Music (Round) Maestro, please.

If you’re saying to yourself – oh, here we go, another pointless post for the sake of letting people know that you’re still doing the blog, even if you haven’t got a lot to say on it – well, it’s a fair cop, guv. Still, after last week’s exertions – three quizzes in three evenings for the first time since God knows when – I’ve been back to just the one quiz since. This was my son in law Dan’s quiz in the rugby club on Thursday. I enjoyed his first quiz, but this one was even better.

You know my feelings about handouts. I don’t personally like picture handouts, but I know that the majority in the club like them very much so when I do a handout I tend to do pictures. Dan is of the same mind as I am regarding picture handouts – he prefers something more cryptic and he did a very good handout using cryptic clues to the titles of well known movies – hence a clue like – dating Mick Jagger = Romancing the Stone. You get the point I’m sure.

Not only this, but Dan also did a music round. Now, I’ll be honest, I can only recall ever once doing a music round for the quiz. It was back in the late 90s, before I had access to the web. In the club the music round was the realm of Alwyn Rees. Alwyn had been coming to the quiz since long before I had. He only ever did a quiz maybe three or four times a year, but he always did a music round, and people loved it. So much, in fact, that Brian would always clear the schedule and rota when Alwyn was ready to do his quiz. So as I said, being as this was Alwyn’s province, I fought shy of doing one for a couple of years after I started, but then I wanted to have the experience. And when I did it, I soon discovered that the experience was that it was a lot of effort and potch to go through for just the one round, and it was a case of – well, I’ve done a music round now, I know what it’s like, so I don’t have to do it again.

Dan’s quiz consisted of brief excerpts from some very well known songs from the 70s through to the 90s – in other words, my era! In fact, I used to own a tape I recorded which I had in my first car, which had no fewer than 6 of these very songs. It was flippin’ great. Speaking to Dan about the round, I think that this is just the start. He wanted a nice gentle start, and I reckon he’ll be more adventurous in his next. In the monthly movie quiz in the Gwyn Hall in Neath, there’s always a music round, and they have some songs slowed down, some speeded up and some played backwards. I reckon that this sort of thing might work very well in the club if he’s got the technology to do it. I’m sure he has.

Just out of interest, I think that my favourite ever music round was back in the 90s at the rugby club. A couple of the younger guys who occasionally took a turn as question master recorded a music round where they themselves played theme songs from well known films or TV shows . . . on a stylophone! (for younger readers – ask your parents, or possibly your grandparents) It was brilliant! No? Well, I guess you had to be there.