Word: braining
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...FROM U.N.C.L.E. (NBC, 8-9 p.m.). Thrush agents plan brain surgery on Napoleon Solo in "The Green Opal Affair." Repeat...
Arturo Toscanini firmly believed that "the vibrations of high notes beating frequently on a singer's brain make him stupid...
...notion held secretly or sheepishly by a number of music's leaders, supported by a body of folklore and some medical opinion. According to the theory, the higher the voice, the more stupid the singer - particularly tenors, whose resonant upper register causes more acute brain-beating frequencies...
...singers' throats and nasal passages at least half-believe the theory. Says a well-known Manhattan doctor who probably caters to more of the city's vocal elite than anyone else: "I have always jokingly said that tenors are so dense because they are living with chronic brain concussion. They have all of those vibrations bouncing off the bones of their heads. It is definite that they do feel the vibrations, and sometimes when they sing high notes, they feel faint and dizzy, and they often have to sit down. Sopranos are probably not as affected because their...
Among themselves, singers are naturally divided. Soprano Birgit Nilsson has referred to a tenor partner as "having a resonance chamber where his brain used to be." Metropolitan Opera Soprano Teresa Stratas takes a feminine view: "Stupidity, no. Egomania, yes. Tenors seem stupid because they are so fully absorbed in themselves. Sopranos -they all have to be pretty smart cookies to have gotten where they are." Tenor Richard Tucker, in a cheerily frivolous reaction that goes far to refute the thesis, comments: "Since tenors usually carry their fat elsewhere, you can be sure they are not fatheads. And besides, the mere...