BS: Too Many Notes

Subject: BS: Too Many Notes
From: Strick
Date: 26 Mar 04 - 08:35 PM

As was reported earlier this week, members of the violin section of the Beethoven Orchestra in Bonn, Germany, already the highest paid orchestra on earth, have sued for a pay increase arguing that they play more notes per performance than other instruments in the orchestra. They have asked for approximately $150 additional for each performance or rehearsal.

This morning orchestra management held an open meeting in an attempt to settle the labor dispute but where surprised when members of other sections of the orchestra presented hastily developed schemes for fairly valuing their contribution to the orchestra. After hearing the violinists' presentation, brass players responded that violinists merely bow or pluck their instruments, but they are required to provide the additional effort of blowing into their instruments should receive a pay raise as well. Wind players in the orchestra countered that they too have the additional effort of blowing into their instruments plus are required to play with eight fingers and a thumb, more than any brass player. They argued they should receive the sum demanded by the brass players plus an 6 finger surcharge, that being the difference in the number of fingers used by the respective instrument sections. When brass players objected to receiving less pay than the wind players, the wind players' representative responded "Oh, yeah?" and a minor scuffle broke out until the parties were separated by orchestra ushers who had been trying to work out their own claims based on the number of chairs they managed versus the number of chairs the conductor of the orchestra was responsible for. One oboe reed was reported received minor injuries.

After the disturbance, players of larger string instrument and united with players of brass instruments lobbying for a pay increase because they have to carry much larger instruments to work. They are divided on whether the raise should be based on weight or instrument volume in cubic centimeters, however.

So far the drum section has not responded, though rumors persist that they have been hindered from responding to the number of notes argument put forth by the violinists due to a shortage of fingers and toes needed to perform the necessary calculations.

In unrelated news, journalists remain divided over whether reporters covering science should receive more pay than sports reporters because they use longer words and actually have to understand what they cover. Political analysts are also divided over whether to sue for a pay increase because, no matter what the science and sports reporters have to put up with, nothing compares to having to work with a bunch of politicians day in and day out.

Film at 11.

Subject: RE: BS: Too Many Notes
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 26 Mar 04 - 10:32 PM

A very nice version of the first movement of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony was playing in the background of the Morning Edition story. I couldn't begin to count the notes. I suppose they have computer software that can settle the question. . .

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Too Many Notes
From: Amos
Date: 26 Mar 04 - 11:43 PM

Strick:

You have me ROTFLMAO!!

I never met a Republican who coudl do that before!!


A

Subject: RE: BS: Too Many Notes
From: Blackcatter
Date: 26 Mar 04 - 11:44 PM

SRS

Computer software?

Couldn't one just look on the sheet music?

Subject: RE: BS: Too Many Notes
From: katlaughing
Date: 26 Mar 04 - 11:55 PM

Of a whole symphony, Blackcatter? :-) Heavens, my brother has four fully-orchestrated piano concertoes, three full symphonies, plus a bunch of smaller pieces, all written by hand. I'd hate to try to look at one page and figure out how many notes there are...it would take a while. Much quicker to scan it in and have the ones and zeros add it up.**bg**

He will enjoy this one, Strick, thanks!

katLOL

Subject: RE: BS: Too Many Notes
From: Johnny in OKC
Date: 27 Mar 04 - 12:06 AM

Once again, the singers have been forgotten.

What about all those WORDS we have to sing,
in addition to the notes?

And sometime the words are in difficult languages,
such as Russian, German, French -- to say nothing of English.

We want more pay!

Love, Johnny

Subject: RE: BS: Too Many Notes
From: Amos
Date: 27 Mar 04 - 12:08 AM

(actually from ms. barky)
we trumpet players should be payed most, if ya ask me.... we have to count rests!!! do you have ANY idea how much energy that takes on, say, a Mozart or a Beethoven symphony?!?!? That can be, literally, 400-some measures rest, and then two notes! Talk about trying!!!!!!!!!!!!
~Barky

Subject: RE: BS: Too Many Notes
From: Peace
Date: 27 Mar 04 - 12:12 AM

Hey, an' talkers, too. Like, uh, ya know?

Good one, Strick.

Subject: RE: BS: Too Many Notes
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 27 Mar 04 - 12:16 AM

Well, one of the benefits of a "Classical" Music Training as a child is that reading full orchestral (or choral) scores is no problem to me... :-)

And I can play about a dozen different instruments, but not all at the same time - not enough arms, as well as fingers...

Robin

Subject: RE: BS: Too Many Notes
From: Strick
Date: 27 Mar 04 - 12:28 AM

"(actually from ms. barky)
we trumpet players should be payed most, if ya ask me.... we have to count rests!!! do you have ANY idea how much energy that takes on, say, a Mozart or a Beethoven symphony?!?!? That can be, literally, 400-some measures rest, and then two notes! Talk about trying!!!!!!!!!!!!
~Barky"

I confess I always found counting endless measures of rests the hardest thing, at least until we learned our cues.

I did hear a very serious suggestion that the violinist didn't know what they were talking about, because whenever they played it was as a whole suggestion of 12 or more instruments and most their mistakes would get washed out. When a flute or oboe comes it, they're all alone and there's no place to hide.

Subject: RE: BS: Too Many Notes
From: Amos
Date: 27 Mar 04 - 12:34 AM

LOL!! Ya made our day, Strick!! Barky says, "Yeah, it's true too!! Violinists have this attitude, and there's a MILLION of 'em!". Such, the vituperation of youth.

Oh, my, I am going to have to surrender my hard-nosed polarization. You're much too humorous to make a dichotomy against :>).


A

Subject: RE: BS: Too Many Notes
From: Strick
Date: 27 Mar 04 - 12:40 AM

I'm surprised. Surely John Hardly's put offered up some of his work here? He writes like me except he's talented and funny, too.

Subject: RE: BS: Too Many Notes
From: Amos
Date: 27 Mar 04 - 01:16 AM

Wow -- a self-effacng republican!! Blows my pet theory all to pieces!


A

Subject: RE: BS: Too Many Notes
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 27 Mar 04 - 02:53 AM

I second that remark about the singers! I've had to learn pieces in Latin, French, Mediaeval English, German, Italian and Spanish - AND I've had to sit behind many an orchestra right in the danger zone!

I think we need danger money too - I've been bashed by a bassoon, one foot squashed by a French Horn, and the other drenched by dribble from the same instrument.

Plus, we have to hold our own music up or learn it by heart .... all those instrumentalists get stands.

Sod the Musicians Union, how about a Singers' Union?!

LTS (Choir member for 30 years next month)

Subject: RE: BS: Too Many Notes
From: Strick
Date: 27 Mar 04 - 08:37 AM

Amos, let me restore your faith in humanity -- remember this was making fun of a labor dispute.

jonny, Liz, my wife the vocalist agees entirely.

Subject: RE: BS: Too Many Notes
From: katlaughing
Date: 27 Mar 04 - 09:33 AM

Ah, but STRING players have to *HEAR* where to put their fingers for all of those notes. And, as one who grew up playing first chair in orchestra, let me tell you if ONE gets it wrong it is not covered by the rest, NOT if the conductor is on their toes and listening. There's also the shame of it because surrounding players always hear it! The rest of you have it easy, just push here, pull there, blow it and it's all worked out for you!

Speaking of, have any of you seen the all women's Canadian group, "Infernal Violins?" Talk about hard work and deserving of more pay!!! Those wimmin rock!!

Subject: RE: BS: Too Many Notes
From: Rapparee
Date: 27 Mar 04 - 09:48 AM

Barky's dead right! Trumpet players deserve the most!

We have to understand not only the music of our instrument, but the mechanics of it. We have to oil the valves, too -- and don't forget the outrageous amounts we have to pay for corking and felting. And the less said about our spit valves the better. We practice until our lips are raw, chapped and bleeding and they someone wants to kiss us. And no stringer, windy or pounder knows the feel of a cold mouthpiece.

Besides, who's gonna sound the charge in a labor dispute? The clarinets? A picollo? A viola? No! It'll be a trumpet, up front, leading the charge, inspiring others, raising their spirits! It has always been thus! Trumpets rule, so pay the trumpeters what they are worth and let us retire in style to grand homes on Maui!

Subject: RE: BS: Too Many Notes
From: Amos
Date: 27 Mar 04 - 10:41 AM

..where we can nurse our bleeding lips in the style to which we have always sought to become accustomed!!.

Thanks, Rapaire!! I'll send the link to Barky -- she left for SFO at crack o' dawn.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Too Many Notes
From: Strick
Date: 27 Mar 04 - 10:58 AM

"We have to understand not only the music of our instrument, but the mechanics of it. We have to oil the valves, too -- and don't forget the outrageous amounts we have to pay for corking and felting. And the less said about our spit valves the better. We practice until our lips are raw, chapped and bleeding and they someone wants to kiss us. And no stringer, windy or pounder knows the feel of a cold mouthpiece."

Ah, but trumpet don't have to fiddle with shaping and trimming perfidious reeds. Your mouthpiece is inert, not an organic thing that changes with the atmosphere and wears out all too frequently. Not to mention the cost of the reeds themselves, particularly if you use well aged ones like I do. It's like buying and putting up fine wine. And what about the of labor swabbing this and that and having to apply oils to the keys and the wood?

Surely chapped lips are nothing compared to having bitten through your lower lip as the result of hours and hours of practicing and playing. My inner lip still has a scar from one hard summer's work long ago.

Subject: RE: BS: Too Many Notes
From: Rapparee
Date: 27 Mar 04 - 11:15 AM

I have to swab out the trumpet, a task I defer as long as possible, because all of those broken notes and things will eventually affect the its dulcet tones. And as for "organic" mouthpieces, you can only say that if you play double reed, like a (shudder!) oboe. A clarinet mouthpiece, for example, is mostly plastic or ebonite or something, and only the vibrating reed (once a living thing and then cruelly plucked and viciously split) could be called "organic." In the interests of preserving the environment and the living things around us, trumpeters can use THEIR mouthpieces for years and years.

Subject: RE: BS: Too Many Notes
From: Strick
Date: 27 Mar 04 - 11:19 AM

The best clarinet mouthpieces are hard rubber and quite organic, thank you.

Are you suggesting reeds are not biodegradeable, renewable resources? Think of the evils of the mining necessary to produce those trumpet mouthpieces. How can a growing a simple reed in a pond compare to stripmining? Reeds are raised on farms in France, for heaven's sake. Wait, what am I saying? France?!?!

Subject: RE: BS: Too Many Notes
From: Rapparee
Date: 27 Mar 04 - 12:27 PM

You still using reeds from 1929? That's when my trumpet and mouthpiece was made. (I bought them used, not new.) In the US, in Indiana. Out of US materials. Good old fashioned American technology and manufacture, by honest American workers. Nothing made out of rubber, collected by exploited masses living in near-slave conditions someplace overseas and played by vibrating a reed grown in France!

Workers of the world, Unite! Environmentalists, Lovers of Human Dignity and Freedom, revolt against the tyranny of reed instruments! Show that you've got brass! "He has sounded forth the TRUMPET that shall never call retreat!" -- not "He has sounded forth the clarinet..."!

Arise! You have nothing to lose but your chains!

Subject: RE: BS: Too Many Notes
From: Amos
Date: 27 Mar 04 - 12:51 PM

We not only have brass (well, Barky does) but she also has Silent Brass, a technical acheivement of GREAT merit which allows the student to play the trumpet into an almost complete mute and listen to it through earphones sounding as though unmuted. Now that's application!!

If we could figure out how to do that for the human voice we would make Borgs out of everyone!!

A

Subject: RE: BS: Too Many Notes
From: Strick
Date: 27 Mar 04 - 05:57 PM

"You still using reeds from 1929? That's when my trumpet and mouthpiece was made."

Ah, made in 1929, huh? Before any environmental controls were imposed or workers rights recognized? The shame of it all. No doubt the mouthpiece was bought with profits made from fleecing poor honest citizens out of their life savings during the stock market crash or from the proceeds of playing some speakeasy blinding its unwary customers with bathtub gin.

What can you expect from of someone who plays what passes for music from his instrument by blowing raspberries at the audience?

Subject: RE: BS: Too Many Notes
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 27 Mar 04 - 06:22 PM

Us poor accordion players may not have to worry about our instruments going out of tune - at least if you visit the tuner guy regularly - but we have to develop our left shoulder and arms - what else can you use your left hand for?

Robin

Subject: RE: BS: Too Many Notes
From: Rapparee
Date: 27 Mar 04 - 07:45 PM

What else can you use your left hand for? Man, are you kidding?

Pix 2, 3, and 4.   You can also do this. Or this. There's even this and some of these, but certainly not this!

Subject: RE: BS: Too Many Notes
From: Amos
Date: 27 Mar 04 - 07:51 PM

You have entirely too much time on your hands, pal!! It took me ten muinutes of clicking back and forth just to parse your hyperconstruction above!!


A

Subject: RE: BS: Too Many Notes
From: Rapparee
Date: 27 Mar 04 - 07:58 PM

Amos, that's 'cause trumpeters are COOL! and can do anything.

Which makes me ask, why were parsing it? THAT really shows time on your hands! (Besides, I can't work out in the yard 'cause there is s*** coming from the sky.)

Subject: RE: BS: Too Many Notes
From: Rapparee
Date: 27 Mar 04 - 08:15 PM

Besides, accordions come with supporters.

Subject: RE: BS: Too Many Notes
From: Mary in Kentucky
Date: 27 Mar 04 - 09:46 PM

...and I thought this thread was about one of my son's favorite quotes...

It's from the movie Amadeus where the emperor tells Mozart there are too many notes in his music!

(my son usually refers to me talking too much or giving him too much information)

Subject: RE: BS: Too Many Notes
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 28 Mar 04 - 04:56 PM

"And no stringer, windy or pounder knows the feel of a cold mouthpiece."

Ah, if only...........

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Too Many Notes
From: Amos
Date: 28 Mar 04 - 07:44 PM

Trivia fact for the year: In 1963, the year the Beatles appeared on the Ed Sullivan show, accordions outsold all makes of electric andf acoustic guitars combined in the United States.


I have been told this by a convincing professional musician.

I did not count them myself.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Too Many Notes
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 29 Mar 04 - 08:05 AM

Oh Strick, what a hilarious thread you have started!
And Rapaire, thanks for the reference to mine humble self, in company with the great Picasso!
And if I hadn't stopped playing the accordeon in the prime of my life I could have looked like Picasso's accordeonist. Imagine that!
But these guys in the orchestra should stop arguing and play more. My advice: Swing the cat o'nine tails over them, and whomever you hit: it isn't the wrong one.

Wilfried
(accordeonist, guitarrist, trumpeter, euphonist, flutist, ... drummer through the c(o)urse of his life)

Subject: RE: BS: Too Many Notes
From: GUEST,Hugh Jampton
Date: 29 Mar 04 - 09:19 AM

What is the going rate for the fellow on the triangle?

Subject: RE: BS: Too Many Notes
From: GUEST,Jim Knowledge
Date: 29 Mar 04 - 09:28 AM

I `ad that Ye`udi Menuin in my cab once. I was taking `im to the Royal Festival `all. I said I suppose you`re on a little earner with all those notes you play? `e said, nah, tonights` a cheapy. I`m only playing "Air on a G String"!!
What am I like?

Subject: RE: BS: Too Many Notes
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 29 Mar 04 - 10:05 AM

Hugh, we triangulists unfortunately are hopelessly underrated. My piece "Midnight in the Hallingburies (near Bishop's Stortford)" for triangle solo, in 3 moves, was performed only once; I rate it € 150 - (12 strokes ff maestoso, 1 trill sost., 1 stroke giocoso dim.) - but never was able to persuade anybody to pay me the price. Bad world, bad luck.

Subject: RE: BS: Too Many Notes
From: GUEST,Triangle player
Date: 29 Mar 04 - 10:06 AM

Yeah..., but you have to be on the ball for all those rests, as well

Subject: RE: BS: Too Many Notes
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 29 Mar 04 - 11:52 AM

Amos

have been told that is still the case - worldwide. Find it a bit hard to believe myself, but apparently the number sold in South America & Africa is considerable, and they are still popular in Eastern Europe & Med. areas. That figure includes all accordions not just piano accordions. China too makes lots of accordions in the old Hohner factories they took over. India has a lot of harmoniums, which is a form of accordion, I suppose.

Sounds just like an Urban myth to me though.

Robin

Subject: RE: BS: Too Many Notes
From: Cool Beans
Date: 29 Mar 04 - 01:54 PM

Paid by the note, huh? That explains Roy Clark.

Subject: RE: BS: Too Many Notes
From: GUEST,Hugh Jampton
Date: 30 Mar 04 - 07:15 AM

Wilfred,
         A friend of mine is, at this very moment, composing a major symphony for triangle, spoons and square( for use in the 4/4 bars naturally). It will be in 3 parts, fortissimo and very agitato if the spoons last the course(no pun intended). He is not sure about the notes but is confident there will be in excess of 7300 whacks and at £0.25 per whack, can`t be bad for the percussionists!

Subject: RE: BS: Too Many Notes
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 30 Mar 04 - 08:45 AM

Hugh,

if he finds a sponsor who will pay for every whack he should consider himself extremely lucky.

Subject: RE: BS: Too Many Notes
From: mooman
Date: 30 Mar 04 - 09:07 AM

This reminds me of a story about a travelling orchestra at the turn of the century in India.

They put on a performance for a local Maharaja, who was so delighted with the brilliance of that night's performance that he ordered all the player's instruments to be stuffed with gold. Although some were more happy than others, all were happy except the piccolo player!

The next evening, the orchestra performed atrociously and the Maharaja was furious and demanded the all the players have their instruments shoved up their a***s. Once again, the piccolo player was the unlucky one....


Peace

moo

Subject: RE: BS: Too Many Notes
From: Amos
Date: 30 Mar 04 - 10:11 AM

Moo:

I don't believe that!

A

Subject: RE: BS: Too Many Notes
From: GUEST,Hugh Jampton
Date: 31 Mar 04 - 08:56 AM

Mooman, I love it!!