Mathematics for Musicians
(From conductor Gary Berkson, Stockholm)
- 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.
- 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?
- 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?
- 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 .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?
- 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?
Taken from the the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra