Flute Pro Shop's Scary Story Contest Winners! November 12 2015

FLUTE PRO SHOP SCARY CONTEST WINNERS!

Thank you to all who participated! We are looking forward to this again next year! 

 

Winning Story.  "Tchaikovsky's 4th Symphony piccolo part. Every flute payer dreads this beast!" 

We got to the scherzo.  All was going well.  First entrance fine, on to the tempo change.  Nice tempo, no problem.  I don’t usually need to count here, but I will.  THE CLARINET COMES IN A BAR EARLY!!!!!!  But I am counting so I somehow keep it together and come in at the right time.  Everyone gets back on track.  All is well.  Or is it?

 Despite the gratitude of the conductor, from that point on every time I hear the lovely pizzicato of the scherzo my palms start sweating and I get nervous.  It even happened once in a school demo concert when I knew we weren’t even playing the piccolo entrance.  Now this ghost haunts me for the rest of my days.  Talk about spooky.  

 And my current conductor loves Tchaikovsky…

 

 

1st Runner up. 

Why I Always Use Tape, A Horror Story

It’s Fall, 2008. I’m a sophomore in West Chester’s music program. Today is the flute studio

recital and I am about to play a Bach Sonata for not only Dr. Kim Reighley, but all of my peers.

Now, the story could just end here because anyone with even just a little stage fright knows

how nerve wracking this alone can be; sadly, it doesn’t.

It’s my turn and I start my piece and things are going well: my fingers are behaving, I remem- ber how to breathe. I’m going to be just fine. I turn the page and count the last measure of

rests and start to come back in. But something isn’t right. Is the accompaniment in the wrong

spot? My part doesn’t sound right. It’s because my pages are in the wrong order. I’ve somehow

flipped the last two pages... My stomach plummets to somewhere well below the stage and I’m

frozen with embarrassment, fear, and shame. I stop the accompanist and tell the audience that

my pages are in the wrong order. In this moment, I promise myself I’ll drop out of college and

move to a new state so I never have to face these people again.

But the show must go on. I fight the urge to run crying from the auditorium, shuffle my pages

back in order, take a breath, give the accompanist a cue and finish the piece.

And this, friends, is why you should always tape your pages together.

 

 

2nd Runner up. 

My first recital ever was my Junior recital for my undergraduate degree. I was doing well and was feeling great about my performance until I got to the section of Varese's Density 21.5 with all the fourth octave D's, and I forgot the fingering. I suddenly had no clue. I floundered on stage, trying to figure it out, attempting several (incorrect) fingerings, until I had a realization: this piece is UNACCOMPANIED. There's no pianist to confuse, or to curse me for sudden changes of plans or random cuts. I can play whatever I want, and no one (except for my teacher, all the other flutists in the audience, any composition student that's studied it, and the horrified ghost of Mr. Varese) will know! I had a way out of this nightmare: pretend the part with all those lovely high D's didn't exist.  So I skipped the whole section, and finished the piece as smoothly as I could under the circumstances. It probably only lasted a few seconds in real time (it seemed like an eternity), but it resulted in several hours of post-recital waterworks - and years of performance anxiety. I now know several fingerings for the fourth octave D (for insurance - or idiot-proofing - take your pick) and have since performed the piece successfully - after having written in the fingering above those measures in my sheet music.

 

3rd Runner up.


Double, double toil and treble
Fingers burn and flutists revel;
Section of a flute lip plate
In the caldron boil and bake;
Key of Powell and students of Baker;
pad of Haynes & audition takers.
Piccolo peg and wood of fife;
Taffanel, Gaubert and practicing strife.
For a charm of powerful trouble
Scary as a nasty spit bubble. Double, double toil and treble; Fingers burn and flutists revel. Cool it with a contra bass G, Then take it to Joan, Kristen & David Kee