Top Five Most Embarrasing Moments in Piano Performance

There will always be moments when you perform music professionally, moments when you just wish you could find a hole to bury your head into. Here’s a list of my own personal top five. .

5) This happened many many years ago when I first started performing solo piano in a hotel. A customer came up to me and requested for Beethoven’s ‘Fur Elise’. Shit.. I totally forgotten how the 2nd movement of that song goes. Deciding not to take the risk, I replied to her politely, ‘Sorry, I never heard of that song before……’

4) I was performing with my double bassist the other day in a three piece jazz band. We were jamming on Elvis’ ‘Crazy thing called love’ , but due to the lack of a drummer, our attacks sounded a little too empty, so I decided on the spot to try out some jamie cullum piano hitting stunt. But what I didn’t expect , was for the piano lid to fall down and nearly chop off my fingers….. and my bassist just kept laughing… darn….

3) I was jamming with a bassist in a gig a few years back, where he was doing some nice pedal tone on a song and experimenting with some cool bass notes to spice up a song that would otherwise sound simple and boring. But halfway in the song, I just couldn’t resist the urge to ask him, ‘Are you playing the song in G key or C key??’… he just stared at me……

2) A few years ago , one of the hotel managers actually took the time to sit down and listen to my piano playing for a whole 1 hour set. During my break time, he came up to me and asked, ‘Wow, how many years have you been playing the piano?’ I smiled and replied,’ Ever since I was a little kid, you need years of practise to be good at this thing.’ and he said to me, ‘Well, you better stop whatever you are doing, your playing is too damn noisy…’

1) Me and my bandmates were getting ready behind the stage curtain for a big performance. The MC introduced us to the audience, and pave the way for us with a loud, ‘Its shoooowtime….!!!!!’. The curtains open, and we were to start our performance with a big bang. Two words suddenly came to my mind, ‘instrument cable………’

If you have any encounters like this, please share with us by dropping a comment. It will surely help brighten up our day….. 🙂

You can also read up on this article on the Top Five Funny Questions in Piano Playing