 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: maxopf
Date: 2015-04-02 03:44
School wind ensemble April 1st joke: One of the pieces we're playing starts out with the melody played on unison Bb clarinets only. My friend and I brought our A clarinets and told the other Bb clarinetists to fake the first phrase. Nobody suspected anything since we were right in tune with each other... until the saxophones entered in (the correct) Eb major on top of our D major. Our conductor stopped the band, glared at the saxophones, and asked "What's going on, guys?" The whole clarinet section lost it.
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Author: fskelley
Date: 2015-04-02 04:25
That's wonderful. Of course it was their fault, they should have heard the difference and adjusted accordingly.
Stan in Orlando
EWI 4000S with modifications
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Author: Ursa
Date: 2015-04-02 04:54
I bet the trombone players didn't notice anything.
Wwbw.com has an exclusive piccolo mute banner on their homepage today. I bet it works on oboes, too...
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Author: Tony F
Date: 2015-04-02 07:19
Back when i played in an Air Force band we tuned off my Eb clarinet, so one day I played a concert B instead of a concert Bb. The bandmaster didn't have good pitch and didn't catch on. By the time the band got tuned the day was half gone and then they had to do it again. Not one of my better ideas, I actually had my life threatened that day.
Tony F.
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Author: David Spiegelthal ★2017
Date: 2015-04-02 20:28
Way back in high school orchestra, we had wonderful director, a nice older lady with a good sense of humor but less than perfect eyesight so here's the trick we pulled on her: For several weeks in March most of us picked up and learned a bit of some other instrument in the orchestra, then on April 1st, we borrowed the 'other' instrument but sat in our usual spots on stage, keeping the instruments low and hidden. The conductor gave us the downbeat and we played the first few bars of whatever it was (maybe a Dvorak Slavonic Dance, something like that) and needless to say, it sounded a bit off. She cut us off, looked us over but didn't see anything wrong since we were in our usual seats, shook her head once as if to clear her ears and started conducting again.
It was only after the second attempt at playing that she figured out what we had done, and everyone had a good laugh.
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Author: marcia
Date: 2015-04-04 10:47
This was not an April fool's joke. A few years ago my orchestra was rehearsing Rumanian Rhapsody. For those who are not familiar with it-it starts with a statement by the first clarinet (I was in the second chair for this piece, so not guilty) and a reply from the oboe. Clarinet opening phrase was lovely, oboe reply was off my a semi tone, and didn't he look like the dummy! You probably guessed, the clarinetist had picked up the wrong instrument! She didn't make that mistake again.
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Author: fskelley
Date: 2015-04-04 20:59
A college buddy was asked to sing "We've Only Just Begun" at a wedding (yes it was during THOSE years). The accompanist played the intro in the wrong key (flats instead of sharps or vice versa), Jerry started singing "we've only just beGUN..." and on "...GUN" she switched half step to the correct key. It took Jerry another phrase or 2 to find his way to the right pitch. And only the musicians in the audience had any idea whose fault it was.
marcia--- I'm wondering how your episode might have gone in a formal performance. Further I'm imagining the clarinet lead in to be lengthy and the errant performer recognizing her mistake halfway in. Do you just keep playing that way and let the oboe take the hit? Or do you somehow try to shift mid stream? A bad day at the office any way you go.
Stan in Orlando
EWI 4000S with modifications
Post Edited (2015-04-04 22:14)
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Author: marcia
Date: 2015-04-05 04:20
Good question about performance. I suspect that the only way to salvage a situation like that would be to stop and start over. And the error was not at all apparent untill the oboe entry. I have occasionaly picked upt the wrong instrument in rehearsal, fortunately never in performance. And I am almost anal about having the lower pitch "A" to the left of my stand and the higher pitch "Bb" to the right--as on the piano keyboard. That makes it obvious to me which is which.
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Author: derf5585
Date: 2015-04-05 05:14
The earliest recorded association between 1 April and foolishness can be found in British author Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales (1392). Witch mentions that the invention of the clarinet was tomfoolery
fsbsde@yahoo.com
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Author: maxopf
Date: 2015-04-05 08:39
A while ago my youth orchestra was sight-reading Pictures at an Exhibition in rehearsal. I managed to get through a considerable amount of the Catacombæ movement, all the while thinking "gee, someone's playing a lot of wrong notes" before realizing that I'd missed the "Muta in La."
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