Klarinet Archive - Posting 000779.txt from 1996/10

From: Benjamin Maas <bm004e@-----.EDU>
Subj: Do we call ourselves musicians?
Date: Thu, 31 Oct 1996 07:33:14 -0500

A friend of mine sent this to me a couple of days ago. I found it to be
quite funny so I thought I would send it on to the list. If this is
something that you all have already seen, I am sorry to send it again. If
not, enjoy.....

Ben

>
> MATH TEST FOR ORCHESTRA MEMBERS
>
> 1. Armando is the dynamic new conductor of an orchestra and has increased
> the ticket sales for the classical series to 95%. If the concert hall holds
> 3200 people, and the concerts begin promptly at 8:05 pm, how many digital
> watch alarms will go off within one minute of 9pm? Within 5 minutes?
>
> 2. Richard has been a professional timpanist for 35 years. In his personal
> kit he owns 32 different yarn mallets, 12 different wool mallets, 5
> different rubber mallets, and 2 different polished brass tack hammers. What
> are the odds that a conductor will ask him to use different mallets at the
> first rehearsal of a Haydn symphony? A Mahler symphony?
>
> 3. Julinda's orchestra performs Dvorak's "New World" symphony every 6 years,
> Sibelius' Swan of Tuonela every 4 years, and Berlioz's Overture to Benvenuto
> Cellini every 3 years. What are the odds that, in any given year, the
> program notes will include the sentence "The English Horn is neither English
> nor a horn."?
>
> 4. Sandy is tired of paying for clarinet reeds. If she adopts a policy of
> playing only on rejected reeds from her colleagues, will she be able to
> retire on the money she has saved if she invests it in mutual funds
> (yielding 8.7%) before she is fired from her job?
>
> 5. Jethro has been playing the double bass in a symphony orchestra for
> twelve years, three months, and seven days. Each day, his inclination to
> practice decreases by the equation: (Total days in the orchestra) x
> .000976. Assuming that he stopped practicing altogether six months ago, how
> long will it be before he is completely unable to play the double bass?
>
> 6. Wilma plays in the second violin section but specializes in making
> disparaging remarks about conductors and other musicians. The probability
> of her making a negative comment is 4:7 for any given musician, and 16:17
> for conductors. If there are 103 musicians in the orchestra and the
> orchestra sees 26 different conductors each year, how many negative comments
> does Wilma make in a two-year period? How does this change if five of the
> musicians are also conductors? What if six of the conductors are also
> musicians?
>
> 7. Horace is the General Manager of a symphony orchestra. He tries to hear
> at least four concerts a year. Assuming that at each concert the orchestra
> plays a minimum of three pieces, what are the chances that Horace can avoid
> hearing a single work by Mozart, Beethoven, or
> Brahms in the next ten years?
>
> 8. Betty plays in the viola section. Despite her best efforts she is
> unable to play with the rest of the orchestra and, on average, plays .35
> seconds behind the rest of the viola section, which is already .16 seconds
> behind the rest of the orchestra. If the orchestra is moving into a new
> concert hall with a reverberation time of 2.7 seconds, will she be able to
> continue playing this way undetected?
>
> 9. Ralph loves to drink coffee. Each week he drinks three more cups of
> coffee that Harold, who drinks exactly one third the amount that the entire
> brass section consumes in beer. How much longer is Ralph going to live?
>
> 10. Rosemary is unable to play in keys with more than three sharps without
> making an inordinate number of mistakes. Because her colleagues in the
> cello section are also struggling in these passages she has so far been able
> to escape detection. What is the total number of hours they would all have
> to practice to play the complete works of Richard Strauss?
>
>
>
>
>

--
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*Benjamin Maas * Which is more musical, a truck passing*
*Student, Eastman School of Music * by a factory, or a truck passing by a *
*bm004e@-----.edu * music school? -John Cage, 1957*
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