I dropped my violin last night during my lesson–my teacher was coaching me on my bowhold and I got so distracted with concentrating on that, I looked over too far at him and lost the tension and the thing just dropped. Luckily, I managed to deflect it from the WOOD coffee table I was standing next to so it hit the relatively soft carpet instead. AND it’s an old instrument that was not cared for and doesn’t play so well and was banged up anyway…but am I glad I didn’t have a rental or worse, my teacher’s! My fiddle survived the fall and I think will be fine.
However, it got me thinking…I’ve heard whistle players say they worry about dropping the whistle. Well, most of them are plastic or metal–you can drop 'em and they come up none the worse for wear. Witness the Village Smithy, designed to be run over by a car and live. I never quite appreciated this quality of whistles before.
Because now I’m going to be playing something that is, at some point, going to be expensive and could conceivably be totally ruined if I drop it…AND you don’t even hold it with your hands! Yikes!
Anyone have stories of dropping their instrument that would make me feel better about my clutziness?
Well, there is one among us who dropped his brand new plastic low D whistle the day after he got it and shattered it completely. No one knows how or why, but there you have it. I’ll let him fill in the details.
I’ve had most or all of my whistles roll on the floor. But I’ve never dropped one playing. And if a whistle can’t take a fair amount of punishment, it’s not for me.
Yes, I dropped my Whistle on stage right before a show.
The fipple came apart and I had to push it back together. I
was petrified I had ruined it. It hasn’t come apart again, so I
guess all is o.k.; I hope,
Lolly
My daughter dropped an Oak on its mouthpiece once, and the mouthpiece shattered. I dropped a Thin Weasel Bflat, and the mouthpiece ring got knocked out of whack. Glenn fixed it at no charge. The man’s a saint.
I do sometimes leave a flute on a counter in the kitchen. That worries me, because if it dropped onto the ceramic floor (the Oak fell from all of a foot when it shattered), I think it would do major damage.
For a little while in junior high I played the trombone. I lost grip of the slide once, and it came all the way off, dropping hard on the floor. It got a little dent, but it lived.
I was playing whistle for a grade school music class (recorder class). I had a Harper D aluminum, which is thick walled and tough. I shook it hard to get rid of condensation and threw it to the floor. It bounced off the carpet. The kids looked stunned, as did I, I’m sure.
I had a similar incident with a brass Burke d, which I shook and smacked against a picnic table bench and dented the end. I felt nauseated. I mostly straightened it out at home with a pliers.
The worst thing was when I had my Copeland low d brass leaning against a swivel living room chair at Weekender’s house. I swiveled and the whistle got pinched by the chair and put a dent near the tuning slide. I put poison in Weekender’s beer, but then I felt bad and poured it down the sink before he took a sip. I sent the whistle to Copeland and got it fixed and had them improve the voicing at the same time, which was cool. I asked for lower air requirements if it didn’t take anything from the tone. The low end got stronger, which was a bonus.
Tony
One day I found my Generation tube with a crease in it, like it had been sat on or stepped on. No one owned up to it. I suspect the kids. They hate the whistle.
I haven’t dropped an expensive whistle (yet!), but when I was 16, I dropped my guitar. I was standing, with the guitar on a strap, resting my arms on top, when the end pin pulled out…dropping my beloved 12-sting onto a linoleum floor! There was quite a bit of crazed cracking on the back near where it hit, but the good people at my favorite music store were able to stabilize it so it wouldn’t get any worse.
To this day, that moment defined “heartsick” for me. Aside from the fact that no one wants to injure a well-loved instrument, my family was poor…the only reason I had a really nice guitar was I’d inherited it from another family member, and if it hadn’t been fixable (which I managed with my babysitting money), that would have been the end of guitar playing for me.
When I first got it, I was playing my Burke aluminum D in the bathroom, getting all those good overtones, and dropped it on the countertop.
Didn’t even get a scratch.
Kar, you might be interested in the neckstrap that I made for my fiddle. I was having trouble holding it, and didn’t yet know about shoulder rests, so I took a strip of soft split leather, about 1.5 inches wide, made a hole in the middle, and sewed Velcro to each end. Then I removed the tailpiece from the fiddle, slipped the tailpiece pin into the hole, and replaced the tailpiece.
The Velcro strips were about two inches long, so it was absolutely secure. I could stop playing and let the fidlle just hang there–they’re pretty light, so weight was no problem. The only problem was that a few more-sophisticated musicians laughed when they saw it. I didn’t care, though, because it took all the tension out of holding it, allowing me to concentrate on fingering and bowing.
I like that ideam, Mike.. Fiddles seem so fragile when they are laid down and if they have that chinrest on em, it seems that they don’t sit right in their cases.
Kar - I’ve occasionally lost my grip on my cello bow (and lost my grip with reality, but that’s another issue…) and dropped it, which usually means I’m too tired or just not paying attention to my grip. It doesn’t happen much anymore, so I guess that means that it’s part of the learning process. (it’s kind of hard to drop the cello while playing, since it’s resting on the ground via the endpin and between your knees) When I (briefly) tried learning the fiddle (after a few years on the cello) it seemed so light that I wondered how to possibly move both hands in some semblance of coordination and hold the instrument lightly under my chin, so I can certainly understand how such things could happen. I’m sure your teacher can give you advice on how tightly/lightly to rest/hold the fiddle under your chin and with the left hand. I’d just chalk this up to the kinds of things one experiences while learning the instrument, though I’d be as concerned just as you are of damaging the instrument. I think alot of it involves the tactile awareness that eventually develops in a player, particularly about how tightly/lightly to hold the instrument and bow, and being physically aware of it. I’m sure other fiddle players could give their opinion as well. As for whistles, I can’t recall ever dropping a whistle while playing, though sometimes I find I’m carrying too many whistles at once (say from one room to another), when one of them slides from between my fingers, but I usually catch it before it completely drops. I also try to be careful about laying whistles on a table and having them roll off onto the floor. ouch. Now that I’m investing in higher-end whistles, I seem to be a bit more careful…
Stiofan
p.s. good luck with your fiddle playing - hope you can make it to the gathering this summer.
I haven’t had too many problems with whistles (and no droppages, so far [touch wood] with fiddle). However, I did recently manage to catch a friend’s Generation (she still is a friend) in the runners of the car seat. You know, the things that allow the front seats to slide back and forth. Yeah. So there were 2 pretty impressive dents/twists, but a little bit of coaxing with a metal rod soon straightened that out.
And then there was moment that I picked up my antique flute and managed to catch the keys of the footjoint in my sleeve, jerking the foot off and landing it on the flagstone floor. The ring moved a bit, and the wood is slightly dented (luckily it landed on the end), but otherwise there are no problems. It was an interesting moment though. I don’t think I’ll be trying to recreate it.
I haven’t ever dropped a whistle while playing but I have flipped a quena almost into the audience once. Playing a second octave D using the thumb hole and it was a slick blackwood one. Sucker flipped right out of my hands. Somehow I managed to catch it before it went out to far. Good thing, not a lightweight instrument.
I also once left a low G water weasel on the hood of my wifes car while I was working in the garage at my shop. Had it tucked up by the windshield wipers. She took off the next morning for the 10 mile trip into town via the interstate at 65+ mph. She noticed it right at the top of the exit ramp and of course that’s when it flew off. Bounced behind the car for a while before another vehicle stopped it by running it over. Being the wonderfull wife she is she pulled over and hiked a block down the ramp to get it muttering vile oaths and thinking of where she was going to put it if it turned out to just be a piece of PVC I was working on. One little scuff and a nifty set of tire tracks was all it got. Amazing instrument
Oh yeah, other instruments. Once, I lifted the banjo to get the strap over my head and jammed the end (with the tuning keys) into a very low ceiling. Who do you get mad at when those things happen??? (I usually blame God- ‘why didn’t you stop me??’)
Wow, now these horrible suppressed memories are surfacing. grrr, Kar. I picked up my banjo case without closing the buckles and the banjo fell out onto the floor. And a piano, one time…I was lifting the bench over some heads of people sitting on the floor and landed one bench leg on the piano right in front of the keys. I was so horrified (and nervous playing in front of a lot of people) that I never looked to see if I took out any wood.
Once, I was playing appalachian dulcimer with a thin guitar pick for some people and the pick flew out of my fingers right into the sound hole. I felt stupid.
I guess the next topic is: who’s been injured by a musical instrument. (Nothing worse than being poked by a metal string that I can recall.)
Tony
Oh Lord, now I remember. In high school in the band room the cabinet that was devoted to our French Horns had two shelves, three compartments, and of course being the egotistical principal horn of the A band I claimed the entire top shelf (chest level and above) for myself. Well, I had a bad habit of leaving the latches to my horn case unlatched, and one evening I was running a bit late for marching band. Barbara, bless her soul (the radiantly beautiful secondchair horn player) wanted to help by taking my horn and loading it onto the bus before I got there. So she grabbed the case and dragged it out of the cabinet, and BOOMCRUNCH the gleamingly pristine silvery chromed Conn 8D leapt from its case and fell to the concrete floor, mashing a heart-wrenching dent in the bottom curve just above the bell. Mashed it flat. Your basic hornplayers worst nightmare, the event you dread every time you lovingly lift her out of her crushed velvet case. I’ll never forget the horrified look Barb had on her face when I arrived and she sat me down to break the news to me, but I felt like Sh@t for havingleft the latches open anyway.
The local instrument repair guy did the usual metal bending thing to the instrument and straightened it out, mostly, but it was never quite the same. Please forgive me, Fran, I didn’t mean it, really.
I dropped a harmonica on my fiddle last month and put a big ol’ nick in the face. Sigh. Battlescars, stuff happens, ya know, but I really wonder how those Strads make it being played/used so many hundreds of years… I guess they get restored a lot.
