trpt2345

Yesterday I was teaching, and I usually play with my ensembles. With my Latin jazz band there was something wrong, I was having huge trouble playing the lead parts. I started worrying, I'd been practicing all week, I had just cleaned my horn. I looked at my mouthpiece, and by mistake I had picked up my Bach 1C which I use for practicing, not the Yamaha 13A4A I usually play.Cracked myself up.

Question: have you ever grabbed the wrong equipment for a gig and had to make do? I once played a gig with a flugelhorn mouthpiece on my trumpet because I neglected to put a trumpet mouthpiece in my double case.

Michael McLaughlin

Jurandr

Last year in Marching band we were doing a parade, and somehow I managed to end up without a first valve slide! One of the freshmen who was rather well-known to never play at all lent me her slide. It looked a little odd... silver slide on a brass trumpet, but I don't think anybody noticed.

Adam Smith

I accidentally brought my 5 lb harrelson to marching band practice one day. I was fine until about half way through, when we stood at attention while the woodwinds worked on a set for quite a while.

Dave Mickley

I am at the age where I need bifocals and for the past 10-12 years have been wearing no-line bifocals. The glasses are great but can't use them for music so I have a pair with a special music prescription that I keep in my horn case. Several times I have swapped cases and forgot to put my music glasses in the new case and this makes reading the music interesting to say the least. Dave

cornetguy

I once forgot to move my large trumpet mouthpiece from one case to the other and had to play C trumpet with my piccolo trumpet mouthpiece.

flugelgirl

I generally shuttle between a single case and my double w/ flugel, depending on where I'm playing. Recently I arrived at a rehearsal and opened my double to find a flugel and all my mutes and mouthpieces, but no trumpet! Thankfully I arrive at rehearsals so early compared to the rest that I had time to pop back home and grab my horn, but I still felt pretty dumb, anyway. I guess the rule for me now is "Always triple check when you're tired" !

Vulgano Brother

I showed up for a gig with my Bb piccolo leadpipe and no A pipe. Everything got a whole bunch of sharps that evening!

VINTAGEBRASS

A few years back our brass quintet was playing a church service. As usual I had my Bb and my picc, but the picc did not get used til later in the service. In between we sat in with the church orchestra and were playing praise music, so I swapped out the picc mouthpiece, which I use for lead playing as well, and put the big deep cup on the picc. I think I was still playing the Schilke 24e5e for most Bb and something smaller on picc. Later in the service we were playing the piece which used the picc, only the picc did not sound right. About the time I was done with the picc I finally figured it out. A change of mouthpiece can make a big difference.

krossum

Yeah, that kind of stuff would happen to me every once in a while. So, when it came time to get a couple of new mouthpieces w/ my new horn, I tried to find a solution.

My old mouthpieces read, “MONETTEPRANAB15MS384” and “MONETTEPRANAB15L84”. Yikes! Try and read that in a dark jazz club at 12:30am.

So Dave and Dean were kind enough to print, “KROSSUM JAZZ” and “KROSSUM LEAD” on my two new mouthpieces. I haven’t grabbed the wrong one, *yet.

*knock on wood.

Cool.
-Kelly

Pedal C

In a musical once, I reached for the piccolo only to discover that it wasn't there. I put in the lead mouthpiece and hoped for the best!