Orchestra and Music Stories

I saw Catherine from Rebelling Muse do a post like this a few months ago and thought, hey, I could do something like that. (Thanks for the inspiration, Catherine.) I thought it would be fun to try something new and we'll see how we like it. Are we referring to ourselves in the royal we? Yes, we are.

And sorry if this a bit rambly and weird. I've never tried anything like this before, so it's kind of an experiment.

Music Stories

Humorous Stories

- I distinctly remember my first recital. I was so nervous I played the same line twice in my piece. Thankfully, I wasn't playing with a pianist or that really would have been a disaster.

- At a recent recital, I had an even worse problem. My sister and I were playing a duet that was four pages long and it was all propped up across two music stands. Then the air conditioner in the church started blowing and shut the music several times throughout the piece. Eventually my teacher had to come up and hold the pages down for us.

- Last winter, I got up to play and checked my tuning. Thank heavens I did because my E string was grievously out of tune. It took my teacher like a whole minute to get it back in tune. I call this event the Great E String Fiasco (because it sounds cooler that way).

- Several times in performances, I've had a piece with a long piano introduction, leaving me standing in front of a whole room of people with nothing to do. I tell myself every time I'll look at the back wall and pretend I'm looking at people, but I end up staring at the floor or my music most of the time.

- Then of course, there was the time I made sure all my siblings had their books for a church recital and forgot mine at home. *facepalms*

Great Moments

- Every time I finished a hard piece and heard the applause afterwords.

- Whenever parents told me how encouraging my playing was because it shows their kids will get there.

- Whenever I completed practice challenges and knew I could do it.

Orchestra Stories

Humorous Stories

Some of my favorite orchestra memories came from the one week orchestra camp I attended. Every year had a theme and we performed the funnest pieces. Like heroes or around the world or animals.

- One year we tried to see if we could play with roses in our mouths, so we practiced with pencils. We decided no on that idea, though, because we drooled everywhere.

- I was the only girl in the second violins for a year, along with three boys. You can probably imagine the antics that went on. It also meant I had to be the responsible one.

- Our orchestra also had a smaller group that played with the choir and I was in it. We were going to play a piece from the Messiah and the principle second had a solo. Then she didn't turn up for the concert and I had to play it with no warning. Thankfully, I had practiced it in rehearsal.

- The orchestra director, Mrs. Cripe, could have a whole post just on her. She was the best. She liked to say things like "were you waiting for a perfumed invitation?" and "are you it? Then don't play like it". She also had a glitter skeleton she pulled out if we were playing really bad.

Great Moments

- The few times our pieces got a standing ovation.

- Playing Christmas songs to the tunes of Sousa marches (you had to hear it to understand).

- Being the principle second. (Which means I led the section.)

- Performing amazing pieces of music that we never thought we could do when we started.

Do you have any funny music stories to share? Would you like to see more posts like this? Tell me in the comments.

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