The Girl from Ipanema

So I give myself credit for coming up with the idea and TR for exploiting it for financial gain. Way to go, us.

So we’re all out at a jazz club in the Village. I’m tired, it’s late, and I hate jazz, so the likelihood of me enjoying myself is low. They’re playing standards, and I’m drifting away, and then it hits me- Sander, I’ll give you one dollar if the next song they play is not Girl from Ipanema. But you have to give me ten dollars if it is. Quick, what do you say?

Well Sander sort of agreed, and we listened attentively as they fiddled around before the next song. The tension mounted as they counted out the next tune, and although the first two notes of the song were a descending minor third, the following notes bore no relationship to Girl from Ipanema, so I pushed a dollar bill across the table to TR, defeated but not outright dejected. After all, what were the odds?

I gave it a minute just to be sure they weren’t doing some kind of extended introduction before they broke into the song, and then after a few minutes I had given in to my loss.

A little bummed, and a little poorer, I sat there – again bored, the thrill of the bet having worn off. I looked over at TR and the words just fell out of my mouth- If they play Girl from Ipanema any time from now until the end of the night (we were at the end of the first set) he would have to give me twenty dollars. If not, I’d drop one more.

Well this made the whole thing more interesting, and I eagerly awaited the next song to earn back my money.

TR, feeling the same excitement (in fact, ten fold) leaned over and said- this is how you could fund your orchestra, Dave. Just don’t write up a program and have people place bets as to what pieces you’ll perform. It’s just like standards in jazz- everybody’s heard them, and they’re probably a little tired of them. But if you wait on the edge of your seat to see if you’ll profit from the opening measures of the Reformation Symphony, you might just get a little into it.

Now I should stop and say that with my orchestra, nobody was tired of the pieces when we played them. Even when we programmed Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, veteran musicians approached me saying they had heard stuff they’d never heard before in that performance. So that’s that.

But if I were to start an orchestra in Vegas, this is exactly what I’d do.

When the musicians walked on and there were four clarinets, the odds would go up that it was Mahler and not Monteverdi, for example, so there would be a little skill and knowledge involved. And it wouldn’t matter how boring the concert was, because people wouldn’t be listening anyway except for the first four measures (which maybe is all you’d get out of them anyway). But the concert could be as boring as you please, and there would still be the thrill of expectation in the air. ‘How much would I make?’

Ugly, TR, but I’ll betcha if somebody comes across this little blog, it will pop up out there in no time. Or maybe one could set up some kind of OTB and base the orchestra in Belarus or something and simulcast to dirty hovels across the world. The possibilities are endless. Clearly.


I left the club early that night, so I’m living a bit with Schroedinger’s bet, not knowing whether I’d lost or won. But the thrill carries on nonetheless.

D