| A tough gig
I was asked to play a funeral for the mother of a family friend. I met the organist who turned out to be a very nice person, we discussed the music and got ready to play a prelude.
I started to play the first song and everything sounded and felt awful. I was cacking and mispitching left, right, and center but I couldn't quite put my finger on what was wrong. I played another song and the same thing happened. Mucking with my tuning slide seemed to have no effect. I eventually tuned to the organ to discover it was nearly a quarter-tone flat(it was so flat I didn't believe my ear while I was playing the first two preludes). Normally my tuning slide is less than 1/2" out, by the time I was tuned up it was nearly 2" out. It was bad.
I tried to play a few more songs but the rest of the horn was thrown off my being pulled out so far so everything I played was a struggle. The funny thing was that the organ has gone out of tune pretty evenly(except for the pedals, which were sharp and sounded like a rumble more than music) so it sounded fine and I sounded awful. It was so difficult I ended up almost not playing at all. After the preludes the only thing I played was the recessional which was me playing one verse of Amazing Grace without the organ before she came in and played the rest of the song without me. I felt so bad I didn't play more for the funeral of a family friend's mother. Actually, it was pretty embarassing. I'm a pretty good trumpet player but I'm not yet good enough to play convincingly with a keyboard instrument pitching B-natural
Of course, everyone came up to me afterwards and said how lovely my playing was. I don't think they were just being nice, they were genuine but they didn't know any better. I appreciated their compliments but I still felt bad. I just wish I could have really contributed to the service.
I just felt like sharing. Anyone else have gig from hell stories? |