Musical Mishaps

(Our college chamber orchestra in 1985, that's me on string bass next to the director.)

I may call this a "Cowgirl" blog, because of my first love of horses and such, but I also have another love (uh-oh, am I a two-timer?) ... music. I've enjoyed music ever since I can remember, with both Mom and Dad and extended family being musical. Then after I studied Horse Science for a couple of years after high school, and got tired of the politics, I decided to study music, which had its OWN set of politics. I just have to say that during college, I learned more about PEOPLE than the academics I was studying!!!


Anyway. So for a good 10-year stint (college and quite awhile after), I was heavily into the music scene, of classical-type proportions. Not only was I a piano major, I also played flute (band and flute choir), electric bass (jazz band and pep band), and string bass (community orchestra and chamber orchestra). Much to my mother's chagrin, I didn't get into any of the singing, partly because singing in front of people made me nervous, and partly because I had enough to do with the instrumental side! But I can sing, too. Not solo-quality, but it's there.


Now, at this point in my life, dang-near 49 years old, I've felt a continuous roll of emotional upheaval, from things endured in the last several years to things endured now in a new place. But I will say I'm thankful for God and my dear little family. But once in awhile, I REALLY NEED A GOOD LAUGH. And don't ask me how, but yesterday evening, I got on YouTube, and you know how one rabbit trail leads to another rabbit trail ... well, I found this:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vW6wJ8LaOfE&feature=related


Then I found this:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Arqvnp6yUCg


Then I found this:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOUsbtUrXHk&feature=related


Then I found this:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBrR7La5Lew&feature=related


Then I found this:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EggcRMwzEA&feature=related


By this time I was ROFLMS (rolling on the floor laughing myself silly)!!!


Then I found one more, which was intentional, but funny nonetheless, especially these guys' expressions as they goof around:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6k-w6Gjq4X8&feature=related


Now, with all those links you can copy-and-paste and entertain yourself (I don't know how to put the click-on-it-type link in my text yet!), I do have to say this ... I'm not laughing at other peoples' troubles! It's just that ... musical bloops tend to make me laugh, and believe me, they're BOUND to happen! But I do have propriety, and know when it's OK to laugh at something, and when you need a more sympathetic demeanor.


Let me fill you in on some disasters I witnessed at college.


In Community Orchestra, this is where we tackled BIG pieces, such as the 1812 Overture by Tchaikovsky, The Planets by Gustav Holst, accompanying a large choir, accompanying a piano soloist in a concerto, and such. For many of the students coming from small-town Kansas/USA, this was quite an experience. But it wasn't without mishap. During the section "Venus, Bringer of Peace" in the Holst work, it starts with a beautiful, calm French Horn solo, and I do mean solo - the first several notes are FRENCH HORN ALONE. Practices all went well, but during the performance, I guess the guy got the jitters, and was all over the place trying to find the right notes. French Horns are prone to that, anyway, having to have your embouchure just right to hit the right note. But he admirably plowed through, and we went on with a nice performance. Maybe it was the opening section of "Mars, Bringer of War" just before that that rattled him!


Then the time we did the Tchaikovsky 1812 Overture ... well, it was quite a sad deal. I felt sorry for the girl. We all did. These things happen. It seems the percussion section was always lacking in numbers, so our director would usually pull people from other sections to fill in. So a girl was put back there to whap this big gong REALLY LOUD on the LAST NOTE. Through the whole piece, everything went pretty good, but I guess she got nervous, as the actual performance time usually does to people, and she DIDN'T play the gong on the last note, but instead gave it a good, resounding whap ON THE CUTOFF OF THE LAST NOTE. Oh, that gong rang and rang and rang in the silence .... I think the whole orchestra froze in their chairs. But there it was. The thing was, our director had recorded this performance with the intent of sending it in as an audition for us to perhaps play at KMEA Convention ... but with the gong mishap, that wasn't gonna work. That girl felt so bad! But, THOSE THINGS HAPPEN. Life goes on. Even though you cringe.


We had what was called "Student Recital Hour" once a week, where students performed things for the rest of the music majors to listen. A good place to "run through" perhaps before a recital, or maybe your teacher just made you do it. LOL "You're going to play this piece next week on recital hour ..." AHHHHHHH!!!!!!! (Tear hair and run away screaming.)


I remember one girl playing a piano piece, and she couldn't remember part way through it. I was backstage at the time, also on that day's list of performers. I remember she came running off stage, crying, and went out the door and into the campus yard ... running far, far away ...


One time I was playing a Chopin piece, and at the very end, the right hand had a sort of ambling run down the keyboard while the left hand had intermittent chords. Well, I got to that part, my right hand started playing that "run," and my left hand suddenly went on vacation and decided to just lay in my lap! STOP - MENTALLY GET MAD AT LEFT HAND AND KICK SELF - started the run AGAIN, and this time my left hand jumped back in with it's part and I finished the piece. Oh, dear! But we musicians survive, despite such silliness happening. You're good, you're capable, you've practiced yourself silly, and things still happen.


I think the worst was the time I was in an "ensemble" class. There were a couple of clarinetists, a violinist or two, me as a pianist, and we got divided up into two little ensembles, and were given music to work on for each ensemble. One piece was on GREAT BIG, floppy antique pages. This was hard to keep the music where you could see it good, but if you perched it just right, it would work. Well, I think we three in this particular ensemble weren't exactly motivated to really do this thing. Oh, yeah, we practiced, but maybe the music was boring or something, and we just did this thing to get through it. And we did have it down fairly good, good enough to pass.


The day came. "Student Recital Hour." Both ensembles performed their pieces. Finally it was time for the ensemble with the big music pages. I forgot to say, the violinist, who she and I were friends (she's at the far left in the photo above), tended to FOLD HER MUSIC UP and stuff it in her violin case. So she had all these wobbly creases running across it in sections. So now try to visualize how that sheet music would hold up on a music stand. That, plus my big, floppy pages on a short piano rack, was a set-up for disaster ... and it struck.


We had come most of the way through the piece, but towards the end the paper forces reared their ugly heads. My pages fell back over the piano rack. Her wadded-up music started falling off the music stand. We kind of ... stunk! Stank. Didn't do very well. BLAME IT ON THE PAGES! (Kind of like the tympanist in one of the above videos.) We slouched offstage, we slunk to the instructor's (far right in photo above) studio door (he wasn't there at the time), we all slipped our mangled music pages under his door ... ran far, far away ... and tried to avoid him for awhile!


On a better ending note (haha!), I'll add in one more YouTube video thing for a pianist who's testing out pianos. I laughed about one comment that said, "He looks like a confused tourist, then you hear him play ..." Or something like that. It's Nikolai Lugansky, and WOW IS HE AWESOME. He's just playing the piano part in this video, but if you like the Rachmaninov Concerto No. 3 ... just check it out.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPQzctf_wIk&feature=related