Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Your most embarrasing performance moment?

I've never performed in public, so no big embarrassing stories from me.
But last night I saw some friends I haven't seen for quite a while (since before I started learning actually), so I sat down, started to play and halfway through completely forgot what I was meant to be playing. I hadn't got the music out, because I thought I had it memorised perfectly. I had to stop and start again, it was horrible.
And then on the second attempt I hit a wrong note or two, played some bits too slowly and other two fast and there was one mortifying moment when I used way too much force with the little finger of my left hand when it was meant to be pp.
When they were out of the room, I tried again, just to prove to myself I could do it, and surprise surprise, I could!

Sometimes I play for my friends and family, and even when its just horrible, I just continue. They think 99% of the time its part of the piece haha, so I wouldn't worry about it Emphursis1

I'll throw one in to keep this thread humming along, since I LOVE these sorts of stories, although I have to admit Mark C., the minute I read your words about "playing for recitals after some time away", my stomach clenched up as my mind contemplated recitals I'll be facing this fall (as an accompanist; would NEVER take to the stage by myself). And I'm even looking forward to them! Performance nerves suck.

So this was not embarrassing in terms of audience as much as messing up, just when I thought I was doing well...playing approx. an hour special performance with the church choir. A few of the things were a bit of a challenge for me and I was pleased things were going well. Midway there was communion or some other contemplative event and the director played an organ piece, which was supposed to just wind down and "end" (not a real ending or cadence) on a certain chord which was the same chord as the choir song to follow, so when he paused there I was supposed to jump in and start the intro for that as he got up and stepped up to direct. I got lost in the peaceful organ music and enjoying my break, and had no direct line of sight with him since I'm very short...it suddenly hit me, "Gee, it seems like it's been the same notes for awhile now..." and I pop my head up over my music stand to see him giving me a very wide-eyed, "Will you PLEASE start!!!" eyeball. I felt bad at the time but the memory of it kinda makes me giggle.

I was playing Chopin's Waltz in F Minor (op. 70 no. 2) for my teacher's end of the year recital in 11th grade. She had very informal recitals at her house, with no specific order to the program; you had to volunteer by raising your hand. Feeling brave, I raised my hand early on, and got up to play my piece feeling confident. Well, I don't know what happened, but when I reached the first cadence, right before the main theme returns, I went blank. I forgot where I was in the music, the keys all looked foreign. Completely blank. After a few seconds of awkward silence, I somehow found my way back, and played fine until the next cadence. Again, blank. Same thing - awkward silence and a mumbled "sorry" to the audience and then found my way back. By this time I had completely lost composure and was on the verge of tears, and as I played on I kept anticipating and dreading the next cadence, which of course set myself up for failure. Third time - same spot, same thing. I turned to my teacher and said, I'm sorry, I have no idea where I am. She handed me the music in the middle of my performance. I was so mortified. I don't even remember if I made it to the end of the piece, but I do remember crying in my seat through the rest of the recital.

In retrospect, it probably wasn't *that* horrible of an ordeal, but I was an overly sensitive teenager! To this day, 6 years later, I can't even laugh about it.

And a sidenote to Mark_C - VERY interesting about adrenaline and antihistamine! I competed in a concerto competition in college with the first movement of the Grieg, after being hit by the worst head cold the day before. In the hallway waiting to go in, I was sneezing, hacking up a lung, dripping like a faucet etc., wondering how I would ever make it through on stage. As I started to play my symptoms completely went away. I thought it was a miracle, but I guess your theory is a more logical explanation! haha. (And I won the competition )

WOW P/islove

Glad you recouped to then go on to win a competition.

Many of us go completely blank.

I can easlily do that in a lesson! It is the oddest thing to have happen. Like you stare at the music and do not comprehend, fingers not responding even from muscle memory.

It happened yesterday. Not good when the lesson is on interpretation, looseness, and technique, and ones fingers become frozen/glued to the keyboard - exactly what i am 'not' suppose to be doing. I became like a frozen icicle. ;-(

I guess what I am saying is that it does not need to be a recital, exhibition, or competition. When 'the nerves' kick in, they spoil everything.

I used to be able to memorize by chord structure and studying the piece. That now seems to be gone as I have aged, so I need to rely on reading the music more. When I freeze such as you did, the music is like a foreign language.

Must get a bunch of bananas!

Me: Well, I was playing in a master class led by David Bar Ilan. I was fifteen and mighty shy. The piece was the ubiquitous prelude in C-sharp minor by guess who. Well, I'm announced and I walk out on stage. Bar Ilan looks at the program and says to the audience something like, "well, we've never heard this before, have we ...." to much laughter. I was mortified. Added to my natural performance anxiety, I proceeded to live down to his expectations. I don't think I ever forgave him, and I never again participated in a master class.

I would have probably gone red with anger if he did that before I played the piece.

rude comments like Bar Ilan's can sometimes do huge amounts of damage. He could at least have modified it, with some kind of "let's see how it is THIS time" or "it gets played lots because of . . . ".

The ability to fire back successfully at someone like that who shows you casual disrespect is a function of your age, wisdom, maturity, and training. I was a bit short on all of these. So I just came a bit unglued instead.

I have good news for you.
I heard him play, once. I thought he wasn't that good.
In fact, there were truly things about him that I disliked -- not so much his playing, but him.

About not 'firing back' at him: you can't really fire back in such a situation. There's a much greater downside than upside.

P.S. Don't give up on still getting past that some day, maybe soon.
Maybe being on here like this can help you get there.

My most embarrasing moment: when I was in school I used to accompany a lot, singers, mostly - part of the curriculum. During a rehearsal, a singer told me that she may not sing a particular passage (about half a page) if she didn't feel she was up to it and to just go ahead then and skip it. I told her, oh, no, it is SO beautiful and you sing it so well. She insisted. Well, during the performance, when I saw that she wasn't singing it, instead of skipping to the agreed to place, I played her singing line, except that I played many wrong notes making it obvious that she had stopped singing! It was horrible. I don't think she spoke to me again.

Yeah, calling him a schmuck at that moment might not have been the wisest choice.

But sticking a professional quality rendition and asking him (politely but insincerely) to demonstrate how he would improve it were also not in the cards either.

Oh, I did overcome it. I have played since then, though not in master class situations, and I have even allowed my son to endure the tender mercies of the master class. But that experience did leave an indelible impression on me.

At one of my recitals a few years back I played the Gliere Prelude in Db, I started off well. Typically you will tremble at first but then recover, for some reason my hands began trembling half-way through the piece. Nothing to bad, managed to keep the notes together, the musicality on the other hand, was a different story.

As some of you may know, I am the worst at memorizing pieces. After I started playing again (about a year ago), I was just learning some Beethoven sonata's, and could play them reasonably well (for untrained ears, it was great, for people who know it very well, it was below average). I was out with some colleague's and there was a piano there. Immediately one of my colleague's was eager to show what he could do. It was the most basic pop music one could thinks of, just ramming the left hand some 3-note chords, right hand 1 note melodies, and sometimes for show, do a 3-chord arpeggio up and down (really slow too).

So they were talking about how great he was etc, and asked if anybody else could play. So of course i said I have played the piano for a long time, and they wanted to hear. Normally I can at least play the first page of the 2nd mov. from opus 90 Beethoven, but after trying it 2 times (and failing) I gave that up. Next was another piece, which I couldn't remember either. And so the only thing I could play, was my child-hood memorized Mozart Alla Turca, and believe me, it went BAD. I felt really embarrassed. It wasn't too bad because none of them actually knew any of the pieces I attempted, but still....

I have to say I still carry that one around with me, as I eagerly try to memorize full sonata's .

Here's one I keep trying to forget. When I was in high school, the music teacher asked me to play Clair de Lune with the school orchestra. It was my very first time playing in public. (My private teacher did not have recitals.) I worked hard and learned it. There were several places where we were playing 3 against 4 and I was concerned but for some unknown reason he felt a rehearsal was not necessary.

I arrived for the performance and there was the conductor and orchestra up on the stage. My piano was on the floor of the auditorium... 4 feet below the stage. I could not see the conductor and I could not hear the orchestra. I somehow muscled my way through it. I knew it was awful so when it was done, I ran away in horror and cried. He never said a word to me.

OK, I have told my story, so I'll tell son's story.

He was twelve and he was competing at a very rich regional audition. He had a kick-butt version of Prokofiev's Montagues & Capulets as his second piece. He was playing the rondo movement of Haydn's piano concerto as his first piece. That was the 'easy' lead in to the Prok. So, he starts and I can hear that there is just something not quite right. It's just not as clean and flowing as usual. Then in the middle he just blanks and stops for a second. He goes back a couple of measures and comes around a second time .... blanks. He goes around a third time .... stumble, fumble, force ahead two measures and finally finishes. He then gets into the Prokofiev and is doing fine. But one minute in, the judge says, "thank you, time's up." This was one unhappy kid outside the hall.

It gets worse. He had to give two performances of the Haydn eight days later, with a local orchestra.

Actually, that's a life lesson best learned early. Fall off the horse, get right back on. He buckled down and worked like a madman to rework the whole piece in a week so that it was really and truly memorized, section by section, phrase by phrase.

I'm trying to decide if that was a sensitive thing for him to do, or a truly sh!tty thing to do. Not rubbing salt in an open wound, versus ignoring you while you are in real pain.

Yep, you're never invulnerable against a conflict that you've never faced before, in my experience. Direct confrontation is the best approach. You can never fail if you at least learn from your mistake.

I remember during my recital, I was thinking more "WHAT ARE THEY THINKING WHILE I'M PLAYING? I WONDER IF I CAN READ THEIR MINDS? CAN THEY READ MINE?" than I was thinking about playing the piece ROFL. That's when I learned two things: Understand the music you play and make an emotional connection with the music- enjoy it.

It wasn't during a "performance" per se, but, when I was 13 I had my very first job and it was as church organist for a cathedral (I took over for my teacher at the time who was retiring). At some point in my first year there I remember setting my music up on the stand for a postlude which would come after prayer and in doing so my left foot slipped off the bench bar and landed on one of the pedals letting out one big sonic boom during prayer LOL!!! Needless to say I kept my perch in the organ loft until I was POSITIVE that everyone had left the church after services hahaha!

I have two worst moments to share. One of these was mentioned in a post several years ago; if it starts to sound familiar, skip down.

I went to Duke, which has a world-renowned "rice diet" program for major weight loss. An opera singer who was built for the part came there and was looking for an accompanist to work with her for the several months she expected to stay. I volunteered. Twice a week for several months, we met at the house where she was staying to rehearse arias from Wagner, Verdi, Puccini and other masters. It was a captivating experience for me. Her sense of pitch was dead perfect, and she produced a powerful, golden sound that was made to fill large spaces. But her accompaniments were complicated, they were taking too much time away from my own practice, and I couldn't stop listening to her gorgeous voice well enough to concentrate on the score. I told her I wasn't being fair to her. She agreed and fired me on the spot.

It was only years later that I connected her name and face. I had been dismissed by Jessye Norman. Ah well -- more time for Hanon.

My other has a lot to do with why I don't have too many "worst moment" stories to tell. I loved studying with my college piano teacher. He was a great teacher of technique and a wonderful music coach. Some years after I graduated, I returned to campus to hear him play a recital -- something he did very infrequently, I think due to performance anxiety. He breezed through some Scarlatti and Chopin, then dug into the Liszt B minor sonata. About two-thirds through the piece, there was a sudden silence. He'd lost his way and couldn't find it in his head. After a couple of unsuccessful restarts, he stood up and said, "Ladies and gentlemen, I'm unable to continue this performance. Let's start intermission a little early and I'll try to make it up to you in the second half."

He came back after halftime and played the living heck out of "Pictures at an Exhibition," and played some tricky Ravel and Rachmaninoff as encores. It ended on a triumphant note, but the embarrassment and the terror that it might happen again in the second half must have been awful for him. (I saw him afterward, but was not about to bring it up unless he did, which he didn't.) That night, I decided I would never again perform in public from memory. I've followed that rule in the nearly 40 years since and never regretted it.