Origination: Classical Music Mailing List
 Originator: Varda Ullman Novick [vunovick AT NETCOM.COM]
       Date: Wed, 19 Apr 1995 08:37:52 -0700
    Subject: Math for Orchestra Members


1) Wilma 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 bonds, yielding 8.7%, before she is fired from her
   job? If not, calculate the probability of her ever working in
   a professional symphony orchestra again.

2) 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 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?

3) 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 in 17. If there are
   103 musicians in the orchestra and the orchestra sees 26 different
   conductors a 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?

4) 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?

5) 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
  .3528 seconds behind the rest of the viola section, which is already
  .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?

6) 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?

7) 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?