 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: HBO
Date: 2009-01-06 05:07
What was your worst nightmare / experience / embarassment / etc in your clarinet life?
For me, it was spending my first three years of clarinet with VDs... inconsistent and (oh my gosh) the price! My parents were not happy with me for spending too much money on reeds.
About a half year ago, I took lessons for a month with a teacher, and he commented on the third week that I just can't work with VDs (THE IRONY! after I spent all that money and time on VDs...) and gave me GC Evolutions to try... which sounded way better than the VD reeds I were using. I am wayyyy happier without any more VDs, but I think I lost a lot of time in the last three years..
So what is YOUR worst memory with the clarinet?
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Author: sfalexi
Date: 2009-01-06 05:16
My worst memory was my incoming audition at the army school of music. The audition to get into the band was no sweat, cause it was before I signed any papers. So if I didn't pass the audition, I simply chose another job or waited and practiced and did better.
Then I had my incoming audition at the school of music (to see where you're at after basic training and to tailor a practice regime for you to AT LEAST be at graduation level within 6 months). I was EXTREMELY nervous. And it showed me just how much I REALLY needed to learn. Scales? I have to know ALL major and minor?!?!?! AND ARPEGGIOS?!?!?! Never had the benefit of regular lessons (one here and there) so never really worked on the basics and fundamentals. And I was freakin' out about my incoming audition score and whether I'd be able to progress enough to stay in the band, or if I'd have to change my job to something I really didn't want to do in the army.
Well, luckily, it DID work out for the best and I'm now an army musician. But before, during, and after that incoming audition I was a mess.
Alexi
US Army Japan Band
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Author: Bassie
Date: 2009-01-06 08:17
Too many to choose from...
... Messing up my Grade 5 ABRSM exam ...
... A guy in a shop once offered me free reeds. I machoed it up and asked for 3.5, then couldn't play them in front of him ...
... Squeaking in, of all things, 'Stranger on the Shore' ...
... /Almost/ playing a section of a concert a semitone out on the wrong clarinet ...
Catalogue of disaster, really :-)
All learning experiences, tho.
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2009-01-06 08:26
Surely you should have gone to the clap clinic to have your VD sorted instead of letting it go on for three years.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: TonkaToy
Date: 2009-01-06 13:47
An orchestra concert I still have nightmares about.
I was playing in an orchestra on a tour in Europe. We gave an outdoor concert in the forum in Rome. The first piece on the program was the Luisa Miller overture. It has a beautifully lyrical solo near the beginning. That went quite well. Near the end the orchestra goes nuts and then stops for a 4 four bar clarinet solo. I mean solo. No other instrument in the orchestra play. Well, the orchestra stops, the conductor cues me, and .......nothing. I'm blowing, fingering......and nothing comes out. Four bars of dead silence. The conductor is giving me the fish eye because there are two more solo spots coming up. I grab the 2nd players horn and play the next two solos.
At intermission the personnel manager comes up to me and says, "the maestro would like to see you in the green room". Oops.
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Author: William
Date: 2009-01-06 15:09
I calmly stand up and prepare to play my solo for the first tiime in front of a live audience....and the conductor leans over to me and whispers, "It's not your turn yet...."
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Author: bmcgar ★2017
Date: 2009-01-06 15:13
Coming in on one of the exposed parts in the Bizet D'A Suite 2 with the A clarinet instead of the Bb that was called for.
B.
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Author: Bassie
Date: 2009-01-06 15:56
bmcgar,
> the A clarinet instead of the Bb
Not just me, then! :-D
I've only actually done it in a dress rehearsal for a pit orchestra. (Same night, the oboist tried to tune to the concert Bb I asked the pianist for... oh, how we laughed...)
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Author: Sarah M
Date: 2009-01-11 19:47
I'd have to say worst experience = selecting a reed that was too hard to play on and then attempting to do a 30 minute solo performance.....needless to say my mouth was almost toast after 5 minutes and i had to bow out. never again...now i select my reeds way before the concert
i've dont the A clarinet instead of Bb and vice versa....i'm sure we've all done that. i guess the options are: start sight transposing or switch really quickly.
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Author: Danny Boy
Date: 2009-01-11 20:00
Playing an E natural rather than an Eb in the final solo phrase of Beethoven's first piano concerto's slow movement - to a packed house and with a big name on the rostrum.
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Author: NBeaty
Date: 2009-01-11 20:00
A clarinet instead of Bb or Bb instead of A clarinet is the worst and most embarrassing thing I've done.
Every note is wrong!
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Author: Marie from New York
Date: 2009-01-11 20:58
Too many to list! The more you play and "put it out there" the more moments you will have that are painful to remember. But you have to learn to laugh at them or you won't enjoy playing anymore! Like a church performance where I was starting out solo and to be joined by the pianist, who quietly tapped the right note as I was playing to signal that I had started in the wrong key. This was followed by a convoluted and strange transition as I maneuvered myself into the correct key. Needless to say, the congregation's puzzled looks were priceless! I laughed (and groaned) all day.
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Author: Ebclarinet1
Date: 2009-01-11 21:51
As Marie says, too many, although most were ones that I or only a few around me knew.
The worst emotionally was my senior year in high school when I was playing the tune A on the oboe in the District Orchestra and my mom, sitting in the balcony decided at that moment to WAVE TO ME. I nearly bit the oboe reed off. I'm sure my tune note was 40 cents sharp as my lips clenched the reed.
My other bad one when a new pianist came in at the last minute to accompany. She flipped two pages instead of one and came in with a LOUD PAINFUL CHORD! Luckily she stopped after that and I finished the piece as a solo!
Other bad scenes were auditions right after or during a bad case of the flu. Now I know better to re-schedule or just bail rather than do an embarassing job.
Arrgh, even though these are LONG ago memories they still give me the heebie jeebies just thinking of them!
Eefer guy
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Author: 78s2CD
Date: 2009-01-11 22:26
My personal worst was my very first adjudicated solo in junior high school. I had worked really hard on a grade 3 (of 6) piece with piano accompaniment and wanted to put my best foot forward. So I installed a brand new reed! Oops! I don't have to tell YOU what the result was. It was a very long time before I could play any kind of solo without shaking like a leaf.
Regards,
Jim
James C. Lockwood
Rio Rico AZ
"I play a little clarinet"
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Author: HBO
Date: 2009-01-11 22:47
...Ah, I remembered another one.
I was playing on a B45 for the first three years of marching band.
I didnt know it back then, but now that I have some experience, dang that B45 was good... compared to the one I have now. It could take on size 4 reeds too, and it sounded SO good (too bad I was not good enough to enjoy the advantage of it... if I knew it was that good, I would've bought another one instead and save tha tone for concert use)
During the senior salute, the clarinet section was supposed to swing their clarients around... while closely packed to each other. I was doing the salute, and the next moment, I hear a smack and my arm stopped by something, I looked down, and I find my B45 broken... THe girl next to me was swingin her clarinet, and her bell clshed into my mouthpiece and then.. *BAM* A corner of the mouthpiece just simply.. disappeared.
I was angry for the entire night.. not only did the mc break, but it was my first mouthpiece I had (for three years too!), and I was even more irritated that the girl's bell didn't even have a scratch. Even more pissed because she didn't even bother to pay me.. -_- (She said she was gonna pay me too!)
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Author: Claire Annette
Date: 2009-01-11 23:08
1:
Flatulance in front of my clarinet teacher in college while laughing at one of his jokes as I was preparing for a recital. I laughed even louder...as if volume could cover up the evidence!
2:
The time I had the clarinet solo at the opening of the oratorio King David and on cue, my reed completely closed up on me and there was silence. The conductor gave me a look that would kill and wouldn't speak to me after the performance.
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Author: Buffet Boy
Date: 2009-01-14 01:40
I was doing pit for my highschool pit, which is the music for musical's, We where doing the Wiz, then all of a sudden, I needed to go to the bathroom. In my head I was just like, whatever the first act will be done before you know it, so I held it in.
We where barely done with the Overture when I reliesed, this is bad. I could hardly get a note out without almost peeing myself. My band director, which was conducting the show, looked at me and she knew what was wrong.
Now let me tell you the stage set up. the pit was in the middle of the stage surronded by the flat's, places where the actor can walk. There was no possible way of getting out without being seen by the audience.
Well, by the half of the Act, I was thinking to myself I can't make it. So my friend, gave me his waterbottle. Now, usually I wouldn't care who sees me, I'm really not modest, but this senior girl who was an incredible player and amazingly gorgeous had to be sitting right next to me. It was so bad that I could not play that entire act.
Worst expierence of my musical expierence.
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Author: Ryder
Date: 2009-01-14 03:22
Region band auditions...
I had two bottles of water with me in the audition room with 77 other clarinetists. Naturally, my letter was chosen dead last. I had drank nearly both bottles of water and during the last 45 minutes of the audition I felt the very strong urge to relieve myself. VERY STRONG. I was squirming in my seat and making funny faces. We weren't allowed out of the room, so I was afraid this was going to hamper my playing. Thankfully it didn't and i received a score one point shy of 'perfect.' In fact that was probably the best I had ever played that etude.
Point is...don't drink any more water than needed to keep from having a dry mouth during an audition...you will regret it.
A friend of mine fell asleep in the audition room and had to be woken up for his turn.
____________________
Ryder Naymik
San Antonio, Texas
"We pracice the way we want to perform, that way when we perform it's just like we practiced"
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Author: Johnny Galaga
Date: 2009-01-14 03:50
QOUTE:
3 years with VDs... I thought you were talking about something much more unpleasant.
-Alex
www.mostlydifferent.com
--------------------------------------------------
I was just gonna say, that's NOT where your clarinet goes!!!
Anyway, I had a freak thing happen during a concert this year. My nostrils started giving up for some reason and I literally couldn't hold my nose while playing. I kept leaking air out my damn nose and I had to stop playing every other measure. Fortunately I was playing a CONCERT with a big clarinet section and not a SOLO. Can you imagine your nostrils of all things getting tired rather than your embouchure??
What if I had been playing a solo? I woulda been done for. Stuff like this is why I'll always be a rank amteur no matter what. After that I swear I will NEVER EVER play a solo ever, period.
Post Edited (2009-01-14 03:59)
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Author: DAVE
Date: 2009-01-14 04:11
It all started early for me...
In 8th grade I, being the superstar that I was, "played" the Star Spangled Banner in front of the whole school. Problem was that I had no music. No problem! I had sung it many times; I figured I could play it... FAIL!! Oh! and I forgot my clarinet that day, so there I was in front of the whole school doing my best to remember the Banner.... playing on an.... alto clarinet. Double fail!
I once had a bass solo in Youth Orchestra, a bassoon part written out. It was from Pictures at an Exhibition. Problem was that the conductor was supposed to give the music to one of the other clarinet players as I was going to be running late. Well, I made it on time, and when I turned the page and got the bass ready.... no music! So I sorta made it up. We all died laughing for the rest of the piece.
Again on bass, but many years later with the Nashville Symphony playing Das Lied Von Der Erde, I was playing a solo where it's really quiet with a timpani roll, maybe some cellos rumbling, the mezzo is lamenting something and I (superstar, remember?) come in on a low F# to start the solo. It's a really short and easy motif, F#-G-F#-E-F#. I hit it hard and the registers sorta split, playing both the low and the clarion: that growling, squawking sound. The last note is held only for a second, but it felt like forever. If you know the solo, then you can imagine the embarrassment. To make it worse, during the rehearsal, I played it well and the conductor exclaimed "beautiful!" To this day, whenever I pick up a bass, that lick is one of the first things I play....
Which leads me to today actually. I was in the semi final round of the Army band audition where they had some absolutely insane sight reading. The proctor set the tempo, like quarter at 152, and then I was off. Keep in mind this music would have been hard AFTER practicing and those guys wanted it sight-read. One of the pieces was the Russian Easter Overture, for band of course, at tempo. I was okay on that one. But my coup de grace was this insane jazz chart. I don't know what it was, but when I saw it I knew there was no way I would be even close. It was nasty as could be. I think it had "Blue" in the title, but it was not "Blue Shades". Anyway, the mess I played was hilarious...
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Author: clarinetguy ★2017
Date: 2009-01-14 04:19
It's hard to top some of these stories!
When I was about eleven, I played in an honors band made up of students from several schools in my district. It was a great group and a wonderful experience. At our concert we played some concert overture where the clarinet section had a very exposed and very lyrical part. I let out a very loud squeak in the middle of it. Nobody said anything, and I kept my mouth shut!
When I was in college band, we were once rehearsing Robert Russell Bennett's Suite of Old American Dances. Our conductor had quite a temper at times, and we were all terrified of making mistakes. There was a rest (for everyone) near the end of one of the movements, and guess who played on it! The conductor went on a long rampage. He didn't ask who had done it, and I was smart enough not to confess!
Finally, here's a story from early in my public school teaching career, and it involves my piano playing. I'm not a great pianist (far from it), but I can usually play well enough to get by. I was once playing along with a small group on a school concert, and I thought I knew the piece better than I really did. I bombed my part, and felt about ten inches tall. I learned an important lesson from that experience, and always spent a lot of time practicing piano parts after that.
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Author: Lelia Loban ★2017
Date: 2009-01-14 12:34
My worst moment happened in high school orchestra, when I had to play a fairly difficult solo, cared too much about getting it right, worked too hard on it (to the point where I was overthinking everything, including whether my presence on the planet was a waste of natural resources), arrived at the Big Moment, bit down like a crocodile and choked the reed so efficiently that I produced a masterful John Cage solo.
Luckily, the second clarinet player (who played better than I did, owned a much better clarinet than mine, deserved first chair and lost out for his first three years of high school because I had a year's seniority on him) not only knew the solo but knew me pretty well. He was ready. He came in so smoothly that I'm not sure even the conductor realized I'd done anything worse than start the first note a little late.
Lelia
http://www.scoreexchange.com/profiles/Lelia_Loban
To hear the audio, click on the "Scorch Plug-In" box above the score.
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Author: Tony Pay ★2017
Date: 2009-01-14 19:01
My most terrifying experience might sound a bit 'name-droppy' -- but actually that's why it was so terrifying.
I'd joined the RPO in 1968 as a young, enthusiastic, talented but nevertheless very inexperienced clarinettist at the age of 23, entering a woodwind section that included Jim Galway on first flute. He quickly became a friend. Of course, I made a fool of myself in the orchestra on a number of occasions, but then started to find my feet. A year later Jim did his famous audition for the Berlin Philharmonic -- you know that story? -- and moved to Berlin; I saw him there now and again, because I had a girlfriend who lived there, studying German.
One day, a year or so later, I got a call from the BPO English agent. Karl Leister had a clash of interests: his daughter was being confirmed, which meant he couldn't travel with the orchestra the day before their first rehearsal -- he had to fly out early on the morning of the rehearsal, and couldn't guarantee to be at the Festival Hall at 10am. Would I fill in until he arrived? Jim had suggested me, and that was acceptable to Karajan. The piece was the Rite of Spring.
Well, the chance to play with Karajan and the BPO was too much for me. I wasn't free -- I had a date with the Nash ensemble, doing a conventional programme out of town -- but I quickly established that Gervase de Peyer could replace me. I figured I should ask his fee for doing this as my fee for doing the rehearsal for Leister; and the orchestra, rather surprisingly, agreed. Also, the RPO was working with Barenboim at the time, and HE said to me, listen, you won't be able to 'read' Karajan to start with -- get his record, and learn how it goes.
So, I did all that, looked carefully at the first clarinet part of the Rite -- not too hard, after all -- got myself a short barrel to get up to A=445, and went off the day before to do an RPO concert in Folkestone.
When I got back home late at night, there was a message from the agent. Leister didn't play FIRST clarinet in the Rite -- he played the D CLARINET PART, a quite different kettle of fish! -- all that stuff two octaves above the bass clarinet, for example. I could PLAY it on the Eb -- I quickly checked out the transposition -- but no way could I play it at A=445. Early in the morning, I rushed to Jon Steward at Howarths, but aside from putting the Eb clarinet in proper working order, there was little we could do. I phoned Jim, who refused to get involved, and said that the orchestra could perhaps lend me an instrument....!!!
Anyway, I went to the Festival Hall, desperate. I'd asked this large fee; even though it was their fault that I wasn't properly prepared, who could I explain that to? Not Karajan, for sure. I tried Jim's A -- no way could I get there.
We were called to the stage....
...at which point the lift door opened, and Karl Leister walked out.
So I listened to some of the rehearsal, and then went to the pub and got drunk at 11.30 in the morning.
(I've always liked Karl Leister....:-)
Tony
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Author: Margaret
Date: 2009-01-14 20:33
Well, I've been enjoying this thread so much, I decided to chime in.
As some people here may have gathered, I play at a very basic level and am up front about it, so when my older sister asked me and my sister to play at her wedding, we were understandably stunned. However brides can be very insistent and she promised us a hired organist (who was actually professional) to work with us and to play during the ceremony, but failed to heed our warning to get the music to us much earlier than anyone else might need it. She may also have felt like giving us something to do, as, for a wedding, she simply had too many sisters.
So, the day of my one and only solo came. My sister was quite alarmed as she was being made to do some wedding march (she played trumpet). The organist had told me that, regardless of who was up the aisle, I'd need to play until a certain point, or, musically, the switch (from clarinet to trumpet, for the bride- also older sister's idea) would sound awful.
I was almost done when some older, angry looking lady (have yet to determine who) from my future brother-in-law's family started staring at me from a back pew and making faces; then I actually heard her say, audibly "When is SHE going to finish; it's NOT about her!!" Being overly sensitive and inexperienced- I completely lost it and faded out to where only those right by me could hear. The organist prompted me to keep going, so I faded back in, but my brother says that from the front of the church, you could hear nothing.
Naturally, this did not do my sister any good, and she messed up her part too, but I think that was a combination of not having the music on time and her mouth having been messed with by a bad dentist removing wisdom teeth (it was later determined that her nerves were damaged- she has since switched to violin and is much happier than she was fighting for what used to be normal).
Unfortunately, other people don't know this whole saga, and the whole thing is on video for all posterity >:( They probably think we insisted on our 15 seconds of fame or something, not that we were coerced :'(
If I ever marry I will NOT allow video cameras anywhere near the service. It has caused an aversion to them to this day.
Margaret
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Author: bluemoose
Date: 2009-01-15 00:55
My senior year of high school, I played in the pit for "Oklahoma," doubling on Bb and Bass clarinet. Opening night of the show everything was going fine, until I had to come in on bass clarinet in the tune "It's a Scandal! It's a Outrage!" The song has an intro of about 20 bars or so with just bass voices playing 4 notes repeatedly, something in the range of C, Csharp, D, then down to low G, or equivalently spaced notes, I forget exactly. Well, I hadn't checked to make sure the reed was still wet or that everything was fine, and I went to play..... and on every low G instead of a note I got one of those distinctly awful bass clarinet SQUAWK!s. Me being the loudest instrument playing, it was effectively a bass clarinet solo, so I couldn't stop playing, and I was so terrified that I didn't consider taking the note up the octave. So, for about 20 measures every 4th beat was a lovely squawk. All my director could do at the time was laugh as he conducted.
Later the other band director came up to me and said,
"Hey, if you have any more solos, I prefer Canadian."
"...what?"
"Geese." :-P
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Author: Nessie1
Date: 2009-01-15 08:15
Later the other band director came up to me and said,
"Hey, if you have any more solos, I prefer Canadian."
"...what?"
"Geese." :-P
Would that be as in "Chicks and ducks and geese better scurry?" (lol)
Vanessa.
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