That is Priceless by Steve Melcher for July 03, 2024

/// Siblings listened to The Serenade

wond’ring, “Is it for me that he played?”

Two men on violin

while a lone mandolin

sang sweet love songs which passion conveyed.

/// Youngest child holds her hands to her ears.

Elder sisters are all smiles and cheers,

and their brother locks eyes

with the one of these guys

who excites all his longing and fears.

“I’ll pay you not to sing. You’re making my dog sick and hurting my little girl’s eardrums.”

Now play “Free Bird”!

“Back in my day, we didn’t have text messages, we had singing telegrams.

.

…thank God for progress!”

These wandering minstrels weren’t good enough

(Their articulations were harmoniously rough)

To play the parts in real Italian orchestras

That accompanied the current operas

The melodies they thus played were mostly fluff

.

But the areas outside big cities craved the culture

That the upper classes were able to nurture

Radio broadcasts were surely not yet available

So the minstrels found their music quite salable

The tips as thrown were enough for an amateur

.

Music instruction was a common vocation

Although competent teachers with the education

To teach adequate skills and technique

With which their students could with pros compete

Depended upon a student’s talent and motivation

.

Great prodigies emerged and so brightly shone

Their music seems to now stand out alone

But it inspired town musicians to gather to play

Their music they thought to be as good as any that day

“A Musical Joke” gently mocked those efforts as error prone

Please stop. Your playing is making our dog sick

If that poor dog were any skinnier, his ribs would be on the outside of his skin. He needs to be fed a real meal, instead of cat poop that’s been lying on the ground for who knows how long.

Father, from upstairs window: “Close the gate and come away from the wall! We don’t want to encourage this sort of riff-raff”

My first response was “omygod !-/

She’s facing a firing squad!”/

Then I saw the guitar/

(No weapons- so far..)/

They’re recording to “cast on a pod”..

The serenade: 

Paste (including the quote marks) 

"Category:Undated paintings" Wikimedia 

(syntax supported by the Google, Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, Ecosia, Brave, and Yandex search engines) in the browser address bar (or search for it using one of those search engines) and choose the first Category: found and once there find the text string Sorbi, and click its link for info and links that point to more info (perhaps best viewed by the Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox browsers, which can automatically translate most webpages if necessary) about this roughly jumbo envelope size, oil on panel painting. 

Again, a larger strip image is shown by (Ctrl- or right-) clicking the image in Mr. Melcher’s MASTERPIECE #3349 (July 3, 2024) blog entry, accessible by the Check out the blog! box after the last comment, and using the dropdown menu (even larger, if you trim what’s after .png from the URL). I have added a comment there pointing to info about this artist I used to point to here. So far, 2 works by him have been used here, the December 2, 2019, strip being the prior.

The child is the only one expressing their true feelings about the quality of the music.

Nina Simone’s “Brown Eyed Handsome Man”

The three minstrels serenade them while their cohorts rob the house.

/// I note something both troubling and weird;

long-time commenters have “disappeared.”

I keep hoping that they

are off on holiday,

and not anything else I have feared.

/// It is sad when smart, funny words cease.

Without answers there is no release.

I’d regain my composure

if there’d been any closure.

Are they resting, (or resting in peace)?

(Sorry to be so morbid, but if anyone reading this is, or knows about, someone who is taking a break from commenting, please type a few words to reassure the rest of us. Thanks.)

“La serenata”

That’th tho sweet of you. (Castilian lisp)

Always the doting father, he attended every performance.

Stop, stop, stop! That is NOT how Stairway to heaven goes.

You might want to skip America’s Got Talent………………..please!