Overcoming Adversities?

[Wired]

When writing my last reply, I was struck with a memory of my last performance of Rachmaninoff's Prelude in C# Minor. Basically I'm an active guy who enjoys woodworking, technological projects, etc. Less than a week before I was supposed to play at the State Piano Festival, I cut my middle finger of my left hand pretty severely. In four days, I somehow relearned the entire left hand using my fourth finger instead of my third (except for one chord, which I just grimaced through ())

This memory prompted me to ask the question: what adversities have you guys and girls overcome either preparing for or during a performance?

[Hmoll]

When writing my last reply, I was struck with a memory of my last performance of Rachmaninoff's Prelude in C# Minor. Basically I'm an active guy who enjoys woodworking, technological projects, etc. Less than a week before I was supposed to play at the State Piano Festival, I cut my middle finger of my left hand pretty severely. In four days, I somehow relearned the entire left hand using my fourth finger instead of my third (except for one chord, which I just grimaced through ())
This memory prompted me to ask the question: what adversities have you guys and girls overcome either preparing for or during a performance?

Lost a contact lens before walking on stage for my senior recital. The recital went very well though.

[sram]

besides having sometimes a bad cold, congestion, fever when i had to perform, nothing really.

and ... a fly!
a stupid *** fly!
happened once in a summer recital, that fly kept buzzing around, sometimes landing on my hand, then fly offf to land on the keyboard, then decided it didn't like it and  fly around my head... total nuisance

[Wired]

Heh, fly's/mosquitos are quite fun to try to swat without missing a beat. Good news is I never had one bug me during a performance, just during practice.

I also remember playing the same song I mentioned above for a group of my mother's friends on one of their pianos. It was an upright that was on wheels, and I struck the 3rd note and the whole piano moved a few inches.... reminded me of Shine.

Luckily it didn't move much again for the rest of the piece.

[eddie92099]

A Royal Academy of Music professor told me that she was once doing a concert on a cruise ship. Unfortunately the sea was quite rough and either the keyboard would come crashing upwards into her hands, or would fall away from them,
Ed

[PianoProfBonsWay]

I was giving weekly concerts years ago...my husband wanted me to go horseback riding, and the horse threw me off onto the ground, breaking my left 5th finger. With it tapes up, I continued my weekly concerts replacing it with my 4th finger. And I have small hands too.  :-/  It can be done! And I managed.  Actually, with the fourth finger being longer, I discovered I had a better reach.  B.J.W.

[jonathandodd]

Haha yes I was accompanying a choir in Symphony Hall (Bham UK), of all places  when I choked! I just managed to cough and splutter a bit under my breath while randomly splatting out some vaguely correct-sounding notes! Hehe only the page turner noticed though, I think!

Jon

[PianoProfBonsWay]

Try a concert when someone has thought it nice to polish the keys and the piano bench ~ a very slip and slide concert!  

[eddie92099]

Try a concert when someone has thought it nice to polish the keys and the piano bench ~ a very slip and slide concert!  

Hair spray is the answer! (Or rosin),
Ed

[PianoProfBonsWay]

Thank you Ed -- I will keep hair spray with me at all times.
Now, about the time I was to give a full concert, and singing time in an Institution for mentally ill patients. I kept asking the Doctor if the piano was okay before arriving, and when we arrived, no time to check it out. When it was time to start the concert I had a grand introduction to a Christmas carol, and that is when I found out that only the keys around middle c worked in the first octave ~  

OR ~ how about the time I was the Entertainment  for a very important Wedding receptionist in Rochester, MN ~ all the Doctors and families were there from Mayo Clinic, and again I asked if the grand piano was checked out, and they said it was fine. I was to play Latin music, and when I checked out the piano before starting to play only 1 octave below middle C worked to the upper keys.  People came by and complimented on my beautiful performance, and I thanked them, and said "It was even sound better is all the keys worked."  

Most of the time ~ I realize that I should check it out, or be able to fix pianos, bring my fix-it-all kit.  :-/

[eddie92099]

Thank you Ed -- I will keep hair spray with me at all times.

Arthur Rubinstein's idea not mine,
Ed

[allchopin]

When I performed at a Talent Show at my school, the piano bench was way too high for the piano- my right leg was jammed between the bottom of the piano and the pedal.  I had to sit a good distance away from the piano to be comfortable- but to no avail, the show was futile.

[ahmedito]

UGh.... last month. I played on  horrible piano. It was a recital in a town hidden away in the mexican mountains. Not a lot of western culture there. They had a pino that was almost a thousand years old. They told me they tuned it. Alas, they only tuned the A... true story. It was so badly out of tune that you had octaves that sounded like ninths or sevenths... middle C and D sounded both on the soma note, and some of the keys hit 2 or three different notes at the same time-...

[PianoProfBonsWay]

About the Mexico piano, I had the same experience at our cousin's farm. They wanted me to give a concert on their old piano, and it was so out of tune, I couldn't. They didn't know it was that way, no one played it. Next time, we visited ~ they had a new piano in tune.  

[eddie92099]

They had a pino that was almost a thousand years old

Bartolomeo Cristofori would roll in his grave,
Ed

[ahmedito]

It WAS... I swear. Cristofori stole his invention from a purepecha native in the mexican sierra... The one I played was a big fat log, about a thousand years old.

[trunks]

Slippery keys, ultra-stiff or ultra-light key actions . . .