 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: FT
Date: 2001-12-04 20:07
Ok, the other day, I had to play a song in church, and i played it, BUT whenever i played my B(middle of staff) I had the gurgling sound,( There was water in my note holes) That was really embarrasing!!! plus, i was playing with a microphone!!! Are there any embarrasing moments you've had as a musician?
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Author: Mario
Date: 2001-12-04 20:13
Squeeking; water in tone holes; music sheets dropping on the floor; hitting the music stand with the bell (and hurting the lip in the process); caughing and choking in the middle of a lovely adagio; sweating like crazy; dropping water dropplets on the head of the little girl in the front row;
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Author: GBK
Date: 2001-12-04 21:55
This actually happened to the second clarinetist in my orchestra: During the dress rehearsal of the "Hebrides Overture" my second clarinetist accidently picked up the Bb clarinet during our important clarinet duet in the middle of the piece. (As everyone know, it is for two A clarinets) The resulting half step duet, was akin to the best "circus music" anyone had ever heard...GBK
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Author: David Pegel
Date: 2001-12-04 23:01
Marching in a parade: My contra-alto bell was too loose and slipped off during a song. Luckily, a saxophone player a few rows back saw it fall and picked it up as he marched by. After they passed it up a few rows, I managed to reach down and put it back on my instrument, TIGHTLY!!! (I love having long arms. I also was relieved I wasn't marching sousaphone because our band's carry position for them is to turn them upside down on the player's shoulder. Imagine if THAT bell fell off.)
To this day I haven't lived it down.
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Author: sarah
Date: 2001-12-04 23:05
David, the same thing happend to me with a bass. It was when we were just marching off the road though, so I could pick it up myself. it was still embarrasing though.
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Author: William
Date: 2001-12-04 23:33
Principal clarinet with my old college band bringing my clarinet up to play an important solo--upside down (bell to mouth) during the annual Palm Sunday Concert for parents.
Standing up, readjusting my music stand getting ready to play a featured solo during an annual public concert with the same band, different year, and hearing the conductor utter, almost inaudibly to me as I stood there, "It's not your turn yet."
Walking on stage to perform my graduate recital and forgeting to bring my music on stage with me--and forgetting where I had placed it moments before--and coming back on stage (ten minutes later) to absolute silence from everyone in attendance (my teacher, my peers, my girlfriend, my parents, my grandparents) discovering that my reed had dried out and would only squeak a tuning note. My accompaniment was being provided by the University Symphony Orchestra ready for my performance of Mozarts Concerto in A, which was, btw, being broadcast live over the state educational radio network. Later, that same evening, upon listening to the audio tape of the broadcast, I was amazed to hear how much the announcer had to say about Mozart, and all that he had ever composed--and even what weather conditions were to be expected at concerts end. The solo went well....................
(next)
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Author: Ginny
Date: 2001-12-04 23:44
I took a beginning voice class in college and a good friend liked to mess with the lyrics.
He would sing 'black black black is the color of my love's true hair' instead of 'black is the color of my true loves hair' for everyone's amusement at lunch. He sang it that way on the final!
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Author: Micaela
Date: 2001-12-05 00:42
My Eb key betrays me at nearly every audition- it's fine before I go in, but as soon as I start playing, it starts gurgling. I've learned to deal with it gracefully and bring a cigarette paper, the judges don't really count it against you. But an audience of non-players probably wouldn't understand what's going on.
GBK- that sounds like a nightmare- so exposed! In my youth orchestra, the trumpet section went through three whole rehearsals with no one realizing that they were playing B flat parts as if they were for C trumpet. It was a modern piece, so it wasn't as noticeable- but even the conductor didn't hear that it was wrong.
There also was the time when I was playing Immer Kleiner for a talent show and the curtain was almost closed on me after the theme. I was in the middle of taking off the bell when it began to shut. It actually added to the effect, though.
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Author: C@p
Date: 2001-12-05 03:32
One's clarinet experiences cannot be well rounded until one hears one playing a lovely slow passage . . . incuding a surprise cough into the horn that comes on so fast it cannot be stifled or avoided. I did not believe such a sound was available from a clarinet before I heard that novel melodic interpretation. The sound and intonation would do any respectable goose proud.
c@p
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Author: Jessica
Date: 2001-12-05 04:10
Pep band: I got spit (oh, excuse me, "condensation"--but they called it spit) on the drummers sitting infront of me :-)
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Author: Alphie
Date: 2001-12-05 09:38
Playing a whole piece during a recital with the zipper open. Not easy to go on stage again after that.
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Author: GBK
Date: 2001-12-05 11:51
Alphie said: "Playing a whole piece during a recital with the zipper open. Not easy to go on stage again after that."
Was that the recital where you played:
1. "Fly Me To The Moon"
2. "Another Opening, Another Show"
3. "Zip A Dee Doo Dah"
4. "Button Up Your Overcoat"
...sorry, I couldn't resist...GBK
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Author: Brenda Siewert
Date: 2001-12-05 13:53
I have a friend who is a concert violinist in Russia and is a quiet, reserved fellow who rarely indulges in "music joke stories." He told me one he claims is "very, very true" about the first clarinetist in his orchestra. Seems the clarinetist was had a bad habit of taking little "naps" during rehearsals and relying upon the second clarinetist to "nudge" him when it was time for his passages. (If you play in an orchestra you know that we sometimes have tons of rests and have to sit out whole numbers frequently.) It got so bad that he had begun doing this in concerts. The second clarinetist got really tired of always having to wake the guy up so he decided to "fix" the situation. The next time the sleeping prince napped on stage his "neighbors" blackened his glasses (slept with them on). His passage came up and the second clarinetist nudged him as usual, whereupon he awakened with a start and was momentarilary dazed and confused. He jumped up, knocking over his music stand and shouted (in Russian, I'm sure), "I'm blind, I'm blind, I'm blind."
And, I'm sure he could have added, "I'm fired, I'm fired, I'm fired."
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Author: Emms
Date: 2001-12-05 13:53
I played outdoors in February for a public service, which was shown on TV. By the time I played God save the Queen, my fingers were almosy numb with cold, and my nose needed blowing, but couldn't do much but keep shiverring and sniffing during every breath!
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Author: Ken
Date: 2001-12-05 14:32
Hey, if you were performing in Church and your fly was open you could play, "Nothing between me and my Savior" too ... hehe.
Embarrassment? Here's one for Ripley’s Believe it or Not. My old concert band used to play an annual evening "gazebo-style in-the-park" summer series for a chapter of the Philadelphia VFW. One year we were rained-out last minute and forced to relocate to an alternate indoor site. The only facility available was an inner city, 100-year old elementary school with one of those "all-purpose gymnasiums and rickety wooden stages". The hall had just four small windows high on the walls and no functioning house lights except two dim ceiling cleaning lights and a portable, cheesy lighting tree on stage. We hurriedly set-up folding chairs, threw the band together and it took stage about 8:00 pm ... by then it was already dark outside and pitch-black in the hall.
It was the custom of our Musical Director to incorporate "kiddie conducting" into the program to provide the "family touch". He’d canvas the audience, select a little boy/girl at random (under 12) and escort them onto stage. He'd hand them the baton and let them take turns conducting a march as he helped them flap their arms. Normally, he'd only have to wander into the front two or three rows to find eligibles, but this time due to the extremely poor lighting and large number of elderly he had to wade through the whole 300-member audience.
I was playing 2nd clarinet at the time and sitting on the "end" of the band, 2nd row stage right. He was gone for what seemed like ten minutes, I kept peering out into the blackness to see him but couldn't get past the first two rows. Finally, he got the kids and made his way back up to the stage. I happened to look across the band and began seeing/hearing the flutes, horns and bones in a sudden uproar of snickering, beet-red faces, streaming tears and some doubled-over cradling their head in their hands. As I turned around to see what the excitement was about I saw my Director ascending the front staircase hand-in-hand with a cute little 8-year old boy and what turned out to be a female "midget" in her 40s!! As soon as they took stage the comments started to fly. The clarinet player to my left began screaming at the Director, "child abuse, child abuse!" with the Director yelling back at him, "Shut up, I'm going to wring your neck!" Unfortunately, it was so dark in the audience he hadn't a clue who he had chosen until already on stage and the lights hit him ... by this time there was no turning back.
Our Director, a determined professional bit his upper lip in embarrassment (his baldhead now a rutabaga) and gracefully escorted her and the boy to center stage. He politely introduced them to the audience then escorted the Lady to the podium first. He grabbed her arms and quickly went to give the downbeat for "Bravura". She was quite a feisty and proud woman, and when he tried to help her start the march she snatched the baton from his hands and shouted, “I can do it myself, I’m very musical!” Well, that remark set the band off even more. At this point it was useless, the band was so broke up that when the stick came down only "one trumpet player" made the entrance and fizzled out after the first 4 bars. We had to stop, regroup and begin again finally managing to get through the march the 2nd try. Boy, did we get our butts royally chewed after the concert for that one! <:-D
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Author: David Spiegelthal
Date: 2001-12-05 15:17
My standmate in orchestra had a solo starting off a piece, picked the wrong clarinet (Bb instead of A) and started to play. After two notes he realized something was horribly wrong, thought he was way sharp and (while still playing) yanked the barrel out about an inch! Two more notes, and still all wrong --- that's when he realized he was playing the wrong clarinet. He turned beet red and put down the instrument, fortunately the conductor figured out what had happened and stopped the music. He then restarted the piece, on the proper clarinet, but of course he took ribbing about the incident for months afterwards. The next concert we tied big colored nametags to his clarinets to help him tell them apart.
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Author: john gibson
Date: 2001-12-05 17:15
alright....LaPorte Junior High Marching Band....Sylvan Beach Day Parade...middle 60's...I was already considering a change of instrument thanks to the Beatles....
AND had already decided to tighten my britches...SO TIGHT THAT THE SEAM IN THE BACK SPLIT....and the gap gave everyone a clear view of my jockeys....
everyone knew but me.......UNTIL LATER....much later....I was at the band picnic before I found out.....had "marched" with the band and started the party (about an hour and a half's worth total) before anyone mentioned my underwear......
John
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Author: Ralph Katz
Date: 2001-12-05 17:18
The choir director in my congregation gave me some sheet music and said "Here you can read this during the Thanksgiving service". The parts were not marked A or B flat, so I assumed. I picked up my B flat, only to find the first one was for A. After the first bar, my grey matter kicked in and I transposed it. For the rest, I looked over to see what key my wife's flute part was in before picking up an instrument. Everybody I know has done this at least once. I use A, B flat, and C instruments on most of my events now, and am *really* careful.
I had an oboist friend, who, at a big High School concert with his whole family watching, started a big solo by bringing up his instrument, and in the process, knocking off the top of his reed against his music stand. The second oboe saw what had happened and was only too happy play the solo flawlessly.
The worst thing I ever did was drive from Ann Arbor to Big Rapids, Michigan to play a touring production of an opera, only to discover, upon unloading my car, that I had left my suit at home. No problem, I thought - I sit in the front of the pit and nobody will see me. Wrong - no pit - we were on the floor in front of the stage. After the rehearsal, I dashed downtown to Penneys and put a suit on my credit card, the only thing they had, no alterations, tacky pin strips, never wore it again.
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Author: BrokenReed
Date: 2001-12-05 21:30
Mine was in senior year of high school. I had a really good reed I was trying to keep up and running, so I used the poorer reeds in rehearsal. As we began playing Festive Overture, I knew something was wrong. I was having a really hard time getting any response from my instrument. By the time we made it to the solo I didn't have time to switch reeds, so I said 'I'll just wing it.' Big mistake on my part, as I completely missed. I was paranoid every single time the solo came up after that. Everybody got a laugh out of that one.
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Author: Alphie
Date: 2001-12-05 23:11
GBK
No, I was playing "Great balls of fire".
(OK Mark, just delete it).
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Author: GBK
Date: 2001-12-05 23:29
Alphie...or was it?
1. "Look For the Silver Lining"
2. "All of Me"
3. "My Cup Runneth Over"
4. "Mr Bojangles" ...alright, I'll stop now...GBK
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Author: JMcAulay
Date: 2001-12-05 23:55
Alphie posted:
"No, I was playing "Great balls of fire".
(OK Mark, just delete it)"
No, Alphie, Mark only deletes blatant instances of self-promotion.
Oh, well... maybe... hmmm....
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Author: Pam
Date: 2001-12-06 02:04
Ok, the one thing that sticks out in my mind was marching band, I don't remember what year of high school. I played trombone for marching and jazz band and we were a swing style marching band rather than military style. Well, I must have oiled my tuning slide (back part on the bone) real good before this one half time show 'cause I was swinging away and it slid right off. I had to fake it through the rest of that show! I did get it back - we had younger kids as band managers and one of them got it for me.
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Author: Alphie
Date: 2001-12-06 15:34
GBK
"In the Mood", "Amazing Grace", and "If I had a hammer" were also on the program.
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Author: C@p
Date: 2001-12-06 20:24
In describing the sound of coughing into a clariet I said” “The sound and intonation would do any respectable goose proud. “
I have since read in other posts:
1. "Fly Me To The Moon"
2. "Another Opening, Another Show"
3. "Zip A Dee Doo Dah"
4. "Button Up Your Overcoat"
"Great balls of fire".
1. "Look For the Silver Lining"
2. "All of Me"
3. "My Cup Runneth Over"
4. "Mr Bojangles"
. . . and to think that I felt it was inappropriate to compare it to a goose in heat.
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Author: sarah
Date: 2001-12-06 20:33
There have been times while rehearsing that I have laughed into my clarinet. This of course causes the clarinet to fly out of your mouth and make a funny snorting kind of sound.
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Author: David Pegel
Date: 2001-12-07 02:57
One time I did an arpeggio during a warm-up and had to cough, BUT it didn't come out like most coughs. What ended up was some note that topped the pitch of a mouse getting caught in the "Bojangles" by a mousetrap.
I've never made that sound sense, though it got some laughs by nearby listeners who thought it was part of the arpeggio.
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Author: Suzanne
Date: 2001-12-09 20:12
In the middle of our woodwind quintet recital, after playing through the first page of one of our pieces, I went to turn the page and could not find page 2. As I started looking, the quintet kept playing without me... for a whole page! (Turned out page 2 was on the back of page 1, but for the life of me I didn't think of turning it over.) We have it all on videotape--me saying, "Guys? Guys? I can't find my page." And them playing on.
I also forgot my music at my junior recital--walked out to applause, went to begin playing, and--no music. Walked out, came back a couple of minutes later, showed the audience the music and commented that they probably did not want to hear the recital without that.
At an orchestra audition, I went to ascend the stairs to the stage, tripped, and fell flat on my face in front of the panel, a cascade of music fanning out ahead of me. (I was more concerned about my clarinet than myself, but it was still pretty embarrassing.)
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Author: Kat
Date: 2001-12-10 03:46
Coughing and sneezing aside, has anyone ever burped while playing? Makes the notes flatter, especially after drinking soda pop!
But "seriously," I did have an insulin reaction once during a performance and had to stop playing while the rest of the group covered my parts (it was a folk music performance, luckily!).
And then there was the marching band moment...I played bass drum, and as we marched down the street in an evening parade, I had looked aside for just the moment that the trombone player in front of me stumbled a little on a manhole cover. Since I hadn't seen him, I kept on marching and, of course, took a big spill. The drum came off the harness, my chin banged the drum, and my arms came down with a rush and slammed the heads. I had scrapes on my knees and huge bruises on my arms from the rims.
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