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Post by Ptarmigan on Nov 27, 2008 8:28:38 GMT
How often has this happened to you?
We were playing a concert in an Arts Centre in Belfast the other night in front of 90 folk & I'd just given a short speel about the history of the Hammered Dulcimer in Co. Antrim, including my lame joke about how I call one of my favourite sets of Hammers my Golf Clubs because they are made of , yes, you guessed it .... Tiger Wood, so of course I call them my Tiger Woods! .... Boom Boom!
Anyway, to my horror, half way through the first tune of the set, one of the hammer heads split in two & the piece that came off narrowly missed my eye. Luckily I had the presence of mind to keep playing { something } with my left hand, while I fumbled for another hammer & carried on.
It could have been worse I suppose - the Dulcimer could have fallen over ... or exploded!
It reminds me of the time I was playing a Jews Harp solo at a Folk Club in Scotland, when the reed broke! One second there was the usual crazy boingy boingy noise, the next a crack ......... & silence! Of course everyone thought it was very funny!
A Flute playing friend of mine was playing at the same club one night, when the bottom section of his wooden Irish Flute just fell off!
So tell me, what's the worst thing that's happened to you while you have been performing in front of an audience?
Cheers Dick
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Post by deleuran on Nov 27, 2008 16:06:42 GMT
Broke a string in the middle of a squaredance. Kept playing through to the end on the three low strings. None of the dancers had noticed the difference it seemed I borrowed another guitar for the next tune, while a friend put on a new string on my own guitar. Forgetting the lyrics in the middle of a song in front of a listening audience. That's why I allways perform with a music stand and the lyrics for the songs. I call it my prompter's box But nothing as dramatic as the incidents you describe, Dick.
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hunter
Old Time Jews Harp Player
Posts: 42
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Post by hunter on Nov 29, 2008 20:19:22 GMT
Hm... in front of an audience about the same as Jesper. And a fifth string that insisted on popping out of its bridge slot. However, once in Dublin I was sitting at the window in our 2nd story hotel room playing, with the end of the neck out the window, and all of a sudden 2nd string went completely slack. I checked out the banjo and couldn't see any reason for it, until I turned it around at looked at the back of the head. The entire back of the tuner had fallen off! So I looked out the window, and there was a guy rubbing his head...
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Post by john on Dec 2, 2008 7:06:43 GMT
Being sober! cheers John
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Post by Susi on Dec 2, 2008 13:51:29 GMT
I haven't performed a lot but once when Daniel and myself played at the church's Christmas party, I lost my pick in the middle of (luckily) Daniel's break, and found it just in time to start singing again..
That Christmas party was quite an oopsie generally. We missed the day, we were sure it was Sunday afternoon, but were not quite sure. We had invited friends for dinner, but some hour before that, I found the info sheet on the Christmas party and realized it was - in two hours!! We were supposed to be there an hour before.. so we cancelled with our friends, packed the instruments and went. I ran to the guy who was leading the thing (there would be a little play, and reading from the Bible, gospel of Luke, with some music in between), to ask him not to start until we at least had tuned our instruments. We had fiddle, bouzouki and mandolin. We hadn't even completely decided what to play as second tune yet, we'd planned to do that on Sunday morning!! So we decided to play Planxty Irwin, a nice Irish waltz, Daniel on mandolin and myself on bouzouki, but I forgot that I didn't have all the chords right... and Daniel isn't great at tuning the bouzouki, or the mandolin, so the bouzouki was slightly out of tune... Hmm I'm quite sure noone noticed though. We did good after all. After the service, during coffee and all that we had been asked to play a "train song" during some kind of quiz (På Spåret, if any of our Danish folks know what that is). We had practiced Wabash Cannonball but with Swedish words, about train 67 that goes between Varberg and Borås ;D. We found the song in a Swedish ballad book from Västergötland. BUT - in all the haste, we forgot the book at home!! Another big ooops.. I then remembered I had my bluegrass jam folder in the car - so we went out to have a look in that and found Wreck of the old 97, so that had to be good enough even if not everyone understands English, at least it was a train song.
;D ;D
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Post by bagofnerves on May 13, 2009 13:58:15 GMT
Hi Dick I remember a time in a folk club when I was picking a ragtime tune and I was a little nervous, any way in this tune I played a kazoo solo and had un known to me put the kazoo in the harmonica holder with the cell in front the brace so consequently when I came to the kazoo bit I attacked it with such VIGOUR I spat the kazoo three rows into the audience ! In fact a bit of a tip for any body who uses a harmonica brace I now have velcro on my harmonicas and kazoos, but be careful if you sport a beard.
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