightning!
(they never strike the same place twice!)
--Thank You Sally O'Reilly
May your pegs keep slipping.
May somebody "rosin" your bow with soap right before your performance.
May the orchestra entrance after your cadenza of Mozart Concero (tonic chord, where your last trill resolves) appears 1/2 step higher.
May you have perfect staccato technique in your left hand on stage.
may you have predictably frequent nightmares in which you always almost find your missing violin and one day you wake up in cold sweat, as usual, to find your loaned del gesu really missing and then it dawns on you that you are supposed to sign the paper for the insurance the day after and yes, i mean oh no, the carnegie recital, your solo debut, is tonight...
(warning: please just read once and totally forget about it)
may the kid inside the white plastic shell have better bow control than you :) ... in case you have not mastered vibrato, worry not, it will show you in couple years,,,
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyPAIpXm-nU
On a practice room wall at college was written "May all your up- and down-bows be in bed"
Don't know whether that was intended as a curse or a blessing.
That sounds a bit "suggestive"
Brian, Next time cover your eyes before you read one like that.
You son-of-a-frog. I tried...
Ha-Ha, Royce. Yes....I'm scarred for life.
Jasmine I Love it! I love the frog thing! I think I'm more of a "Son-of-a Sea Crook. My dad searved on the U.S.Dixie (AD-14)
Ahhh, nothing like the "V-People" :)
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December 4, 2007 at 11:02 PM · Haha! Nice idea, Sander. I've been tempted to learn voodoo to apply to violin pegs from time to time, but the all-time best curse (imho of course) is: "Are you sure that's really in tune?"
Vexation guaranteed.