Math Test for Orchestra Members
Armando is the dynamic new conductor of an orchestra and has increased the ticket sales for the classical series 95%. If the concert hall holds 3,200 people, and the concerts begin promptly at 8:05 p.m., how many digital watch alarms will go off within one minute of 9 p.m.? Within 5 minutes?
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?
Julinda's orchestra performs Dvorak's New World symphony every 6 years, Sibelius' Swan of Tuoneola 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"?
Sandy is tired of paying for clarinet reeds. If she adopts a policy of playing only 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?
Jethro has been playing the double bass in a symphony orchestra for 12 years, 3 months, and 7 days. Each day, his inclination to practice decreases by the equation: (total days in the orchetra) x .000976. Assuming that he stopped practicing altogether 6 months ago, how long will it be before he is comletely 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 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, now 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 a symphony orchestra. He tries to hear at least four concerts a year. Assuming the orchestra plays a minimum of three pieces at each concert, what are the chances that Horace can avoid hearing a single work by Mozart, Beethoven, or Brahms in the next 10 years?
Betty plays in the viola section. Despite her best efforts she is unable to play with rest of the orchestra and, on average, plays 0.35 seconds behind the rest of the viola sections, which is already 0.16 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?
Ralph loves to drink coffee. Each week he drinks three more cups of coffee than Harold who drinks exactly one third the amount the entire bass section consumes in beer. How much longer is Ralph going to live?
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 a day they would all have to practice to play the complete works of Richard Strauss?