14 replies to this topic

[Mel Johnson]

Actually, it means "dance of the KAZOOS"! Check the definition of "mirliton" out in a good dictionary! It makes sense, too; even the noisemakers at the Christmas party in Act I have a part in Act II. Ever wonder about that buzzing underscore in the bass lines during the second period of that music?

[Mel Johnson]

I just looked it up in my handy-dandy Grove's Encyclopedia of Music and confirmed it in a nice unabridged dictionary. Books, you know....

[Mel Johnson]

Ah, but it is French, just a specialized usage of a perfectly ordinary word, that probably started as a word for a kind of small bean. Musical terms are not always covered in dictionaries, unless they're unabridged.

[Mel Johnson]

Or "small beer", but that's more about class!

[Estelle]

For those who understand French, there's an online dictionary at:
[url="http://"http://www.francophonie.hachette-livre.fr/"]http://www.francopho...hette-livre.fr/[/url]

For "mirliton", it says: "mirliton n. m.
Instrument de musique formé d'un tube percé de deux trous, bouché aux deux extrémités par une membrane."- you're right Major Mel...
Actually I didn't know the meaning of that word before: I only know the expression "vers de mirliton" (mirliton verses), which just means awful poetry (and so thought that a mirliton was something like an awful poet... )

[Mel Johnson]

Remember, we dancing-type people are "them" to the non-dancing world, no matter what the language they speak with their mouths....

[This message has been edited by Mel Johnson (edited September 21, 2000).]

[Nikiya]

I was a Mirliton last year in the Nutcracker. In our Nutcracker there is a lead soloist from the company and then four teenage girls with her; we "play" gold reed flutes and wear blue sheppardess costumes that are gorgeous.

[Mel Johnson]

If anybody feels like it, they can go to the Main Pages of Ballet Alert, click on Great Ballets, Ivanov, and Nutcracker, and there's a lot of material I put up for you.