Embarassing Performance Moments

[morningstar]

Has anyone had any and what were they?

[tanman]

umm... wrong thread section?

[morningstar]

umm... wrong thread section?

Really? My bad it'll get moved soon lol

[db05]

My guitar recital. First, the amp wouldn't work so I sat there testing for a few minutes. Then I played a piece, and found my posture uncomfortable. They didn't have a good chair + footstool so I just crossed my leg and played the other pieces.

LOL, I think that's why I won best performer award for my age group.  btw, this was all included in the recital DVD.

Then another recital, this time for Yamaha school. I had solo guitar, guitar duet and ensemble with 3 keyboards, 1 piano. Again, it was videotaped (this time by my brother-in-law.) The solo was fine. After the duet, I mouthed "Sabog (A mess)!" to my partner. It was caught on tape. The keyboard ensemble was fine until the last few bars. And then when we finished (badly), our teacher looked at us with a sour face. Good thing he wasn't facing the camera!

I know others who've had it worse... but mine were caught on tape and I can play them back hehe.

[franzliszt2]

I was playing Beethoven Pathetique sonata, and went into the wrong key in the recap, the bit where the hands cross. That was very embarassing, becasue I tried to modulate into the correct key...and failed, it ended up totally bitonal, and my memory totally failed me. I finally managed to get back on track.

My glasses once fell off, and smashed on the floor when I bowed.

I was once playing French horn (I used to play french horn for a good few years) and we were playing Bartok Hungarian pictures....the last piece starts with a single E on the horn....I played a B instead (the horn sounds a 5th lower, so a B was written on the page). I forgot about the transposition (I always did this, hence I never became a horn player), and just played a B....then slid down to an E. That was very embarassing, because it was so obvious it was wrong.

[rc]

I've had too many embarassing moments.  Here's a funny one I witnessed though!

It was an informal adult student recital, and this lady goes up with her music, puts it on the raised lid instead of the music stand, the music falls behind the lid and nearly closes it on her fingers, so she gives a crazy embarassed look and puts the music up on the stand.  Then, adjusts herself and gets ready to play...  and gives another embarassed look as she has to flip the music right side up...

Ya probably had to be there

I was playing Beethoven Pathetique sonata, and went into the wrong key in the recap, the bit where the hands cross. That was very embarassing, becasue I tried to modulate into the correct key...and failed, it ended up totally bitonal, and my memory totally failed me. I finally managed to get back on track.

I had something like this too - instead of going into the recap I went back and repeated the exposition, again.  The worst was the failed attempt to moduate, instead of playing I'm frantically thinking "oh no! I'm back at the beginning!  What now?  How can I modulate?  how? how?.... my playing is turning to garbage, let's just play through the whole thing again and try to save face"

[momopi]

Haha. I always embarrass myself. My knees and wrist automatically shake (like, really fast). Sometimes I can pull it off, sometimes I can't.

I prefer playing for myself or for few, selected people. I don't like playing for a random crowd.

[morningstar]

OK since I started this thread better out my 2 cents worth in. I was in a sporting accident 2 days prior to the school band performing at the local Eistedfodd and fractured my shin in 2 places. We came out and played (I played terribly, was on painkillers) but on the way out got my crutches caught in the keyboard's cables! Wrestled with it for a bit, finally upending the keyboard and knocking over a few chairs in full view of the audience. Finally the backstage crew had the sense to lower the curtain and the contuctor came out to help.

[tanman]

In a 5 pianos piece that I played in, one of the fellow performers turned the page with too much force and the book went flying across the stage so she somewhat improvised her part throughout the rest of the piece. It was pretty funny.

[Bob]

I remember messing up the start of a piece for a performance.  I had the entire thing to go after that and I messed up the beginning.  "What's the opening line? What's the opening line? What's the opening line?" I remember that going through my mind.  Not so exciting but a bad way to start for nerves and confidence.  Although after that it didn't really whether I messed up or not.  It was done, so that pressure was off.  I think I may have gone around the recap back to the opening once or twice but I wasn't aware of it.  And I've never listened to the recording or really wanted to.

I remember getting a button in my shirt caught in my pants once during a studio class.  No one noticed, but the lack of movement possible was annoying and distracting.

Standing up as a page turner, on a slow piece too, ready to turn the page... and I stood up early and it was a slow piece... ready to turn the page... ready... ready... slow and quiet piece.... ready to turn that page.... and it was the end of the piece.  Always check for the double bar.   I had the accompanist ready for that next movement though.  Of cource, since it's a slow movement... How long do you wait?  And if it's quiet, do you dare sit back down?  The scary page turning situations are when it's modern, fast, has continuous notes, and you can't tell where they are.  Then it's smart to stand up early, ready to go.  I've seen several people do that since.  It's a little amusing.

[shinerl]

Scratching my head in the middle of the performance.

[Bob]

Not necessarily a performance moment, but the benches can make sounds or if the bench is leather and you wear a belt (I had one that did this) or your shoe hits the bench just the right way, it makes a particular sound.  Then you may need to focus on repeating that same sound so the audience knows that is was the bench or your shoe and not something else.  It's the accidental environment sound that must be repeat so it doesn't turn into an embarassing moment.  "That was the bench!  The bench made that sound.  Not me!"  Of course it may not matter whether the sound was actually produced by the bench or not.  It's mere presence makes it embarassing.

[pianochick93]

It hasn't happened in performance yet but 3 times in flute ensemble someone's music stand has slowly slid down...It's hilarious when it happens, but wouldn't be in a performance.

[ted]

I was once having breakfast in my pyjamas and dressing gown when visitors came. I was excited about a new piece I had written and played it for them. When I had finished I realised that dressing gown and pyjamas had fallen open and block and tackle had been on view to all and sundry.

[tompilk]

there's a video of John Ogdon falling over as he tries to get up on stage. It is actually really quite sad, but I have to admit I chuckled the first time I saw it - it's not very graceful...

[cai hong]

uhhh let's see

when I'm in Grade 3 ABRSM .Yeah maybe around age 10 or what..I have a small concert,I haven't practice with the piano used in the concert so when I play my piece it's like 'whoa-what-kind-of-piano-is-this?-it-doesn't-feel-like-a-piano!' and the audiences like 'what's-wrong-with-this-girl?-it-sounds-like-she-never-plays-piano-before..' and when I'm back to the backstage my piano teacher it's throwing a 'tzzzzziiiing' stare at me and I went 'uh-oh...'

when I have a small concert when I'm grade 4 abrsm I blurted out talkatively when the MC like um...you know having small talk with me after performing in front of the audiences.I spoke like idiots (although I'm still 11 that time...)

on April 2008 I have my high scorers' concert and I accidentaly slipped my finger while performing so it sounds half tone lower than it suppose to (yeah well the piece it's pretty fast and I'm pretty nervous lol).While I'm performing,the other participants who recognized me and my teacher have a small conversation with my teacher :

Participants 1 : "Ma'am is that your pupil?"
My teacher : "yeah why?"
Participants 1 : "errr...I think she slipped off her finger.It should be half tone higher..."

after I finished performing and my teacher told me about the conversation,I felt so sorry about my performance and how my teacher succesfully beeing embarassed by the others...I mean I only slipped once and it doesn't sounds like a slip or what but...

[momopi]

Not necessarily a performance moment, but the benches can make sounds or if the bench is leather and you wear a belt (I had one that did this) or your shoe hits the bench just the right way, it makes a particular sound.  Then you may need to focus on repeating that same sound so the audience knows that is was the bench or your shoe and not something else.  It's the accidental environment sound that must be repeat so it doesn't turn into an embarassing moment.  "That was the bench!  The bench made that sound.  Not me!"  Of course it may not matter whether the sound was actually produced by the bench or not.  It's mere presence makes it embarassing.

What kind of sound? 

[Bob]

A sound that you wouldn't want to have sounding from your general direction during a performance of course.  And the one that you would be willing to try to repeat so the audience thinks, "Oh.  That was the chair."

[kelly_kelly]

Once, while turning the page during a Tchaikovsky symphony, I somehow managed to knock the bow from my stand partner's hand. We were in the first row   And it was one of the bigger events our orchestra performed at...

[franzliszt2]

Do page turning disasters count? I have had so many of them. I once had to page turn for a quartet (a new piece, that was really strange) and I was sat between the Violin and viola, and was instructed to turn both of their pages. They were almost identical..except for 2 pages. I got the 1st one fine, but when it came to the second, I had to turn the Viola 10 bars earlier than the violin. Instead...I turned the Violin page. He started shaking his head, and pulling faces, and the Viola player was leaning forward and looking really angry. I got totally confused, so turned the violin page back, and turned the viola page over...BUT the violin was already onto the next page by this point. I assumed teh panic was over, but the violinist started saying out loud "Turn the page!!" and I was totally confused, and took a few seconds to react...by which point the whole quartet where out of time, and it sounded really weird. It was really awful, the composer was in the audience, and I totally screwed it up. It is funny looking back. We can laugh about it now.

I once turned pages for Messian quartet for the end of time....and it was in a huge concert hall, that was totally sold out. The performance was amazing, and I was istening to the music, and not concentrating. I stood up to turn the page at one point, and the Cellist started to do something really amazing, and my ears just started listening to him, and I totally left this world, and was listening to the sublime sounds he was creating....then a hand hit mine out the way and turned the page over really violently and  got such a fright I jumped and sat down really fast. Apparently it looked really hillarious from the audience. My friends say I just stood up as normal to turn the page....then switched off and looked really lost lol.