Resonance

The Globe and Mail, Canada’s largest daily (and my principal Canadian outlet), has a regular feature called “Your Morning Smile,” a reader-generated parade of jokes apparently meant to ensure Canadians get their daily dose of corn. Today’s, courtesy Lloyd Candow of Pasadena, Nfld, reads: “A C, E-Flat, and G go into a bar. The bartender says, ‘Sorry, but we don't serve minors.’”

The joke, of course, is that the musical notes C, E-flat and G comprise a C-minor triad. Hence, “We don’t serve minors.” Ha-ha, right? But being an early-morning literalist, I looked at the joke and thought, “Wait a sec — A, C, E-flat and G is a diminished seventh, not a minor.”

Maybe that's why there aren't more music theory jokes...