Musicians in "Mixed Marriage"

September 1, 2008 7:45 AM

My music theory professor challenged our class to identify a married couple where one plays the violin and the other the trumpet. His theory is that the personalities of violin and trumpet players clash. Can anyone name a prominent musical couple where one plays a bowed instrument and the other brass? I would imagine that a saxophone player or drummer would be equally incompatible with a string player.
posted by swarkentien to society & culture (14 comments total)

I would imagine that a saxophone player or drummer would be equally incompatible with a string player.

I'm not sure whether The White Stripes confirm or deny the theory, but it is an interesting data point.
posted by googly at 7:52 AM on September 1, 2008

Why is prominence required? Is that a third variable in his theory?

A very quick Google brings up this brass quintet where not just one but two members are mentioned as being married to violinists.
posted by vacapinta at 7:59 AM on September 1, 2008

These music teachers are married he's brass/woodwind, she is violin.
posted by lee at 8:05 AM on September 1, 2008

I played in an orchestra for many years whose lead trumpet player was married to one of the violinists. This wasn't a professional orchestra, though, and you probably wouldn't have heard of either of them.
posted by Johnny Assay at 8:32 AM on September 1, 2008

Trumpet players and violinists have a wide range of personalities, like any other cross-section of humanity. So I disagree with the entire premise.
posted by the_bone at 9:24 AM on September 1, 2008

FWIW the two members of Mates of State are married. He plays drums; she plays keys. I suppose that meshes together better than strings/brass, but I still think the premise is crap.
posted by spikeleemajortomdickandharryconnickjrmints at 9:40 AM on September 1, 2008

Jazz trombonist Annie Whitehead's partner, Jennifer Maidman, plays guitar in Annie's band.
posted by essexjan at 9:43 AM on September 1, 2008

2nd-ing altolinguistic and the_bone.

My husband is a violinist in a professional symphony orchestra in a city of over 1,000,000 people. There was a trumpet husband/violin wife in the orchestra for many years, and the orchestra still enjoys the talents of a french horn husband/cello wife. There are always jokes about the various stereotypes of the different instrumental families but none of them has any foundation, inspite of what your professor might say.

And since my husband was the theory teaching assistant in music school, I could tell you a lot of claptrap (no less funny for it being false) about stereotypical theory professors.

I hope your professor's lectures on French augmented sixths are more valid than his musings on musical personalities.
posted by angiep at 9:44 AM on September 1, 2008

Would John and Alice Coltrane count? Saxophonist and harpist/pianist, respectively?
posted by good in a vacuum at 10:08 AM on September 1, 2008

I think the odds and not your professor's theory are driving this.

How many musicians who are serious enough that they'll count in your professor's eyes are out there? I'd be surprised, but let's say there are a million in the US, and from that subtract all the drummers, electric guitar players and keyboard types to leave us with brass and bows. I'm guessing that winnows the field down to 100,000 trumpets and 100,000 violins. Assuming the gender distribution is even, the population of the US is 300,000,000 and pairings are random the odds are like 1 in 3000.

The better argument would be that there is not a lot of call for trumpet and violin duos which reduces chances of their getting involved with one another relative to musicians who might play together.
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 10:50 AM on September 1, 2008

My best friend was lead trumpet in high school and D1 college marching and jazz bands, now married to a former HS/college violin player.
posted by T.D. Strange at 11:07 AM on September 1, 2008

Beware showing up the music theory professor. I took some music theory, great profs, not much of a sense of humor.
posted by Ponderance at 3:19 PM on September 1, 2008

For the purposes of this discussion, I don't think you can count anybody who plays jazz/rock guitar as a string player, since in both cases the guitar, even though it has strings, would be part of the rhythm section. For what it's worth, as a percussionist, I kind of agree (at least in the broadest sense) with your professor that the personalities of string vs. brass players are probably often incompatible.

Ponderance: I took some music theory, great profs, not much of a sense of humor.

One of my music theory profs in college -- a fairly prominent theorist/composer, no less -- was quite possibly the funniest person I have ever known.

The moral here is, with regard to both Ponderance's comment and my own above, and, in fact, this whole question, we should all probably beware of making generalizations.
posted by dseaton at 11:25 PM on September 1, 2008

Talkdemonic They're not married (I don't think), but they go GREAT together.

She plays violin, and he plays drums (mostly).
posted by Delfena at 5:46 PM on September 2, 2008