Most embarrassing moment?

[Ashville Picker]

My most embarrassing mandolin moment came last night as my son and I played in front of 500+ people at the local High School auditorium.

We were performing with the HS fiddlers group; a group of about 15 kids and six or so adults who perform locally for a variety of events. The fiddlers were the front and in between act for the school district’s Fall string orchestra concert; kids from every grade level.

Early in the program the fiddlers took the stage for two traditional Bluegrass tunes. My 14-year-old son stepped to the microphone and played flawless solos on Clinch Mountain Back Step and Cripple Creek. I stepped to the mic for my big solo on Cripple Creek and butchered it so horribly that I wanted to crawl in a hole. I have played that solo 1000+ times, but couldn’t pull it off in front of my biggest audience. #I laughed and praised my boy for his good work, but have been kicking myself since.

Help me ease my suffering, what is your most embarrassing mandolin moment? Thanks.

[250sc]

Smile, take a deep breath and move on. It will happen to everyone at sometime or another. Next time will be better.

[jim simpson]

I was asked to be part of a 2 night performance of regional artists. The idea was to put together different folks who haven't played together and come up with a theme. I ended up in a trio of mandolin (me), guitar & upright bass. We were doing all Beatles material. One of tunes was a struggle for me as far as the solo and the first night I blew it pretty bad. Fortunately I knew the rest of the material well enough that I got past the embarrassing moment. The 2nd night I decided to just chord on that particular tune and it worked out fine. I ended up playing with the trio for a while after that gig and it was fun to be challenged to learn new and different material.

[Pedal Steel Mike]

Back in the 80's I was in a band where I played pedal steel (12 strings) triple neck non-pedal steel (24 strings) 6 and 12 string guitars (18 strings) mandolin (8 strings),banjo (5 strings) (I suck at banjo) and autoharp (36 sttings). (I really suck at banjo.)

So while the other guys had 4 or 6 strings to keep in tune, I had pver 100.

We decided that every member of the band would be in charge of tuning one of my instruments. The lead guitarist tuned my guitars, the rhythym guitarist/lead singer tuned my banjo, the bass player tuned my mandolin.

Well one day the bass player accidentally tuned my D strings to C#. I get up and start to take my big solo and....

Did I mention that I really really REALLY suck at banjo?

[Phil Jolly]

I was playing for a back to school type of thing for the local university, stage up in the middle of campus and all the students wandering around. It was like someone handed me an instrument I'd never seen before and said "here, play this thing." I swear it was like I had never seen a mandolin. Couldn't find the notes or the rythym. Then we played another gig that night and it went off without a hitch. I guess you just gotta brush it off and move on. #http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/blues.gif

[mrbook]

We have all done it, and I suspect I will do it again sometime.

[Klaus Wutscher]

My former band was once booked for the closing band on Saturday for a Bluegrass Festival in the Check republic. Our banjo player thought this was the perfect opportunity to take it easy and pulled in som 20 minutes before we were scheduled - didn´t help my nerves at all (this was maybe the second festival I ever played). Before we got to play I was so nervous I was not able to correctly tune my mando (even with a tuner). When I finally finished, our first song started with just guitar and mando. I started to play and the thing was out of tune like nothing you ever heard... There´s nothing like a sweet double stop in A, Ab and Bb at the same time. Let ring...

[Jack Roberts]

I feel your pain. I've played my signature break from "what a friend" for three years, getting better every time, and then, BOOM, I completely flubbed it if front of an audience. Go figure.

[earthsave]

It only toughens you up so that nothing embarrasses you as much. Plus gives an incentive to improve.

[billkilpatrick]

i normally perform with a large group of people, singing and playing a medieval repertoire with a variety of instruments ... oud, charango and mandolin. mostly for fun but every now and then a proper gig comes along with the promise of cold, hard cash at the end of the evening.

for this one gig in florence - my first "solo" ... and ... as it so happens, my last - the owner of a pizza restaurant wanted to promote the publication of a medieval cookbook by a friend of his and stage a medieval banquet with jugglers, merry pranksters, fortune tellers, etc., etc. ... and me.

after the leader of our group had done his juggling bit, generally jollying everybody along and as the first course was being served, he turned to me and said "sing something" and i died ...

i had prepared the songs i wanted to sing beforehand, run through them a couple of times at home, etc., etc. but what i hadn-t counted on was performing them all by myself - sans everyone else in the group - in the center of a room full of people who were happily engaged in quite loud, animated conversation concerning the contents of their plates.

go ahead and sing indeed ...

i have this lasting impression of long rows of tables, packed with people on either side, all of them suddenly frozen stiff, stunned into silence ... staring at me with their eyes and mouths wide open in an attitude of alarm, apprehension and disbelief ... their forks suspended midway to their mouths ... after i had launched into the addled, castrati-esque notes of my opening number.

sometimes - even now ... almost two years after - i wake up at night ...

- bill

[Daniel Nestlerode]

It only toughens you up so that nothing embarrasses you as much. #Plus gives an incentive to improve.
Yes, especially if you crash and burn in front of Don Stiernberg, Evan Marshall, Mike Marshall, Wayne Benson, Radim Zenkl, David Grisman, Mike Compton, and everyone else at Mandolin Symposium. I literally forgot the melody to "Yardbird Suite" at the moment I was supposed to play it (with the rest of Don S.'s ensemble). It just disappeared out of my head and was replaced by this odd roaring sound. I was able to come around by the time the bridge ended, but I still felt like a magician whose rabbit had surrepticiously left his silk top hat.

That feeling lasted for most of the rest of the week. But "Yardbird Suite" is pretty firmly fixed in my head now, and I play it at least once a week to keep my chops up.

Just thinking about that night gives me the willies. <shudder>

The only consoling factor in this kind of publicly felt humiliation is that everyone who ever performs has had this happen to him or her. And if it hasn't yet, it will. You just pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and climb back into the saddle.

http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif Daniel

[David Horovitz]

For what it's worth Daniel, I couldn't tell and I was sitting a row in front of you, perhaps too engrossed in my own playing. So I doubt anyone else noticed - well maybe Don http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/laugh.gif

[Ashville Picker]

I am starting to feel better, but please keep them coming. I hope a couple hours of practice and a couple pints later tonight will help ease the pain. Thanks. Some of these stories crack me up.

[mandobob]

Jazz band senior year in HS, I was to take my first jazz solo on guitar. I worked feverishly on a simple little bluesy melody with some chromatic runs, it was a fair attempt from
a rock player. I was to stand and when the solo started.
Cue came, up I stood, and the piano player 'comped' unexpectedly. Since I had only ever practiced the preplanned solo from start to finish, I fumbled and never recovered.
Good thing I stood up.

[John Craton]

Perform long enough and any variety of emabarrassing moments will present themselves. To relate a few...

A saxophonist I knew was once performing for a garden party in the middle of summer. The bug-zappers were on, but at one point the inevitable happened: taking a deep breath for the next passage, a flying buzzy was deeply inhaled, causing an abropt interruption of play.

Probably my most emabarrassing moment was in a recital where I was playing violin. In the middle of a piece the G peg slipped completely. I simply had to stop, say "Excuse me a moment," and retune before starting the piece over again. It really didn't bother me all that much as it was just one of those things.

I felt even better when my instructor, a retired concert violinist, related that once when he was performing in Chicago before an audience of about 2,000 people he dropped his entire violin ... twice!

Actually, given my persistent allergies, I've been amazed that I've never sneezed during a performance. I have always felt that someday that would happen, but so far it hasn't. I was playing for an opera once in which one of the singers, recently recovered from an illness, graced his face with a conspicuous amount of disgusting mucous and had no recourse to remove the slime, which was literally dripping off his chin, till he left the stage.

No matter what you've experienced, someone else has been there -- and probably gone through worse. (A great book to read about such humorous moments is Opera Antics and Anecdotes by Stephen Tanner. If you think you've had embarrassing moments onstage, this is a must readto regain your dignity.)

[rsgars]

This is the only mando story I have right now, but there are plenty of others, especially singing. #We are just thinking of introducing the mando at church and I have taken on the challenge. #The first foray was going to be for an upcoming Christmas concert in the city. #We hadn't decided what songs to use it for, so at practice a couple of weeks ago I break out the mando to see where it might fit. #The team starts playing a song called "A Son A Savior," and there's really no place for my voice so I decide to try the mando. #Everyone else is plugged in, so I can't really hear myself and am just really having a great time. #Then the guitar player whispers in my ear, "You're in the wrong key." #I look and notice he has a capo on his guitar. #DOH!

[Flowerpot]

Oh, man. We had a pretty good 4-some and had worked up a lot of arrangements, booked a gig with a local promoter at a nice auditorium for 500 or so people. As the big mandolin showpiece, I was to play the swing tune "Liza", ala Jethro Burns, and had it all worked out in great detail.

What I hadn't counted on was that right prior to launching into the piece, we were inserting a couple of duet numbers, where the mando and bass players go off stage -- and get stone cold, as it turns out. Maybe not the bass player, but I sure did -- I couldn't go far enough off stage to be able to play and keep my fingers warm without being heard. When we came back out to rejoin the quartet, my fingers had turned to granite, and it was my turn to blast off into the difficult and speedy solo intro.

I maybe hit 3 recognizable notes out of the first 12, and it basically sounded like somebody had dropped a mandolin down a wooden flight of stairs. So much for my show piece. I stopped and instinctively said "OOPS!" and amid the stunned silence and muffled snickering kicked it off again.

This time, it was fine, and I made it through the tune, but the whole rest of the set I was looking for that hole to creep into and hide... boy was that awful. I was all red and sweating for 30 minutes. But I lived to play another day.

[Chip Booth]

I embarrass myself musically on stage so often I can't come up with any particularly bad instance. There was that one time when I found I had forgotten to zip after a bathroom break...

Chip

[John Flynn]

One thing I have done and continue to watch myself on: I will work up a tune and get pretty good at it (or so I think). Then I will proudly call it at the next jam. But in my enthusiasm, I kick it off way too fast and then I can't keep up with the pace I have set and neither can anyone else. Of course, the tune is a bust and people I have jammed with for years give me sympathetic looks meant to make me feel better. But of course, that makes it feel worse! Fortunately, this hasn't happen too much and I am getting more careful about it.

[gnelson651]

I can't count how many times I will call a tune (one I know inside and out)at our OT jam then false start 2-3 times to the point that I turn to our best fiddle player and ask him to start it. My mind suddenly just goes blank. http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/rock.gif

[Ken Sager]

I'm playing in 4 bands now, and I swear each band plays White Freightliner Blues in a different key. Ok, maybe the Bucklebusters don't play it, but we might. So three different keys, anyway.

Well, two weeks ago I'm playing that tune in front of a couple hundred folks. I play a nice break, the first break in that tune usually. No problem so far. Later in the tune the singer hands me another unexpected break. I hadn't prepared myself mentally for a second one so I kick into the way I did the first break. The problems started when I thought I'd do something different. I immediately forgot which key I was playing in and started playing some horrid arpeggios over the wrong chords, wrong key, wrong everything. I had to stop and vocally remind myself that we were playing in the key of B. I laughed and knew I had royally fouled up. But just as quickly as things fell apart the moment was over. I recovered in time to nicely pass it back for a banjo ending.

The strangest part of all was that it felt good to screw up so badly. It was quite liberating. I didn't turn red, I didn't want to stick my head under the stage, I was just fine, and the next songs were played as well as they've ever been done (at least by that band...) http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif I've since heard from only one person who noticed how badly I blew it. Far more didn't even register a blip.

So, use your mistakes to remind you of your humanity. Own your mistakes, they're as unique as the rest of your flawless playing.

Best,
Ken

[mandodebbie]

Well, just two Saturday's ago I "performed" with our local Bluegrass club. (It was actually a meeting and jam session). I was doing really well chopping those rhythm chords on the backbeat (like a good little beginner bluegrass player should) until it was my turn to pick a song. I chose In the Pines, which I have been practicing at home a million times every evening since I got my "Getting Into Bluegrass" book by Dix Bruce last June. I must have picked a key too low for my voice, as my usual angelic warble came out in a bizarre croak. Man was I nervous, but I "played through the pain" anyway. As the afternoon progressed,I sang harmony quite well with the others, and got my voice into practice for "Debbie's turn", again, and I sang Mocking Bird Hill. But I goofed up the chord sequence half-way through and forgot the words. The following Monday working the ice cream parlour, the-ladies-who-come-in-for-coffee-at-10:00-am said they saw me, but my voice was too soft for it to carry to the audience. Yay! A blessing in disguise! http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif

[Monte37]

I feel like I am just going down the list of all possible reasons for embarrasement and checking them off as my own. From songs started in wrong keys, clothing malfunctions, freezing, choking, moments that left me most likely to not even know my name, if you had asked when I walked off a stage. Man, you are plain naked when it happens.

You may have to keep your own moment for yourself. But, you are certianly not alone, you just joined the club...and we do keep paying the dues time to time.
But you gotta dig it, after all its called "playing" right?

[Bradley]

I used to play with a older fellow who has passed on now. He would always say that "those moments are Gods way of keeping us from getting the big head"...In that case I wish he could have found a different way:)

When I had 4-5 years of playing in, it would bother me so bad to mess up, that after a show I would get so mad that I would bring it home, and it would just eat my guts out of me for days.To th epoint where I wouldnt pick up the mandolin for days. After a few more years I have learned that if I let the mistakes that I make affect me that bad, then I dont enjoy th etimes that I get it right.

Besides all of our mandolin heroes still make mistakes, I think they just hide it better.

Get back on the horse !!

[mando bandage]

Not too very long ago, our five piece band launched into its opening number only to realize that the 3/5 of the band that used the banjo man's (wouldn't you know) tuner were off...way off. Midway through the song, banjo man realizes that his tuner was set to 430 instead of 440 in anticipation of his church gig later that night. He stops picking and plays air banjo while the rest of us take turns retuning mid-song. Yeah, it took us a while to regain our feet after that inauspicious beginning. Comments from the audience ranged from thinking it was intentional (Smothers Brothers humor I guess) to asking us what the h@#$ went wrong.

After overcoming the initial stage fright that most of us face as newbies, I've learned that my desire to get up there again after playing out is always the same whether I nail it or suck. If it goes good, you can't wait to continue, if it goes poorly, you can't wait to redeem yourself next time.

R