 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Meri
Date: 2000-05-10 15:15
What are your funny, real-life stories related to the clarinet that happened in a concert, or just before?
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Author: steve
Date: 2000-05-10 15:41
occasionally, in the NU band, someone would come to pre-game practice wearing white tennis shoes instead of black oxfords. The custom was for the tallest tuba players to lift him or her up by the armpits and the offender's section leader would then spray paint his shoes black.....it was only funny once.....and since our clarinets were white Vitos, all the clarinet players would scatter to the other end of the field house to keep any black vapor from getting on the horn...they would scream warning, warning, like in lost in space....
s.
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Author: Willie
Date: 2000-05-10 19:35
Having only 30 minutes to get from work to our concert, I rushed in changed shirts and slurped up my reed while combing my hair, then walked in with the last of the other musicians. We started off with a peppy march to get the audience going. For some reason my B natural (middle staff) wasn't working and this piece had a bunch of 'em on my sheet. It was really messing me up as I was breaking my concentration. I kept looking quickly during the short rests for an obvious problem (pad, bent key, etc.), NUTHIN'! Finaly after the march was over I was able to get a better look and found my swab neatly stuffed in the bell, as my daughter had played it the night before in her school concert. The other clarinets who noticed I was having problems started laughing hystericaly when they saw the cause and the band director who didn't have any idea what was going on had to talk to the audience till they settled down. I just sat there red faced.
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Author: Kontragirl
Date: 2000-05-10 20:15
In my band, the horns and I have made this custom of stealing parts of the bass clarinet player's instrument. This one time she forgot to recollect all of the parts. She went up on stage and she was like, MY LIGATURE!! And after I made her look around frantically, I gave it back and laughed.
She never even noticed her bell was missing.
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Author: Drew
Date: 2000-05-10 20:30
I always remember a particular concert when I was in junior high. I had been having problems with screws backing out of my horn, and just before the concert I borrowed a small screwdriver and tightened up every screw in reach (including the throat "A" adjustment screw!) The only note I could play during the the first half of the concert was that throat "A"! During the intermission the director cornered me to find out why I hadn't been playing. Of course I told him the truth, and he fixed my horn on the spot, and life went on. That guy was very tough (a former "President's Own" Marine Band french horn player), but he gave me a break that day.
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Author: Alphie
Date: 2000-05-10 23:16
In my second year at the conservatory I played second clarinet to one of my friends who is the kind of person that all kinds of odd things happends to. We were playing Dvorāk's 8th symphony ("New world"). In the last movement there is a slow beautiful solo. As he started to play the beginning of the solo, loaded with concentration, he pushed his chair backwards over the edge of the podium and fell on the floor. One second later he stood up and looked like a knocked out boxer. Luckily he didn't hurt himself so we got a good laugh. After that nobody could play so we had to take a spontanious break and laugh a little bit more. Poor guy.
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Author: Kai
Date: 2000-05-11 00:49
My friend and I plays the clarinets in our University Orchestra. One time as she had to rush down from class for rehearsal, she only had very little time to set-up and adjust her reeds before our conductor gave the first down-beat for Dvorak's New World. After playing the first few bars, she felt that she was way out of tune, believing that it was her instrument since she didn't have proper time to adjust and all. So she gave her instrument another check. This intonation problem went on for another section of the music and she got worried. Something was very wong! She sounded very out and even got to the extent of checking the lengths of our instruments to see that she was using the correct one! (the A and not the Bb) before she realised that in her hurry, she had mixed up the top and bottom joints of both instruments!
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Author: Dave Lee Ennis
Date: 2000-05-11 13:10
In my very first concert with the clarinet, I had just eaten spaghetti bolognese beforehand. Our band was first on, so after we finished, I went onto the top level to watch the rest of the concert and at the same time as telling one of my friends "I feel sick", I threw up all over the place. I ran down the stairs into the toilet and almost everyone went with me since they couldn't stand the smell! Hardly anyone was left after the interval, and the organizors were thinking of asking me for money after wrecking their concert! Fat Chance! Since then, the one's that still know me have always teased me before going into a concert. Is was pretty serious at the time, but now it's a big laugh.
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Author: James
Date: 2000-05-11 16:24
It was my first time to play in an opera orchestra and we were spot rehearsing and skipping around, starting in the middle of things. We begin at in the middle if something where the clarinet and soprano have a duet. Of course I grab my clarinet and begin playing. This terrible sounding music comes out. I discover that I was supposed to be playing either my A or my Bb and I was on the wrong one. The conductor (a very old and respected conductor) is giving me the dirtiest look and yelling "Transpose, Transpose!" I am so flustered I can't even play. the soprano has lost her pitch, the orchestra doesn't know what is going on.... We stopped and started over with a very red-faced young clarinetist playing the correct instrument having learned a valueable lesson the hard way. After the rehearsal I timidly apologized to the conductor who smiled and said "I like your playing, but I bet you are a rookie. It happens to the best of them. I have seen the same thing happen to the seasoned pros, but it only happens once. You had yours early." He made me feel so much better.
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Author: Nicole
Date: 2000-05-11 20:41
The clarinet section of our marching band has been passing this story on every year. It's a tradition. Before a parade one summer, a clarinetist decided to grease her horn up really good ( right before they started marching ). All of a sudden as the cadences started, her whole horn fell apart right in the middle of the street- she couldn't stop of course to pick it up- our director said no matter what keep marchng!
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Author: Alphie
Date: 2000-05-12 11:49
A few years ago a friend of mine on a very short notice was asked to sub in the military band that was doing the parade for the changing of the king's guard at the Royal Castle. As she was not used to march and play, she was told only to follow the person in front of her and everything whould be fine. It was just plain marching without figures. As they approached the Royal Castle (thousends of tourists were watching), the person in front of her felt sick from a poundig heart, so he had to fall out of the parade. As she was told just to follow him, she did the same. When they silently were standing aside watching the rest of the parade go by, she timdily turned to the man asking; Something went wrong, didn't it?
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Author: Meri
Date: 2000-05-12 16:35
I think some of you have heard this story before, but oh well...but I guess it's my turn.
It begins with the fact that my stand partner and I were in the choir as well as the band. Well, just before one of our commencement concerts, my stand partner and I had put our instruments down to warm up with the rest of the choir, since the choir was on first. After the choir is finished through the warmup-up and run-through, he picks up my instrument, and tries to play on it, discovers he has a hard time making a sound. (he was using 3 Vandorens, I was using 4 Vandorens) I said, "Doug, I think you picked up the wrong instrument." I had to immediately change reeds and disinfect my mouthpiece, in front of the rest of the choir and some of the band members--when the choir was going on stage in less than 10 minutes.
That's my tale.
Meri
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Author: Megan
Date: 2000-05-13 23:12
I don't know if any of you have ever done this before but...one day in our community band rehearsal I decided to play a joke on the girl next to me. She always waits for me to come in before she plays so at one point where I knew she wasn't counting the rests I took a big breath a bar early and pretended to come in. She of course came in playing super loud and I almost fell off my chair laughing! She's got a great sense of humour so she just hit me and kept playing. I've also managed to put a dime between her barrel and upper joint about 5 times this year and it took her a couple of minutes to figure out what was going on each time!
Once I put dimes in the barrels of every clarinet player in the band during the break. I told the conductor what I had done so that he knew what would happen and he really played it up when we started to play and nobody could get a note out. I think I did fall off my chair laughing that time. It works really well in our community band because none of the clarinet players play during the break and they don't bother to warm up before playing the first note of the piece after break.
I'm sure that one day they are all going to gang up on me and I'm gonna get it good.
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Author: Mike "Irish"
Date: 2000-05-14 00:48
well, some of these stories are good.....
the strangest thing that happened to me, was me sophmore year of high school, toward the end of marching band season.... the director came up to me and told me to sign up for Orch the second semester.....so I signed for both...
first day I took the last seat and thought I would work myself up or let the director move me.... I started putting me horn together and the director came out and called me in the office.... ( oh boy....first day and already in trouble ) I went in, he have me a case looking like a clarinet, and a stack of music and a small sack... told me to go to practice room and had two weeks to get on line... it was my first Oboe... ( school loaner ) .... I did it... tough...
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Author: Frank
Date: 2000-05-15 06:30
Here's one for you.
My roommate was subbing in a now defunct professional symphony orchestra. She was a substitute on 2nd clarinet. The principal was a man that we all refered to as Godzilla, seeing as both he and Godzilla had exactly the same personality.
Anyway, during a rehearsal on day he decides to take a break while the conductor works with the strings. The conductor skips around a bit so Godzilla comes running back to his chair and grabs his horn. When he started to play, he quickly realized that he was on the wrong horn. Not being one take blame for anything, he quickly begins to transpose. The other musicians turn to look at the clarinets to see what those awful sounds were. Godzilla, being the ultimate gentleman, glances at my roommate as if it were he fault! Schmuck!
It was a year before she was asked to sub again in that orchestra, and under a different conductor!
Frank
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Author: Dave Lee Ennis
Date: 2000-05-16 14:22
My clarinet fell apart in a concert because I greased it too much beforehand. It smashed all over the floor (It was plastic). Any similarities to Meri's MERRY band?
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Author: Klaus Hohenstadt
Date: 2000-05-17 19:15
When I was in grammar school band our leader played the French Horn so we clarinetists were pretty much left to our own. One day a very prominent and internationally acclaimed clarinetist (who will remain unnamed) came to our school and directed the band and gave us clarinetists much needed advice. We had one clainetist, Rusty, who was the rudest, most arrogant kid in our band. He had been there for 3 years an had a very high opinion of himself. He had a Buffet R13 and thought he sounded great. I hated the tone he got from his clarinet and postponed getting a wooden clarinet because he sounded so bad. Anyway under the direction of the famous clarinetist we had been playing for no longer than five measures when he stopped the rehearsal, walked up to Rusty and said "there's something wrong with your reed." The clarinetist was looking carefully at the mouthpiece and reed and said; "I'm sure there is something wrong with your reed." He took off the ligature with great difficulty and tried removing the reed. As he struggled to remove the reed he asked the kid, "I can't get this reed off your mouthpiece. How do you get if off?" The kid very meekly said "I haven't taken it off." "You mean you have never taken if off since you have owned the clarinet?" The kid nodded his head. The woodwind players gasped in horror. "How long have you owned this clarinet?" "Three years." We started laughing. "I think you should get a new reed and a new mouthpiece." At that point all hell broke loose. That kid was forever known thereafter as Rusty with the Crusty Reed.
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Author: Ken
Date: 2000-05-23 11:03
We had a clarinet player in our section that sucked so bad and tone deaf that we superimposed the [Eb clarinet] designation onto the 3rd clarinet part; put it on his stand and when the band played through the march he never even noticed. hehe
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Author: Kontragirl
Date: 2000-05-31 23:13
That's evil! It sounds like something I would do (innocent grin)
Ken wrote:
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We had a clarinet player in our section that sucked so bad and tone deaf that we superimposed the [Eb clarinet] designation onto the 3rd clarinet part; put it on his stand and when the band played through the march he never even noticed. hehe
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The Clarinet Pages
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We were going through bits and pieces of the music, and everytime those B naturals came up, all I could muster was a squeek! Upon hectic searching, while I was ready to pull all my hair out, I found my red swab neatly stopping up the whole of my bell