Instrument jokes

At a rehearsal, the conductor stops and shouts to the bass section: "You are out of tune. Check it, please!" The first bassist pulls all his strings, says, "Our tuning is correct: all the strings are equally tight." The first violist turns around and shouts, "You bloody idiot! It's not the tension. The pegs have to be parallel!" -- Radio presenter, Tim Pollard, on BBC Radio Jersey, when introducing a piece of music by the well-known British composer, Eric Coates, said: "All Eric Coates ever wanted to do was to write music to entertain. But for a while he was a professional viola player." -- After his retirement the violist arrived home carrying his viola case. His wife saw the case and asked "What's that?" (In Germany it is a standing joke that some players leave their instruments in their lockers, removing them only for rehearsals and performances.) -- A violist and a 'cellist were standing on a sinking ship. "Help!" cried the 'cellist, "I can't swim!" "Don't worry," said the violist, "just fake it." -- A viola player went to a piano recital. After the performance he went up to the pianist and said, "You know, I particularly liked that piece you played last--the one that started with a long trill." The pianist said, "Huh? I didn't play any pieces that started with trills." The viola player said, "You know--[he hums the opening bars of F"r Elise.]" -- A violist in an orchestra was crying and screaming at the oboe player sitting directly behind him. The conductor asked, "What are you so upset about?" The violist replied "The oboist reached over and turned one of the pegs on my viola and now it's all out of tune!" The conductor asked "Don't you think you're overreacting?" The violist replied "I'm not overreacting! He won't tell me which one!" -- A violinist noticed at the end of each rehearsal break, one of the violists would look at the inside flap of his jacket before he sat down to resume rehearsal. This continued for several decades, and the violinist became quite curious about it. One day, during hot weather, the violist took off his jacket and went off on break. The violinist waited until everyone was off the platform, looked around, and sneaked over to the jacket. He pulled back the flap and saw a little note pinned on the inside. It read: "viola left hand, bow right." A man went into a novelty shop and saw an item that caught his fancy almost immediately. It was a stuffed rat. The man couldn't take his eyes off it, and finally asked how much it cost. The answer was "$79.95, but if you buy it, you can't return it for any reason." The man thought this was a bit odd, but he was really taken by the stuffed rat so he bought it. As he headed down the street with the stuffed rat, several live rats started following him. He thought this was really odd, but he kept walking. Within a few blocks, he had a huge pack of rats behind him. When he got to the river, he threw the stuffed rat into the river, and all the live rats jumped into the river and drowned. The man returned to the shop. As soon as he walked in, the owner said "I told you you couldn't return the stuffed rat!" The man said "No! I don't want to return it! I was wondering if you had any stuffed violists." -- A violist was hiking in the mountains, and he came upon a shepherd who was tending a large herd of sheep that were grazing in the alpine meadow. The violist took a fancy to the sheep, and asked the shepherd: "If I can guess how many sheep you have, can I have one?" The shepherd thought this was an odd request, but thought that there was little chance that the man would guess the exact number of sheep, so he said "Sure." The violist guessed "You have 287 sheep," to the shepherd's astonishment, since this was exactly how many sheep he had. The violist got all excited and asked "Can I pick out my sheep now?" and the shepherd grudgingly gave his permission. The violist selected his sheep, bent over, and swung the sheep over his shoulders, to carry home with him. The shepherd then got an idea and asked "If I guess what your occupation is, can I have my sheep back?" The violist was a bit surprised by this, but figured that it was unlikely that the shepherd would be able to guess his occupation, and went along with the deal. The shepherd then guessed "You're a violist, aren't you?" The violist was very surprised and asked, "How did you know?" The shepherd responded, "Put the dog down and we'll talk about it." -- A group of terrorists hijacked a plane full of violists. They called down to ground control with their list of demands and added that if their demands weren't met, they would release one violist every hour. Thank you for reading.