 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Elizabeth
Date: 2004-12-20 23:31
My big night! My local Youth Symphony had a concerto contest and I took the spot. I played and played until I was able to play it while sleeping. I was so prepared! I was exstatic to get on that stage and play my heart out; which that I did.
But, silly me put cork grease on my fairly new clarinet (cork) earlier that day. Who would'a thought it'd last so long! Well I was in a high intensity cadenza... and.... BANG!.. clank!... clank.The bottom of my clarinet went smack on the stage and suddenly I could feel my face disapearing into my red hair. I looked at the conductor giggled and took a bow. I put my clarinet "parts" back together and finished the piece perfectly*!
How embarassing! I would love to hear your "musical mistakes" and "entertaining embarassments". I know this topic has been covered, but, honestly who doesn't like hearing these kind of things?
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Author: diz
Date: 2004-12-20 23:54
That's pretty cool ... I remember sitting on a very recalcitrant chair in a school hall once (playing for a community orchestra) and the chair's legs gave way ... inch by inch until I collapsed on the floor ... causing a rather large woman in the front of the hall to emit a guffaw that set most of the rest of the audience off ...
Without music, the world would be grey, very grey.
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Author: Contra
Date: 2004-12-21 01:18
We were playing our spring concert last year. After the first song, while we were getting ready to play the second, I exhaled. Unfortunately, the slight breath I gave out seemed to be enough to make a ferocious squeak that resounded around the room. It was a bit odd.
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Author: Dori
Date: 2004-12-21 03:06
At my first performance in a woodwind quintet, we stood to take a bow and my seven months pregnant belly almost knocked over my stand. Not my most graceful moment.
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Author: sfalexi
Date: 2004-12-21 13:24
I was sitting first chair, in the front. I went to do a quick page turn (within a short period of rest) and ended up flipping all my music off the stand. A flutter of papers falling to the floor. I quickly adjusted my chair and looked on with the next stand down the line, and rearranged the music after the song.
Alexi
US Army Japan Band
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Author: John Stackpole
Date: 2004-12-21 14:49
A more technical question - how could a clarinet "fall apart" all by itself?
(Is this another nightmare for "lil psychotic.." Mary?)
Most of any related posting here deal with parts stuck together and what to do about it, e.g., Bill and his fused mouthpiece.
Or was there some magic in the cadenza that you played - like Frosty - that causes joints to loosen? If so, copyright it NOW!
JDS
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2004-12-21 15:00
Last night it was horribly embarrassing. You think nobody will ever forget it, and everybody will hold it against you.
Next year (and, better yet, 25 years from now at the band reunion), it will be a "war story," and everyone will be jealous of you for having such a great one.
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Author: clarinetwife
Date: 2004-12-21 16:45
Great story--sounds like you handled it with poise and, as Ken Shaw points out, you end up with a good "war story".
There is a ripple of laughter running through the recording of my senior (HS) recital before one piece, because I very obviously had to turn my music over since I had set it down upside down when I put it on the stand. See--yours is more interesting!
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Author: John Stackpole
Date: 2004-12-21 17:22
Victor Borga used upside-down music to a very good comedy effect in his shows.
He would announce he was going to play some very familiar piece, start it - it would sound all wrong - stop, invert the score with a big flourish, and start over. With a big smile.
Brought down the house every time....
JDS
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Author: edk
Date: 2004-12-21 18:04
Most of my life was spent as a professional percussionist. As an undergrad I was principal percussionist of the University Orchestra and had won the concerto competition. The night of the performance of the concerto (Creston - Mozart didn't write much for the marimba) , I was in the wings watching the overture- Fledermaus -. At the most quiet part (I remember a sustained bassoon note), the tray table that held the crash cymbals and triangle beaters collapsed making an unbelievable racket (I still have this on tape and chuckle - at least now I do). I remember the look on the conductor's face as cymbals bounced and triangle beaters rolled across the wood stage - he glanced at me with a look that said - "It's your section!!"
Anyway, I had to go on next and play the concerto with most of the orchestra giggling, the percussionists wishing they were dead, and the conductor's blood pressure at record levels. I'll never forget that performance!!
Oh yes - the concerto went very well- didn't drop a mallet! ![[wink]](http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/smileys/smilie3.gif)
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Author: clarinetwife
Date: 2004-12-21 18:21
John S--yes, I saw him in concert and it was very effective
edk--I'm sure you are in good company with many percussionist who would have stories to tell. We blew a hole in the chapel floor in college when were playing 1812.
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Author: contragirl
Date: 2004-12-21 21:21
During our "Truck" for college marching band (one of the two years I was in it... and the only one year that I was on clarinet), the girl next to me had the bottom half of her clarinet fly off into the crowd during a parade. The move for the clarinets during the cadence is where we kind of tic-toc our clarinets left and right. Her's just flew apart. Lucky it was a Bundy.
(Truck is the name of our cadence when we go marching around)
--CG
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2004-12-21 21:34
It happens to the best. I was at a Cleveland Orchestra concert where the assistant concertmaster's bow snapped off at the tip. Later, George Szell threw his baton about 10 rows deep into the audience. Always prepared, the assistant principal violist pulled a new baton from his inside jacket pocket. Imagine playing viola with a baton sticking into your armpit, on the off chance that the conductor might need it.
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Author: Bob A
Date: 2004-12-21 22:16
Ken said: "his inside jacket pocket,"
I can think of worse places to keep it!
Bob A
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Author: Bob A
Date: 2004-12-21 22:23
I told this story last year but my family and I still laugh. About fifty years ago in Palmer Alaska with the Anchorage Symphony. I've got the "Cat" about halfway up the tree, pushing hard, when my little daughter jumps up and shouts out "That's My Daddy!" Guess who tumbled out of the tree?
Bob A
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Author: Katrina
Date: 2004-12-22 04:41
Here's mine but it doesn't involve the clarinet, unfortunately...
Two weeks ago, we did an international folkmusic holiday concert with a vocal ensemble. One of our instrumental contributions was our "arrangement" of Vivaldi's Largo from Winter. We play it on violin, accordion, and a Ukrainian folk whistle called a sopilka (me).
Well, a few weeks earlier, I had seen SOMETHING in the fipple of the sopilka and it was affecting how the thing played. It seemed to disappear, and I thought nothing more of it. I had been having some difficulty remembering the fingerings on this little thing (2 thumb holes and 8 finger holes), and I had been having a challenging time playing some higher notes. At the performance, I played the thing and felt soooo badly because it didn't sound right! I KNEW I had the correct fingerings this time, and just thought that I really really wasn't a good musician at all.
We went on to the next piece, and since I didn't play anything on that one, I set the sopilka on the lip of my stand. After a few phrases of the tune, I glanced down at the whistle and just about screamed aloud...There was a piece of paper visible through the finger holes!!! We got it out at intermission, and it was a catalog page or a label or something, and the back is all in Ukrainian...
Katrina
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Author: Ken Shaw ★2017
Date: 2004-12-22 13:55
John -
The rest of the story is that the violist saw where the baton went and came into the audience at the intermission to get it back. He said that Szell had spent a lot of time sanding it down to be just as he wanted it. He gave the person who caught it the substitute baton.
I guess batons get tweaked just like instruments. ![[tongue]](http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/smileys/smilie6.gif)
Ken Shaw
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Author: Don Poulsen
Date: 2004-12-22 14:34
Speaking of batons, I remember seeing Erich Kunzel losing grip on his baton and accidentally flinging it into the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra. He continued conducting the piece without a baton, which was returned to him once it concluded.
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My most embarrassing moment came in high school, when the University of New Mexico had its annual Band Day at one of its football games. A combined band composed of the university's band and numerous high school bands performed on the field at half time. Sometime during the performance, my lyre fell off my bass clarinet onto the field. That wasn't embarrassing, as only I noticed; it was only frustrating, as I no longer had a lyre. The embarrassing part came when one of the football players found it during the game and handed it to a referee. At that point, as best as I recall, I had to make my way down the stands to claim it in front of an audience of thousands.
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Author: rc_clarinetlady
Date: 2004-12-22 21:10
Hi Elizabeth,
You handled that so well. I'm impressed. I ran out of the room crying on my faux pas.
Mine was way back in HS when I was a senior. I had received a "1" at district and state in my junior year on my solo so I had a little pressure on me to repeat those two scores that year. I was the first chair player in everything and was planning to major in music the next fall so the room was filled with friends, teachers, etc.... I was playing Mozart's first movement of the Clarinet Concerto K622 at district contest and was sailing along quite well. No mistakes at all and my tempo and style were in a good "groove". Well, My tempo started picking up just a bit and my accopmpanist didn't try to slow me down, so .......when we got to the runs and arpeggios towards the end of that mvnt. I was going WAY too fast for Mozart (and me). I didn't miss a note but the style was just all wrong so I took my great big black chunky soled shoe and stomped it as hard as I could making a huge clap, startling everyone in the room. I think you can still hear a distant ringing in that music room today. That's my foot stomp! Well, the judge knew it, I knew it... and everyone in that room knew that I had just lost my "1" rating and I did. I got a "2+" which disappointed me so much. I suppose I learned that you can't rush Mozart, a foot stomp won't get you your way and not even being a senior matters when it comes to going to contest............. A "1-" would have sent me to state but that judge knew I needed a lesson far greater than state could have ever taught me that year. What a lesson and how embarrassing for a girl who was used to getting what she wanted in the music world. I think the judge knew I needed that very lesson...that day...that year. People still talk about that foot stomp 28 years later! Rebecca
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Author: Hank Lehrer
Date: 2004-12-22 22:35
Hi,
I have a much better story (not clarinet) that I have not told for years; I am one only two people that know this. The other is my old pal Fred Nyline.
Fred and I were in HS Choir togther many years ago at Interlochen. A very famous college band director from the West Coast was guest conductor for the choir. In rehearsal one day, he got so excited conducting that his upper false teeth came out during a particularily exciting moment. I forgot what we were singing but Fred and I were the only one's I think that saw this "event." As I recall, he used his conducting hand to re-insert the fangs and never missed a beat.
HRL
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Author: GBK
Date: 2004-12-22 22:46
Hank Lehrer wrote:
> As I recall, he used his conducting hand to
> re-insert the fangs and never missed a beat.
"Allegro con falsi denti" ...GBK
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