Orchestra Math Quiz
~Wilson is tired of paying for clarinet reeds. If he adopts a policy of
playing only on rejected reeds from his colleagues will he be able to
retire on the money he has saved if he invests it in mutual bonds, yielding
8.7%, before he is fired from his job? If not, calculate the probability of
him ever working in a professional symphony orchestra again.
~Jethro has been playing the double bass in a symphony orchestra for 12
years, three months and seven days. Each day, his inclination to practice
decreases by the equation: (total days in the orchestra) x 0.0076. Assuming
he stopped practicing altogether four years, six months and three days ago,
how long will it be before he is completely unable to play the double bass?
~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 about any given musician is 4 chances in
7, and for conductors is 16 chances out of 17. If there are 103 musicians
in the orchestra and the orchestra sees 26 different conductors each year,
how many negative remarks 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?
~Horace is the General Manager of an important 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 per concert, what are the chances
that Horace can avoid hearing a single work by Mozart, Beethoven or Brahms
in the next ten years?
~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 0.3528
seconds behind the rest of the viola section, which is already 0.16485
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?
~Ralph loves to drink coffee. Each week he drinks three more cups of coffee
than Harold, who drinks exactly one-third the amount that the entire brass
section consumes in beer. How much longer is Ralph going to live?
~Rosemary is unable to play in keys with more than three sharps or flats
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?
And now, on to:
Choral Terms
The Evolution of the Modern Musician