The Loony Bin
(
loonies@bloodaxe.demon.co.uk
)
Sun, 7 Jul 1996 13:14:48 +0100
Hiya Folks... For a bit of a change...here's something to do with an orchestra... Wishes & Dreams... - ANDREA xx ************<andrea@bloodaxe.demon.co.uk>************ ******************<ajc6@ukc.ac.uk>******************* *** *** *** THE LOONY BIN *** *** loonies@bloodaxe.demon.co.uk *** *** *** ******************Internet Goddess******************* *********************ANDROMEDA*********************** ------- Forwarded foolishness follows ------- The President of a large California health insurance company was also the chairman of the board of his community's symphony orchestra. He could not attend one of the concerts and gave his tickets to the company's director of healthcare cost containment. The next morning he asked the director how he enjoyed the performance. Instead of the usual polite remarks, the director handed him a memorandum which went like this: The undersigned submits the following comments and recommendations relative to the performance of Schubert's Unfinished Symphony by the Civic Orchestra as observed under actual working conditions: a) The attendance of the orchestra conductor is unnecessary for public performances. The orchestra has obviously practised and has the prior authorisation from the conductor to play the symphony at a predetermined level of quality. Considerable money could be saved by merely having the conductor critique the orchestra's performance during a retrospective peer review meeting. b) For considerable periods, the four oboe players had nothing to do. Their numbers should be reduced and their work spread over the whole orchestra, thus eliminating peaks and valleys of activity. c) All twelve violins were playing identical notes with identical motions. This is unnecessary duplication; the staff of this section should be drastically cut with consequent savings. If larger volume of sound is required, this could be obtained through electronic amplification, which has reached very high levels of reproductive quality. d) Much effort was expended in playing 16th notes. This seems an excessive refinement as most of the listeners are unable to distinguish such rapid playing. It is recommended that all notes be rounded up the nearest 8th. If this were done, it would be possible to use trainees and lower-grade operators with no loss of quality. e) No useful purpose would appear to be served by repeating with horns the same passage that has already been handled by the strings. If all such redundant passages were eliminated, as determined by a utilisation review committee, the concert could have been reduced from two hours to 20 minutes, with still greater savings in salaries and overhead. In fact, if Schubert had attended to these matters on a cost-containment basis, he probably would have been able to finish his symphony.