Original article: JSTOR Daily Original author: Karen Rile, a Philadelphia-based writer and music and arts critic Chinese translation and adaptation: Xiao A of Violy
Translator’s note: This English version translates Violy’s Chinese adaptation, dated August 26, 2019. Quotations below are translated renderings, not transcriptions of the original English. The reference to fifteen years after publication belongs to Rile’s January 2015 article about Rahkonen’s 2000 paper. Terminology and mistranslated passages have been checked against Rile’s article and Rahkonen’s earlier presentation.
Q: How does a viola differ from a lawnmower?
A: A lawnmower can be tuned.
Q: And how does a viola differ from a vacuum cleaner?
A: Both suck, but the vacuum cleaner has to be plugged in first.
Q: What makes a violist’s fingers resemble lightning?
A: They never land on the same spot twice.
Every subculture has jokes that only its members fully appreciate, and classical music is no exception. The viola often ends up as the butt of the joke. Violists are portrayed as fools with clumsy fingers, while their instruments are mocked as useless boxes that produce nothing but noise.
In the journal Western Folklore, ethnomusicologist Carl Rahkonen published No Laughing Matter: The Viola Joke Cycle as Musicians’ Folklore. The paper collected and analyzed viola jokes circulating widely online during his research in the late 1990s. A violist himself, Rahkonen suggested that these jokes might form a self-contained, self-limiting “joke cycle,” whose history could be useful to future ethnomusicological research. As Rile observed in 2015, fifteen years after the paper appeared, the viola was still classical music’s favorite target, and the same collection of jokes was still spreading enthusiastically online.
Rahkonen divided viola jokes into six overlapping categories and supplied examples:
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Jokes mocking the instrument itself. (How is a viola different from a trampoline? You remove your shoes before jumping on a trampoline.)
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Jokes mocking violists. (What does saliva running from both corners of a violist’s mouth tell you? The stage is completely level.)
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Jokes that people outside classical music can understand. (How does a violist differ from a dog? A dog knows when to stop scratching.)
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Jokes that require musical knowledge. (How would you define a quarter-tone? Two violists attempting to play one identical note.)
Reverse jokes retaliate against viola jokes, often taking aim at violinists, who are caricatured as ostentatious show-offs. (Why is a violin smaller than a viola? It isn’t—the violinist simply has a bigger head.) A cruder example asks: Why don’t violists get hemorrhoids? Because every asshole is in the first violin section. The punchline relies on “asshole” meaning both an anus and an obnoxious person.
Most viola jokes use a brief question-and-answer format, which helps them endure. Rahkonen’s sixth category, however, consists of longer narrative jokes. (Why are viola jokes so brief? So a violinist can remember one.)
Translator’s note: The Chinese adaptation gives “quarter note” in the fourth example; the musical term in Rile’s article is “quarter-tone,” a pitch interval. It also omits the name of the sixth category. Rahkonen’s own presentation identifies that category as narrative viola jokes. The dog joke is also corrected from the adaptation’s “stop barking” to “stop scratching,” as in Rile’s article.
So why do the viola and its players have to endure so much ridicule?
Rahkonen explains that these jokes “reinforce the hierarchy within an orchestra and give voice to stereotypes that are rarely stated openly but widely believed. For a joke to be funny, it needs both a basis in perceived reality and an unexpected twist.”
The poor viola gets little respect. In orchestral and chamber music, it often supplies the inner harmonic lines. These are less showy than violin parts and are perceived within the ensemble as less technically demanding. Compared with the violin and cello, the viola has a smaller solo repertoire. Much of its music uses the alto clef, which can seem obscure to musicians accustomed to treble and bass clefs. (How is alto clef different from Greek? Some conductors really can read Greek.)
The instrument also has physical peculiarities. Its size can be cumbersome for many players and can create difficulties in producing sound. In the account summarized here, a viola is approximately 10% larger than a violin but is pitched a fifth lower. Its dimensions and the physics of sound mean that it projects less strongly than its nimble, higher-pitched relative and is harder to play in tune. (How does a viola differ from a violin? You can put more beer in a viola.)
Violists fare no better. The Chinese adaptation describes their numbers in an orchestra as often only half those of other string sections. Rile likewise describes violists as being outnumbered two to one, though this should be read as part of her account rather than a fixed staffing rule for every ensemble. She also suggests that violists often begin learning their instrument later because small violas made for children sound so poor. Many violists start out playing the violin, feeding the perception—rightly or wrongly—that violinists who cannot succeed switch to the viola.
Rahkonen writes that “violists are often treated as lesser musicians, supposedly because they could not succeed on the violin.” He cites a statement by composer Richard Wagner from 1869: “The viola is generally, with rare exceptions, played by infirm violinists or aging wind players who once had some familiarity with a string instrument.” Rile argues that, in the amateur and community orchestras of her day, the caricature of a poorly trained musician struggling with an inadequate instrument was not entirely unfounded.
Translator’s note: The adaptation says that many violists begin their careers at the same time as violinists, and renders Wagner’s statement as referring to the past. Rile’s article instead says that many violists begin as violinists and quotes Wagner describing who commonly played the viola in his time. Those passages above follow the cited text.
The suggestion that the viola is less important, less beautiful or less valuable than the violin does not hold up in symphonic or chamber music. Complex harmonies depend on the viola’s solid, reliable inner voice. Besides, as the article points out, Bach and Mozart—composers one might consider greater than Wagner—both championed the viola as their favorite instrument.