Top 100 Dr. Dennis W. Port Quotes

Contents

About Dr. Port

Dr. Dennis Port joined the faculty at Bethel College in 1995 as conductor of the Bethel Choir and chair of the Department of Music.  He is widely recognized for his extensive experience and achievements in the choral and teaching arts.  Port earned his B.A. from Bethel College in 1966 and received an M.Div. from Bethel Theological Seminary in 1970.  He also holds an M.A. from the University of Minnesota and a Ph.D. from New York University. 

Port has served at The King's College in New York, where he was named Teacher of the Year in 1987, and directed the College Choir at Northwestern College for eight years.   He has also served as the assistant director of the Minnesota Chorale, as music director of the East Central Minnesota Chorale, and has been an adjudicator and choral clinician in the United States and England.  Previous to his collegiate and professional choral positions, Port was the choir director at Cambridge (Minnesota) High School, and he has held various church music positions in church choirs in both Minnesota and California. 

In recent years, Port has served as consultant to musical ministry in the Ukraine through the Shepherd's Foundation and the Minnesota Baptist Conference.

Dr. Port is also widely recognized by his humorous sayings. On more than one occasion, these sayings have temporarily shut down a rehearsal with laughter.

The cover of the "Intruder" which we published when Dr. Port left Northwestern College in the Spring of 1995.

 Without further adieu, here are the 100+ Dr. Port quotes. New additions to this list are always welcome.

The 100+ Dr. Port Quotes:

  1. "You're looking at me like I have two heads...and both of them are stupid."
  2. "You've gotta 'up yours,' sopranos."
  3. "Kmart sucks!!!"
  4. "Back when Chad was a freshman...that was ten years ago..."
  5. "I want to finish our 'Crucifixion' today, so don't let time get away from us."
  6. "Back off, sopranos! Did I hear an 'amen' from the balcony?"
  7. "Can we do the 'toe Gods' again?"
  8. "Tenors are more important than anyone else...Everyone else doesn't matter except you tenors!! TENORS LOVE THAT!!!"
  9. "I realize that this is a complete waste of time."
  10. "The vacuum cleaner is in the same key!"
  11. "I heard vibrato, and I think I know where it's coming from. Somebody's mouth."
  12. "You've gotta up yours, Chris."
  13. "And now that you're all totally confused...and I just broke my watch..."
  14. "Take your pencils and mark women..."
  15. "I shall see Him on page 6."
  16. "Please take out Otto Olson. He's in the closet! Somebody get him out of there! Otto, come out, please!"
  17. "That's impossible. It's not humanly possible to sing anything that beautiful."
  18. "...thumbing our noses as though we're giving the finger to death..."
  19. "We need to 'Make Haste' ...no, we don't have time."
  20. "Sing on foes who molest me."
  21. "Top of 7...Can we have an attack there?"
  22. "It's not MY fault...the tenors followed."
  23. "The men were sitting on that Eb having a gay old time."
  24. "Sopranos, less weight in that."
  25. "It's 'denn.' That's just like the beginning of my name."
  26. "Give me the first sound like women."
  27. "One more 'Amen' before we leave it."
  28. "That's a Monday, gray, soggy day sort of thing to do."
  29. "Isn't singing out of tune the worst thing in the world other than rape and pillage?...NO! Don't write that down!"
  30. "Down, basses!"
  31. "'Don't throw the baby out with the bath water.' Isn't that a horrible saying? Or how about, 'Let me pick your brain?' Or even worse, 'Beat a Dead Horse'"
  32. "Sing to me and through me."
  33. "Get your pencils and mark 'thusly'"
  34. "We don't worship the diacritical markings."
  35. "We don't explode our glottis."
  36. "We always like to sing things in chapel that make people say, 'Hey! Ahah! Hmmm."
  37. "It's chromatic and you said your chrome before your matic."
  38. "I'm sorry, you're wrong."
  39. "You might as well follow the director since I'm in the room."
  40. "I want the women, including the first tenors..."
  41. "Don't break like a congregation."
  42. "Tenors, drop the 'ya' so you get a clean 'world'."
  43. "Do it without getting behinder."
  44. "Drama!!! Drama in the choir room!"
  45. "Sing 'Shut up' unto them."
  46. "Make it a short 's'. We have s's dripping from the ceiling."
  47. "Sopranos, pick up your tutti and follow along."
  48. "I said 'add'!"
  49. "Look! It's the Von Trapp Singers!"
  50. "It's arrowtime!"
  51. "On May 10th, we will be singing at the chapel cutting."
  52. "To me it's all 'not white music.'"
  53. "If you don't 'oom,' there's no place to 'pa-pa.'"
  54. "Let it be said that we were in the middle of an audition and a revival broke out."
  55. "This is a neo-classical work, which means that it has to have a baroque drive to it"
  56. "It's just one stinking measure. Don't be cripples."
  57. "There's a lot of giving and taking and handing back and forthing."
  58. "That's exactly what Mozart wanted...I asked him."
  59. "To the altos: "You're weighty and flat both."
  60. "There shouldn't be a peep in here! Except my peeping."
  61. "I know what you look like underneath those robes. Well, not completely."
  62. "Our carrots are all intrinsic. What's with the carrots today?"
  63. "This is your chance to smoke."
  64. "You gotta have a little tenor attitude here."
  65. "There are only two kinds of people in this world: Those who can sing, and those who wish they could."
  66. "Most of us, with the exception of Katherine, walk in two (Katherine's leg was in a cast and she was using crutches)."
  67. "Go down the same hill you went up, don't jump off a cliff!"
  68. "Dip and go."
  69. "...pretty soon the section leaders are hearing things I don't hear, and little by little the sections are hearing things that I...hear too."
  70. "Altos, you must love it and caress it."
  71. "Maybe she's sick. I hope she's sick."
  72. "Tenors, you're all straight..."
  73. "Any woman who did that is to be taken out and shot at dawn."
  74. "There wasn't any tempo in the recording."
  75. "Right now I'm getting anemic when I get softs."
  76. "Make sure to sit down on it."
  77. "1,2,3,4...Where are you going (Tony Blackwood was leaving the room)?"
  78. "Does everyone know what 'ensuing' means?"
  79. "No break between die and alleluia."
  80. "Shame, shame, shame."
  81. "Take a breath...slow down...take a little time."
  82. "They think Port has changed this into some kind of conservatory or something, all four languages and such. Then we'll sing THIS..."
  83. "I hear noise. I must be imagining things. I hear whispers."
  84. "PAY ATTENTION TO ME!!!...What? What's the problem?"
  85. "Who'd have ever thought we'd flat on this in the middle?"
  86. "How come you can never understand what a soprano is singing?"
  87. "Guys, guys, guys...how can anything be good? What about war?"
  88. "You sound like Cliff Claven when he sees a pretty girl."
  89. "There's a schmultz note for you."
  90. "I love a woman in uniform."
  91. "This should put everyone in a state of ecstasy."
  92. "This must keep moving or everyone will perish halfway through."
  93. "Cleansing breath, men."
  94. "We have a lot of tenors and one note."
  95. "You mustn't chew!"
  96. "Don't do that! It's very dumb."
  97. "Got that one...got that one...got that one. Oops! Missed that one!"
  98. "Can we use the old 'ho' trick?"
  99. "F and A Sopranos! F and A!!!"
  100. "If you sing there, please sing."
  101. "Oh, cadence, please come quickly. Otherwise I'll die!"
  102. "Rehearsal crashed and burned at that point."
  103. "I can't do this in the concert, so you'll have to do it yourselves."
  104. "I've always said that you need at least one rich friend."
  105. "I get hot just looking at you."
  106. "Most churches are like a hymn sandwich...a hymn at the beginning, a hymn in the middle, and a hymn at the end."
  107. "That's theologically a little to the right of Robert Berglund." (This one comes from a summer class at bethel Seminary)
  108. "Women, I want bigger bottoms there."
  109. "They say every place has its bedpans."
  110. "We're actually going to see Bach's organ..." (This is a new quote Dr. Port shared with me at my Master's Thesis Defense)

Dr. Port's Personal All Time Favorite Port Quote: "Ladies, you need to bring out your ta-tis there."

A Funny Story...

In the fall of 1996, Dr. Port was rehearsing with the Mount Olivet Senior Choir, and he was checking the meter of a piece, waving his hand back and forth in time with a metronome. This continued for some time, and eventually one of the tenors began waving back. The motion caught Dr. Port's eye, and he looked back, now waving at the tenor and saying, "Hi, Tom! I must look pretty stupid waving my hand like this. It's like those Miss America contestants." Then Dr. Port began imitating Miss America contestants, strutting around, waving, and batting his eyelashes.

He continued in this fashion for some time, going through the entire choir, waving at each member of the 75 person choir individually, until he came across one member of the choir. This member had not only been a Miss America contestant, she had actually won the crown and had been Miss America.

Dr. Port immediately stopped, mid-wave, and said, "Oh my! I'm sorry..." At this point the entire choir was aware of what was happening and broke into complete hysteria. Even the former Miss America was laughing, and Dr. Port simply stood there, turning red. When he finally sat down, he picked up his foot and proceeded to put it in his mouth, shoe and all.

The moral of the story? Remember who is in your choir before you begin joking around about a subject!