Orchestra Nerds Need Help with Dumb Puns
March 6, 2017 4:25 PM   Subscribe

My middle school orchestra is doing t-shirts and we need help with a slogan. We have a pretty great drawing of an octopus playing string instruments on the front. On the back, we need a pithy/catchy/punny phrase that brings orchestra/music together with the octopus/the sea.

So, last year, it was a space exploration design and the back said "X Middle School Orchestra: Out of This World." The year before it was a monster-based design and the back just said, "X Middle School Orchestra: Monstrously Good."

My kids usually come up with the slogan but are not coming up with anything super great this year- so far we just have "Sailing the High Cs" and no one is thrilled with that because they think the concept of high Cs is really more of a choir thing and apparently choir kids are the enemy? It is okay if your answer is really, really cheesy; cheese delights them.
posted by charmedimsure to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (43 answers total) 7 users marked this as a favorite
 
I really want something to work with octave.
posted by phunniemee at 4:38 PM on March 6, 2017 [5 favorites]


"X Middle School Orchestra: We Practice 8 Legs A Week."
"X Middle School Orchestra: You Should Sea Us Play!"
"X Middle School Orchestra: Sea-riously Great."
posted by littlesq at 4:40 PM on March 6, 2017 [4 favorites]


C F A la-pod!
posted by bondcliff at 4:49 PM on March 6, 2017 [5 favorites]


Best answer: "X Middle School Orchestra: We Play Music, You Enjoy It. Squid Pro Quo."
posted by Rob Rockets at 4:49 PM on March 6, 2017 [6 favorites]


X Middle School Orchestra: You'll rave about our oct-aves
posted by Northbysomewhatcrazy at 4:51 PM on March 6, 2017 [1 favorite]


I really want something to work with octave.

"X Middle School Orchestra: Passion for diapason"
posted by Rob Rockets at 4:57 PM on March 6, 2017


Best answer: "X Middle School Orchestra: We totally rocktopus"

"X Middle School Orchestra: Music to octopi your mind"
posted by cubby at 5:07 PM on March 6, 2017 [24 favorites]


X Middle School Orchestra:
Get Your C legs
Plenty of fish in the C
You can tuna clarinet (or instrument of choice) but you can't tuna fish
Watch for Sharp Attacks (or some other sharp/shark pun)
On a Grand Scale (or some other fish scale pun)
posted by Secretariat at 5:08 PM on March 6, 2017 [1 favorite]


[Whatever] Middle School Orchestra: You honor us with your bravery. --Octopus Prime
posted by carmicha at 5:16 PM on March 6, 2017 [3 favorites]


Kraken up on the down beat.
posted by carmicha at 5:20 PM on March 6, 2017 [5 favorites]


If you like Octopus Prime, a better quote might be "Fate rarely calls upon us at a moment of our choosing."
posted by carmicha at 5:25 PM on March 6, 2017 [1 favorite]


Best answer: Suckers for classical music!
posted by Oyéah at 5:26 PM on March 6, 2017 [19 favorites]


Best answer: Oh, Oyeah that's nice! What if we got alliterative? Suckers for Symphonies!
posted by chatongriffes at 5:58 PM on March 6, 2017 [9 favorites]


Deep Sea Bass
posted by XMLicious at 6:02 PM on March 6, 2017


Songs in the Key of Sea
posted by lakeroon at 6:09 PM on March 6, 2017 [3 favorites]


X Middle School Orchestra: Viol Creatures of the Deep
X Middle School Orchestra: Sailing the 7 Cs
X Middle School Orchestra: In Search of C-Monsters
X Middle School Orchestra: Eight Legged Squeaks
X Middle School Orchestra: The Octopus's Gardeners
X Middle School Orchestra: The Submarine Symphony
X Middle School Philharmonic: The Orchestra of the Waves
X Middle School Orchestra: Wave the Scales!
posted by under_petticoat_rule at 6:34 PM on March 6, 2017 [2 favorites]


Best answer: ORCHTOPUS YOU FOOLS

ORCHTOPUS
posted by capricorn at 6:44 PM on March 6, 2017 [12 favorites]


X Middle School Orchestra: Rocking The Boat (or Rocking The Bow!)
X Middle School Orchestra: We're Sea Major
X Middle School Orchestra: Kraken Good
X Middle School Orchestra: We're Gonna Need A Bigger Bow
posted by eponym at 6:46 PM on March 6, 2017 [1 favorite]


X Middle School Orchestra: We Won't B Flat in the C!
posted by spinifex23 at 6:52 PM on March 6, 2017


X Middle School Orchestra: We're To Dive For
posted by eponym at 6:59 PM on March 6, 2017 [5 favorites]


X Middle School Orchestra: Our skills can't be camouflaged
X Middle School Orchestra: Our music sticks with you
X Middle School Orchestra: Get stuck on a classic
X Middle School Orchestra: Ride our sound waves
posted by anya32 at 6:59 PM on March 6, 2017


Many hands, one song

Many hands, one mind

Many hands, one music

We play together as one

It's like we're connected with one brain
posted by amtho at 7:00 PM on March 6, 2017 [1 favorite]


It's like we share a brain.
posted by amtho at 7:00 PM on March 6, 2017


Best answer: X Middle School Orchestra: Armed to the F-holes!

hee!
posted by Klaxon Aoooogah at 7:06 PM on March 6, 2017


X Middle School Orchestra: Making A Splash
X Middle School Orchestra: A Band On Ship
posted by eponym at 7:07 PM on March 6, 2017 [2 favorites]


High Octane Music
posted by BoscosMom at 7:14 PM on March 6, 2017 [1 favorite]


Best answer: X Middle School Orchestra: Music grabs us!
posted by flourpot at 7:38 PM on March 6, 2017 [1 favorite]


How do we know this is a Mediterranean octopus? Every musician knows their middle C.
posted by Emperor SnooKloze at 7:56 PM on March 6, 2017 [1 favorite]


Best answer: "X Middle School Orchestra:

Celebr8
Gr8
Music!"

Only where I've written the numeral 8, sub in miniature versions of the octopus design instead.
posted by jamjam at 8:00 PM on March 6, 2017 [1 favorite]


In Sea Minors
Orca-stra
Davey Jones Locker Combo: 4/4
Fiddler Crabs
posted by nickggully at 8:16 PM on March 6, 2017


X Middle School Orchestra: Octivate your ears
X Middle School Orchestra: So good it hertz
posted by Prof Iterole at 8:38 PM on March 6, 2017


X Middle School Orchestra: Conduct yourself achordlingly
X Middle School Orchestra: All your basses are belong to us
posted by Prof Iterole at 8:44 PM on March 6, 2017


Under the Cs, and have each arm of the octopus holding a C note aloft.
posted by Fister Roboto at 8:56 PM on March 6, 2017 [1 favorite]


MSO: We will rocktopus you.
posted by MonkeyToes at 2:02 AM on March 7, 2017


Opus R8opus
posted by rjs at 9:04 AM on March 7, 2017


Magnum 8opus
posted by rjs at 9:07 AM on March 7, 2017


Treble Ceph
posted by effluvia at 10:57 AM on March 7, 2017 [1 favorite]


Response by poster: I knew you folks would be up to the task! I am leaning towards "Suckers for Strings" (thanks for getting my brain working on the suckers theme, Oyeah!) myself but will have my kids vote on a top 10 list and let you know the result. Not doing balloting until tomorrow so if anyone has any final ideas please chime in.
posted by charmedimsure at 12:41 PM on March 7, 2017


Octowave
posted by effluvia at 1:35 PM on March 7, 2017


Um, as a woodwind player, I think the illustration plus the "suckers for strings" front runner is getting very violin/viola/cello/bass -centric. Presuming you have wind, brass and percussion players, it behooves the system to make them feel welcome and appreciated too... especially because they can always go to the band. Be careful, especially if the string players outnumber the others. Maybe "Suckers for Symphonies" or something else?
posted by carmicha at 6:37 PM on March 7, 2017


Response by poster: We're string-only, otherwise I would indeed want something more inclusive!

As a horn player who ended up learning to be great at crossword puzzles because the brass section was so ignored in my high school youth symphony I do feel the pain of all the unloved winds- but we don't have any, I swear.
posted by charmedimsure at 8:20 PM on March 7, 2017 [1 favorite]


I keep checking in here to see if there has been closure -- what slogan did they end up choosing??
posted by cubby at 10:45 AM on March 21, 2017


Response by poster: I forgot! Suckers for Strings is the champion (woot woot, Oyeah!), with Celebr🐙 Gr🐙 Music and Music To Octopi Your Mind also being strong contenders. Special honorable mention to Klaxon Aoooogah for "Armed to the F-Holes" which made me giggle even though I didn't think we could get away with it on the shirts. They actually got delivered today and look incredibly rad.
posted by charmedimsure at 8:04 PM on March 21, 2017 [4 favorites]


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