Klarinet Archive - Posting 001061.txt from 2003/03

From: "Wendy Bosma" <bosma@-----.net>
Subj: RE: [kl] Instrument accidents
Date: Wed, 26 Mar 2003 09:18:06 -0500

Haha, that's great, Jeremy, but I'm telling!!

-----Original Message-----
From: schiffer@-----.edu]
Subject: Re: [kl] Instrument accidents

On Tue, 25 Mar 2003, Gary Truesdail wrote:

> What is the funniest or worst musical instrument accident you know of.

The worst I was ever involved with happened my senior year of high school.
I was studying with John Denman at the time, and was playing in the Tucson
Philharmonic Youth Orchestra, but I didn't own an A clarinet yet. Mr.
Denman was gracious enough to lend me one of his Yamaha custom A
clarinets for the semester, but he made me swear up and down about ten
times that I wouldn't let anything happen to it, since it was actually his
preferred A (he had two sets of Yamaha customs and prefered the Bb more on
one set and the A more on the other set; at the time, he was playing
more on Bb...).

He finally entrusted me with this amazing A clarinet - gold plated keys,
left hand Ab/Eb key, the works.

One day at school, I put my clarinet back in the double case he also lent
me, and apparently one of two things happened: either I did not latch the
case, or the latch did not hold. Needless to say, my Bb stayed in place,
but the borrowed A, at least the upper joint of it, came crashing to the
ground.

To my horror, the Db/Ab key was completely bent out of shape. I just about
died at that instant, especially because my band director (who held the
principal clarinet job in the TSO before Mr. Denman, and who had arranged
for me to study with him) saw what happened and gave me a rather, well,
disapproving look.

I quickly put the instrument back into the case, and ran into a back room
to inspect the damage. In my youthful enthusiasm, I decided to just bend
the key back to its original shape. Miraculously, the soft key didn't snap
when I returned it to its rightful place, and, as far as I know, he
couldn't tell either when I returned the instrument.

Well, I feel better getting that off my chest. :-)

-jeremy

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Jeremy A. Schiffer
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Columbia University
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