You don’t have to be a music student to love Steinway Society concerts. Of course, many of our patrons are and for those who are students, here’s a bit of fun with musical terms.
Words are spelled out as the musical terms and italicized to indicate where sound-based puns were used, and many terms are highlighted in bold and explained below. (Think this is punny? Here are 12 musical puns that are truly cringeworthy).
Fun With Puns – Musical Terms* Used in a Story
Sat Belter, or Sat B. as he prefers, was a man with many experiences. Working at the famous local bar, Measure, exposed him to all kinds of interesting situations. Just this day alone was plenty eventful for him.
His first customer of the day was Pesante, the town peasant who was oddly large and heavy for his social status. His stature meant that one of his fortes was bar fights. Unfortunately for Sat, this trait was complemented by Pesante’s provocative nature. His default response to offense, no matter how minor, is to resort to violins, as can be attested by the poor guy who lost his leg to Pesante in a fight. Nothing a quick application of Allegro couldn’t solve, luckily.
His next customers were E and C, siblings in a family that insisted on naming their children one of the first seven letters of the alphabet. Outside of their names, they were relatively normal. On the way to the 
upper floor, however, E fell two whole steps, landing on C, who was majorly displeased about the situation. They Baroque a table in their fall, which Sat noted was going to be replaced anyway, so at least the damage was minimal.
After dealing with his chromatic customers, Sat had to deal with bathroom issues in the bar. His biggest concern was that the soprano-ut in the bathroom tenor so times in the past week, which was bass-ically becoming alto much for Sat B. to Handel. He suspected there was a thief behind this odd soap shortage. He already confronted Rubato, the known thief in town, but he claimed to only to have robbed Time Tempo a few years back, being clean ever since.
Being unable to solve the soap issue, Sat B. could only go home and try again tomorrow.
*Enjoy the coda below, a glossary of music terms used in this story. Click here for more terms.
- Sat B.: SATB, or Soprano, Alto, Tenor, Bass
- Measure: as in a measure of music (also called a bar of music)
- Pesante: a term used in music that means “heavy”
- Forte: a term used in music meaning “loud” or “strong”
- Minor: as in a minor key in music
- E and C: notes in music
- Whole Steps: an small interval in music; two whole steps down from E is C
- Chromatic: a musical term that can also mean “relating to color.” I used it here to replace “colorful,” as in a bunch of colorful and interesting characters.
- Rubato: a musical term that also literally means “stolen” or “robbed” time
- Tempo: a musical term regarding the speed of a piece of music
Editors Note: Special thanks to blogger, award-winning pianist, and medical student Christopher Richardson for his time, effort and witty approach to music.
