Orchestral Humor

[reedo35]

I just happened upon this on the web- A seemingly unending Arsenal of orchestral jibes and anecdotes http://www.robertatchison.com/cso/humor.php#bass

[Chris Fitzgerald]

A couple of my faves:


What do you do with a dead violist?
Move him back a desk.


A conductor and a violist are standing in the middle of the road. which one do you run over first, and why?
The conductor. Business before pleasure.

[Mike Goodbar]

I like the one where the conductor took violently ill just before a concert. Desperate, the general manager went to the green room and made a plea to the orchestra members; Was there anyone who could conduct the program?

A violist who sat on the last stand timidly raised his hand and admitted that he'd committed the scores for the entire program to memory and would be willing to take on the task. With no other choice, the manager agree.

The rest of the orchestra took their places, and the timid violist went out to conduct a brilliant concert and received a standing ovation.

Bursting with newfound pride and confidence, the violist strode into rehearsal the next day and and sat next to his stand partner who asks,

"Hey, where the hell were you last night?"

[Mike Goodbar]

One more:

A Russian ballet troupe and its small orchestra was touring the Midwest performing Swan Lake as part of a cultural exchange. They reached a small town where the orchestra's percussionist (you guessed it) took violently ill.

After many calls to every town within a hundred miles, a retired circus drummer was finally found. "He'll have to do," said the conductor. That night, the old drummer took his place and played his best.

When the ballet was finished, the conductor strode up to the impromptu percussionist and roared, "You are the worst percussionist I've ever heard! You ruined the ballet!" He broke his baton in half, threw the pieces at the drummer's feet and stormed off.

The drummer looked beseechingly at the other musicians, shrugged his shoulders and said, "What's he so mad about? I caught everything!"

[arnoldschnitzer]

This one from Josh Ginsburg (great jazz bassist):
Bassist retires after 40 years with the symphony. Brings home his bass. "What the hell is THAT thing?" exclaims his wife...

[Sasa]

I like these jokes.

Sorry for offtopic.

The band is performing their best show ever. The spectators are dancing, crying and freaking out. Yes, they are almost in extasy.
The frontman thinks: "Oh, God. I'm fantastic. I'm the best!"
Guitar player: "Yeah! Here's my solo! All the girls are mine!"
Drummer: "Oh, I'd like to have a bottle of beer"
And finally the bass player: "C - E - G, C - E - G!"

And here's the orchestral one:

The conductor furiously roars being displeased with drummer: "You're loser! When somebody looks so bad in music he recieves two sticks to become a drummer!" And drummer is whispering: "And if he is a total dummy he throws away one of the sticks to become a conductor" =)

[thedbassist]

I know this thread is old, but I just found it. Here's a favorite joke of mine from that website: A psychiartrist walks into a brain shop, and says to the propriator "Hello. I am here to do some reasearch on human brains. What do you have in stock?"

"Well," propriator began, "We have some Harvard MBA brains at $10 a pound. We also have a few NASA brains going for about $100 a pound. And, just in today, we have some fresh violist brains."

"How much are they?" the scientist inquired.

"$1000 a pound."

"Wow! That's expensive! Every orchestra has them. Why are they so expesive? Are they really high quality?"

"Well, no, they're about average. But, do you know how many violists you have to kill to get a pound of brains?"