Music Terms Misunderstood by Country Musicians

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  • Diminished Fifth — An empty bottle of Jack Daniels
  • Perfect Fifth — A full bottle of Jack Daniels
  • Ritard — There’s one in every family
  • Relative Major — An uncle in the Marine Corps
  • Relative Minor — A girlfriend
  • Big Band — When the bar pays enough to bring two banjo players
  • Pianissimo — “Refill this beer bottle”
  • Repeat — What you do until they just expel you
  • Treble — Women ain’t nothin’ but
  • Bass — The things you run around in softball
  • Portamento — A foreign country you’ve always wanted to see
  • Conductor — The man who punches your ticket to Birmingham
  • Arpeggio — “Ain’t he that storybook kid with the big nose that grows?”
  • Tempo — Good choice for a used car
  • A 440 — The highway that runs around Nashville
  • Transpositions — Men who wear dresses
  • Cut Time — Parole
  • Order of Sharps — What a wimp gets at the bar
  • Passing Tone — Frequently heard near the baked beans at family barbecues
  • Middle C — The only fruit drink you can afford when food stamps are low
  • Perfect Pitch — The smooth coating on a freshly paved road
  • Tuba — A compound word: “Hey, woman! Fetch me another tuba Bryll Cream!”
  • Cadenza — That ugly thing your wife always vacuums dog hair off of when company comes
  • Whole Note — What’s due after failing to pay the mortgage for a year
  • Clef — What you try never to fall off of
  • Bass Clef — Where you wind up if you do fall off
  • Altos — Not to be confused with “Tom’s toes,” “Bubba’s toes” or “Dori-toes”
  • Minor Third — Your approximate age and grade at the completion of formal schooling
  • Melodic Minor — Loretta Lynn’s singing dad
  • 12-Tone Scale — The thing the State Police weigh your tractor trailer truck with
  • Quarter Tone — What most standard pickups can haul
  • Sonata — What you get from a bad cold or hay fever
  • Clarinet — Name used on your second daughter if you’ve already used Betty Jo
  • Cello — The proper way to answer the phone
  • Bassoon — Typical response when asked what you hope to catch, and when
  • French Horn — Your wife says you smell like a cheap one when you come in at 4 a.m.
  • Cymbal — What they use on deer-crossing signs so you know what to sight-in your pistol with
  • Bossa Nova — The car your foreman drives
  • Time Signature — What you need from your boss if you forget to clock in
  • First Inversion — Grandpa’s battle group at Normandy
  • Staccato — How you did all the ceilings in your mobile home
  • Major Scale — What you say after chasing wild game up a mountain: “Darn! That was a major scale!”
  • Aeolian Mode — How you like Mama’s cherry pie
  • Bach Chorale — The place behind the barn where you keep the horses