Insert Keysmash Here

Snake mantis, Kongobatha diademata, Nanomantidae

Photographed at Airlie Beach in Australia by Steve & Alison1

Shared with permission; do not remove credit or re-post!

this bitch is FLAT.

Fun Story: My director kept telling me and my tenor sax buddy to play softer. No matter what we did, it wasn’t soft enough for him. So getting frustrated, I told my buddy “Dont play this time. Just fake it” 

Our Band Director then informed us we sounded perfect. 

To my readers: “p” means quiet, “pp” means really quiet. I’ve never seen “pppp” before haha.

On the contrast, “f” means loud, and “ffff” probably means so loud you go unconscious.

I had ffff in a piece once and my conductor told me to play as loudly as physically possible without falling off my chair…

Me and my trombone buddies had “ffff” and he sat next to me and played so hard that he fell out of his chair.

The lengths we go for music.

Okay yeah so I play the bass clarinet and the amount of air you have to move and the stiffness of the reed means it only has two settings and that is loud and louder, with an optional LOUDEST that includes a 50% probability of HORRIBLE CROAKING NOISE which is the bass equivalent of the ubiquitous clarinet shriek.

One day, when I was in concert band in high school, we got a new piece handed out for the first time, and there was a strange little commotion back in the tuba section — whispering, and pointing at something in the music, and swatting at each other’s hands all shhh don’t call attention to it. And although they did attract the attention of basically everyone else in the band, they managed to avoid being noticed by the band director, who gave us a few minutes to look over our parts and then said, “All right, let’s run through it up to section A.”

And here we are, cheerfully playing along, sounding reasonably competent — but everyone, when they have the attention to spare, is keeping an eye on the tuba players. They don’t come in for the first eight measures or so, and then when they do come in, what we see is:

[stifled giggling]

[reeeeeeally deep breath]

[COLOSSAL FOGHORN NOISE]

The entire band stops dead, in the cacophonous kind of way that a band stops when it hasn’t actually been cued to stop. The band director doesn’t even say anything, just looks straight back at the tubas and makes a helpless sort of why gesture.

In unison, the tuba players defend themselves: “THERE WERE FOUR F’S.”

FFFF is not really a rational dynamic marking for any instrument, but for the love of all that is holy why would you put it in a tuba part.

This is the best band post 

Everyone else go home

Oh man, so I play trombone, and we got this piece called Florentiner Marsch by Julius Fucik, and we saw this

which is 8 fortes. We were shocked until,

that is 24 fortes who the fuck does that

Who does that?

This guy. Take a good look - that is the moustache of a man with nothing to lose.

Julius IdontgivaFucik

More like Julius Fuckit

Pyrozod’s tags for this were too hilarious not to share

I haven’t been in band for years but this made me laugh so hard

I haven’t seen this post in ages and I’m dying of laughter

I didn’t think it could get better after The Foghorn Tuba Story, but it did. It got better. Bless you, MusicTumblr.

as far as I can translate it, the German notes at the octuple forte mean something roughly like “You want the instrument to cough… this is not for wimps”

this man was a menace

Yeah I need to join another brass band

Getting Tuba feels.

My favorite band post

Angst fics can help people come to terms with their own grief, begin healing, or give people that good cry that they need.

Smut fics can help people affirm and accept their sexuality. It can help them explore their sexuality in a safe way. They can also just be fun, and having fun is a drastically undervalued way to improve your mental health.

Dark fics can help people face their fears or process their trauma. It can make them feel safer and more secure. It can help them find their courage.

Fluff fics can give people rest and respite and comfort. It can give them hope that soft places exist and that maybe there is one out there for them. It can bring up their mood, which, if they have depression, can be a life saver.

And every fic people write makes someone feel less alone.

Point being, just because a particular thing doesn’t serve you, doesn’t mean it lacks value.

This is not to say that we have to consume all fic uncritically. Of course not. It is just to say that entire “genres” aren’t trash or lacking value just because they don’t serve you.

my brother started calling our cat "doobie brother" which he then lengthened to "dubious brother" and has since morphed into "brother dubious" like he's some sort of fucked up little monk

brother dubious

"My liege, I'm afraid I have reason to believe your concubine plots against you. Worry not, your eminence, you can still trust me, of course..."

listen i know each actor brings their own spice to a role, but i just can’t take timothee chalamet’s wonka seriously 

where is the madness behind his eyes??? the malice??? the complete disregard for the laws of mankind and decency???

this man makes me fear that i’ll be shoved into a taffy machine at the slightest provocation 

as! he! should!

I’m not gonna let this gem of a tag on this post go unnoticed.

So the James Webb telescope just took a picture of a galaxy that is 29 million light years away.

If that wasn't cool enough NASA decided to peel away all the cosmic dust in order to see the bones of the Galaxy itself.

AND IT'S BREATHTAKING

Diver convince octopus to trade his plastic cup for a seashell

imagine if a fuckin……. giant alien just showed up and stuck a huge hand in front of your face and then proceeded to offer you three different houses and wouldn’t stop until you moved out of your old shitty apartment and then helped you fuckin move

and then just left

Romance must be treated as optional and I am not joking but I don’t think many are going to get the scope that I’m going for if I don’t explain further.

If someone says they never want to get married, the response should not be waxing poetics about how they’ll find this magical mythical Right Person that will change their mind.

If someone asks someone else on a date and they reject them, nobody is the bad guy. This is a normal thing that happens to a lot of people and it’s fine. That someone else is under no obligation whatsoever to “give them a chance.” No mean no. No is a complete sentence. Coercion is not consent. We should be more horrified by it when entire groups try to manufacture consent to a romantic relationship between two people where one doesn’t want this.

If someone is single in their 30s, 40s, 50s, whatever, that is not a problem that needs fixing. You don’t need to get married to a romantic partner in your 20s.

If someone describes something they did with a friend as something that happened between friends and not lovers, it’s not romantic. Period. End of discussion. The individuals involved must mutually agree that it is romantic for it to be romantic. Third parties calling it romantic are being invasive and inappropriate. If one of the people involved is calling it romantic despite the second person outwardly saying it’s not romantic, that person is a creep. If that person is doing it without knowing that the other person doesn’t view it that way, that reflects poor communication and should be fixed immediately but whoever called the encounter non-romantic is the one that is correct.

If you look at a literal child and think about their future relationships and marriage, stop. The child is too young and will grow up thinking this is an obligation and it will result in them ending up in toxic relationships they did not want in the first place, especially if they are aromantic and don’t develop those feelings for others in the first place.

Arranging a marriage for your child with the expectation that a married couple is necessarily a romantically involved couple is a horrible idea. Your child should have the right to choose who they get involved with, with how many people they get involved, and whether they get involved at all.

I’m against anything that makes others feel compelled to engage in romance at all. I’m in favor of everyone getting to choose what is best for them and their emotional needs as long as everyone involved agrees to it.

The band, the music, the dance.

puts on sound 📣🎶🎵

Ok, I NEED you to understand just how insane even ATTEMPTING this was for them.

1. Playing an instrument is difficult. Doing so in sync with others even more so. Don’t think I’m stepping on any toes saying that.

2. Dancing is difficult. Doing so in sync with others even more so. Still not controversial.

3. YOU AVOID, AT ALL COSTS, MOVING YOUR BODY WHILE PLAYING A WIND INSTRUMENT.  To make the correct, pleasant sounds, you need to be in the correct form. And that form involves your ENTIRE body, even your legs when sitting down.

4. “oh, but I’ve seen marching bands before and-” MARCHING BANDS HAVE ENTIRE SCIENTIFIC FIELDS DEDICATED TO FIGURING OUT HOW TO MARCH WITH MINIMUM BREAKING OF PROPER FORM. A marching band tries to be as smooth as possible while moving, so as not to jar their instrument, mouth, neck, arms, torso, or anything else.These ladies and gentlemen are BOUNCING and still playing properly, what the FU-!

5. AND ANOTHER THING! Wind instruments and dancing BOTH make demands on your breathing, so the fact that they are dancing (making you breath faster for extra oxygen) AND playing wind instruments (making you effectively hold your breath) AT THE SAME TIME is HUGE. Their lungs must be MASSIVE.

All of that also; the song is Sing, sing, sing (with a swing). If you wanna listen to some of THE SPICIEST big band ever recorded. Its a big hard song and this band does it expertly.

gender and sexuality is a fickle thing. sometimes two gay cisgender men will be dating for decades and one of them will turn out to be a transgender woman. a lot of times that won't work out but sometimes it will. her partner may still choose to identify as gay. She might even identify as gay, and they continue to be happily in love. Queer politics isn't going to get any better if you don't accept that situations like that happen every day.

Do Not Let HR do this to you. It is not illegal to talk about wages in the work place. I did and got a 12% raise!

True info. Now let me add something: The power of documentation. (I was a long time steward in a nurses union.)

Remember: The "'E" in email stands for evidence.

That cuts both ways. Be careful what you put into an email. It never really goes away and can be used against you.

But can also be a powerful tool for workplace fairness.

Case 1: Your supervisor asks you to do something you know is either illegal or against company policy. A verbal request. If things go wrong, you can count on them denying that they ever told you to do that. You go back to your desk, or wherever and you send them an email: "I just want to make sure that I understood correctly that you want me to do xxxxx" Quite often, once they see it in writing, they will change their mind about having you do it. If not, you have documentation.

Case 2: You have a schedule you like, you've had that schedule for a while, it works for you. Your supervisor comes to you and says "We're really short-handed now and I need you to change your schedule just for a month until we can get someone else hired. It's just temporary and you can have your old schedule back after a month." A month goes by and they forget entirely that they made that promise to you. So, once again, when they make the initial request, you send them an email "I'm happy to help out temporarily, but just want to make sure I understand correctly that I will get my old schedule back after a month as you promised." Documentation.

[Image ID: Text reading: In the middle of a busy clinic at our practice, I got pulled in by my manager to speak to HR, who must have made a special trip because she lives several states away, and told I was being 'investigated' for discussing wages with my other employees. She told me it was against company policy to discuss wages.

Me; That's illegal.

Them: (start italics) three slow, long seconds of staring at me blankly (end italics) Uh...

Me: That's an illegal policy to have. The right to discuss wages is a right protected by the National Labor Relations board. I used to be in a union. I know this.

HR: Oh, this is news to me! I have been working HR for 18 years and I never knew that. Haha. Well try not do do it anyway, it makes people upset, haha.

Me: people are entitled to their opinions about what their work is worth. Bye.

I then left, and sent her several texts and emails saying I would like a copy of their company policy to see where this wage discussion policy was kept. She quickly called me back in to her office.

HR: You know what, there is no policy like that in the handbook! I double check. Sorry about the confusion, my apologies.

Me: You still haven't given me the paper saying that we had this discussion. I am going to need some protection against retaliation.

HR: Oh haha yes here you go.

I just received a paper with legal letterhead and an apology saying there was no verbal warning or write up. Don't even take their shit you guys. Keep talking about wages. Know your worth. /End ID]

the wretched beast plays in it's slime

My favourite Da Vinky twins trans ally moments:

rip my eight mutuals who thought i could hold a conversation 😔

chinese mantou (steamd bread) be like

the oranges holy shit

Don't forget to read your bread

King

I've been scream laughing at this for several days