Klarinet Archive - Posting 000470.txt from 1995/03

From: Neil Leupold <Neil_Leupold@-----.COM>
Subj: Eating before playing
Date: Thu, 16 Mar 1995 19:14:35 -0500

Eating before playing
My small story:

High school kids in particular need to be admonished about eating before
playing. I remember watching in horror in high school while my colleagues
stuffed Twinkies and HoHo's into their faces just before a morning rehearsal.
All that sugar & garbage was blown straight into their instruments, of course.
The following day, I watched curiously as they put their instruments together
to start the day's rehearsal. One by one during the rehearsal, each of them
removed his/her instrument from their mouths, allowing a stream of ants to
crawl up past the reed out of the mouthpiece. Not only had they eaten before
playing, but none of them had bothered to swab out their clarinets afterwards.
Unfortunately (here's something Dan left out) one of them also vomited upon
appearance of the ants...