Hiya guys. I want to hear your flute-related "DOH!!!!" moments.
I'll start off with a couple-
Last week in band, it took me twenty minutes to figure out that my picc wasn't working because I'd left the padsaver in....
A couple of years ago, I was playing with a piano that was so flat I was pulled out almost all the way. I was telling a story, made a gesture with my flute-holding hand, and my headjoint SAILED across the room and splatted against the wall opposite.
I was once working on a flute [it had a few leaks, and the owner needed a quick repair because they couldnt get to their usual tech before their performance the next day], and dropped a screw....
It took me about 45 minutes to find it. I almost died.
fluteguy18 wrote:I was once working on a flute [it had a few leaks, and the owner needed a quick repair because they couldnt get to their usual tech before their performance the next day], and dropped a screw....
It took me about 45 minutes to find it. I almost died.
That's got to be horrifying! I have a a simple solution that should prevent that happening in the future....Simply take a small piece of scrap wood (soft woods like pine are great) and drill some holes into it that are the appropriate size for most of screws/steels you'll be working with to catch in the holes if you were to screw them in. Then, when you disassemble a flute, you simply place the screws in a hole, give them a light twist with the fingers to be sure they catch (so you never have to spend 45 minutes crawling around in search of them), and you're set! This can also be used to help organize the screws so you know exactly which goes where if you put them in the same spots for every flute you're working on.
On the original topic, though, I haven't had any serious flute "oopses" but my co-section leader from my senior year of high school did almost what you did when playing with that piano. She had a school piccolo outside for a marching band rehearsal, and to illustrate a point, made a large gesture, which sent the head flying about 25 ft. away, where it landed on concrete....The tenon was bent into a square when she retrieved it! Something similar happened to one of the other girls in my section in my sophomore year...We were rehearsing for a field show competition, and at the end of a movement, she snapped her horn down, which sent the headjoint sailing into the air, eventually to land in the ground in such a way that it was filled with dirt!
I know one thing that I do every so often is forget the difference between a DC al Coda, and a DS al Coda. I do a lot of sight reading, and every so often I wind up in la la land! What even makes this worse is when the DS is located 4 pages back, and the pages are loose! This especially happens on tunes tht look really easy, but wind up having to count 80bars of rests...lol
There was a girl sitting across the room in band a couple of years ago and she made me mad, so I put my flute on my middle finger and held it up in the just on my middle finger. If fell off my finger and hit the girl next to me in the head.
When I first started to play the flute I was playing 3 fingers next to eachother with left hand and didn't realise that you need a space between 1st and 2nd fingers, so I was playing songs completly out of tune if making sounds at all. Took me a week to realise untill I found this site and its fingering chart.
LMAO....what a great idea for a thread! I have so many but i'll just share 2. The first one was way back in high school....I think it was my junior year. First of all.....I have to preface by saying that although my high school band director is to this day (10 years later) one of the people that I look up to the most....I really higly respect him. Let's just say that was the nazi type director....especially during marching season. My twin sister and I (she played french horn) were about 3 minutes late getting dropped off for marching band rehearsal. We pulled up to the back of the school where we had a black top asphalt practice field right behind the band room and the entire band was already lined up on the back sideline in a company front. I was so freaked out to get to my spot because he would make you do 25 pushups for every minute you were late....I was already up to 75 at this point.....so I started literally running as fast as I could straight down the 50 yard line towards the back side line. I somehow tripped over my own feet and went flying. I landed on my bare knees and ended up sliding for a couple of feet on the asphalt while my flute went flying and landed about 20 feet away from me. All of this happened with the entire band still facing me in silence in a company front! I was mortified.....and also bleeding profusely...both of my knees were really cut up! My band director comes running over and quickly says "is your flute alright?" LMAO how am I supposed to know....it's no where near me at this point....but don't mind my bleeding! The flute turned out to be absolutely fine.....good old gemmy student flute!
Another one was my senior year.....we were marching into a peprally in the school gym. There was a mic cord stretching across the gym floor where someone was going to be speaking later on. Everyone in front of me had seen it and stepped right over it.....until me of course......I got to it and went sailing! My flute went in the air again and landed in the middle of the football team who were all sitting just to our right. The entire team stood up, turned around, and started to applaud.....I just wanted to die!
DOH!!!
Last edited by musical_Kat on Mon Oct 15, 2007 7:06 am, edited 1 time in total.
Phineas wrote:I know one thing that I do every so often is forget the difference between a DC al Coda, and a DS al Coda. I do a lot of sight reading, and every so often I wind up in la la land! What even makes this worse is when the DS is located 4 pages back, and the pages are loose! This especially happens on tunes tht look really easy, but wind up having to count 80bars of rests...lol
This is a great idea. One of my many "DOH!!" moments happened yesterday while I was packing up after my lesson. I was swabbing out my instrument when I carelessly pulled the rag out of the end to fast causing spit to splatter on the student who was waiting for me to get out of there so she could have her lesson. Usually, I don't get embarrassed very easily, but I couldn't take it yesterday. DOH!!
The corporal works of mercy:
feed the hungry
Quench the thirsty
clothe the naked
Slap the stupid
Last year one day during rehearsal i was taking one of my plugs out (it had been pushed mostly through.. so i was going to take it out and put it back in) and i think i normally didn't push them through.. but I pushed it through that day and it rolled out the end of my flute (don't know where i thought it would go and i wasn't blocking the end XD) and it rolled out on the floor somewhere.. i was kinda looking for it the entire rehearsal.. and didn't find it until the end after everyone got up and i could look for it better
And this year for our first performance in marching band we were out at our field practicing beforehand.. (first time wearing our uniforms and playing and stuffs) twice i almost dropped my piccolo, and once i actually did. (completely on accident!!)
I could not figure out why i just did that twice because i would NEVER do anything to hurt instruments and im always like.. paranoid about it really.. and i figured that i was like holding my piccolo (parallel to the ground) with my left hand when when i brought my right hand up (to fix my hair or adjust the hat) the end of the piccolo got stuck in the sleeve sending it flipping over backwards
Its also always amusing to watch the flutes (especially since im a piccolo and don't have to worry about it) [accidently] whack each other with their instruments XD Theres a few parts in our show where we spin around like 180 degrees, and we had to change our show its using half the field for an indoor performance.. so everyone is squished. We are actually so close that everyone in that line is whacking everyone, not just the flutes, like the trumpets are hitting people too.. Im not in that bunch though, so im good. Although i did get hit with a flute when i stopped (as i was supposed to) and the person next to me (we are in a line sliding) kept going when we were first learning the drill..
[quote]Its also always amusing to watch the flutes (especially since im a piccolo and don't have to worry about it) [accidently] whack each other with their instruments XD Theres a few parts in our show where we spin around like 180 degrees, and we had to change our show its using half the field for an indoor performance.. so everyone is squished. We are actually so close that everyone in that line is whacking everyone, not just the flutes, like the trumpets are hitting people too.. Im not in that bunch though, so im good. Although i did get hit with a flute when i stopped (as i was supposed to) and the person next to me (we are in a line sliding) kept going when we were first learning the drill..[quote/]
Wow, that must be a little to much fun to watch! XD
The corporal works of mercy:
feed the hungry
Quench the thirsty
clothe the naked
Slap the stupid
A couple of years ago, me and a friend were messing around with our crowns (flute ones, they were the screw line) and i dropped mine. It fell under the piano and this was just before an exam. I was mortified. Took me 10 minutes to find it again. Doh!
During a marching band practice last year I would use my old gemmie that was falling apart. We were setting charts and my friends and I were sitting in out spots when I swung my flute forward just for kicks and my crown and cork dislodged completely and hit a trombone player about 15 feet away. It was pretty funny, even worse, when I got it back and looked at it, there was some weird crap growing on it LOL
