Instrument of Torture
My infant school was leaky, crumbling and lacking in equipment - but one thing it did have was a trolley contraption filled with various musical instruments. Every so often, we'd have a music lesson, and this basically involved our being released on these instruments and making a din.

Maybe I was slow-moving that day and all the interesting instruments had been bagged, or maybe it was allocated to me, but on one occasion I ended up with a triangle... and was subsequently told that I was playing it wrong.

Puzzled, I altered my grip a little, and tried again. I was still doing it wrong. This happened a couple of times; and, with each repetition, I became more and more perplexed, and my teacher became more and more exasperated.

I'm willing to guess that my teacher's exasperation evaporated long ago; to be frank, she's probably long dead. But my perplexity lingers. I never did figure out how I was playing the triangle wrong, nor how I could play it any better.

But I never played it again.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 16 Jul 2010, 14:05, 6 replies)

example of a bad teacher right there.

In one hand hold the bit of string that connected to the triangle bit.

Assume the student has two hands for this next part and at least one for the first part.

In the other hand hold the hitting stick part.
bang two parts of triangle together.

should any sort of sound come out, say well done.

Ask to see how many variations the student can come up with when banging two parts of triangle together and which one they like most.
(waxdart hello., Fri 16 Jul 2010, 14:14, closed)

You forgot the important bit though
You have to bang the two parts together in time with the music, or at least to coincide with accents in the music.
( K2k6 has a proper job these days, Fri 16 Jul 2010, 14:27, closed)

Admittedly,
the passage of the months decades has dimmed my memory of the precise events, but I thought I'd managed all that. There's clearly some extra subtlety of which I'm still unaware.

:(
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 16 Jul 2010, 14:35, closed)

infant school wedding tackle
( broadsword now that's fresh, Fri 16 Jul 2010, 15:01, closed)

:(
You've been watching again, haven't you?
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Fri 16 Jul 2010, 16:03, closed)

Given that the triangle
is an orchestral instrument, there are probably well defined ways of playing it.

But your teacher, she was doing it wrong.
( Sextant goes to him is emotionally erect, on this day, Sat 17 Jul 2010, 18:49, closed)