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In my younger days (as a trumpet player) I did not have a lot of patience for the learning process and frequently got a bit angry when bad sounds came out of my horn. I once took it out on my trumpet when I introduced it to the wall at high speed one day. I was ashamed of it then, but now I look back at it humorously. I am older and wiser now and get very zen when things go badly, because as you know - the more frustrated you get, the worse you sound, adding to your frustrations... on and on.

I was curious if anybody has any good stories about violence and their instrument. Pictures would be great also!

This may be complete crap - but I once heard a tale of a frustrated tubist tossing his horn out of the ninth floor of a practice building at one of the top notch music schools years ago. Bet that was satisfying - for about two seconds at least.

Thanks for reading

Anyone who would throw their instrument at anything is just silly(I'd say worse but this isn't the appropriate place). To spend that amount of money and just to chunk a horn is crazy. Now I've accidently had a bell of a sousaphone fly off...




Ralph

I once knew a composition student at Tennessee Tech. who, for his senior composition recital, included something in the conclusion of the final piece where the grand piano was pushed off the stage and destroyed. He didn't tell his professor in advance that this was planned.

He didn't understand why the music faculty were upset with him afterwards. I thought he was being a dumb-sh**. Artistic freedom is one thing, but that was just stupid.

Yeah, pre-meditated violence to an instrument is an insanity that I can't even fathom. After my trumpet incident, I became overly protective (Hey can I try that horn? Hell no, you might get fingerprints on it!).

I was thinking more of accidental violence, or heat of anger kind of stuff.

BTW - in defense of artistic freedom - Did the piano make a cool sound when it hit the floor?

I often fantasize about throwing my tuba from a great height but I've never actually done it.

The story in question (hurling a tuba out the window after a frustrating practice session) is usually attributed to Roger Bobo, but I don't know if it's true. Perhaps this is one for the recent 'tuba urban legends' thread?

I also had heard it was Roger Bobo also, at Eastman. I wanted to allude to it without mentioning names in case I was completely full of it. It has happened before!!!!

Can anybody shed any light on that one?

I didn't attend the recital where the piano was pushed off the stage, so I don't know if it sounded cool.

at my highschool, we had a bus accedentaly hit (run over) a sousaphone. it was unfixable, but we kept it around to see how many yards we could throw it on the football field, and for practical jokes.

What do you get when you throw a piano down a mine shaft?
A flat miner.

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The winning tuba thrower at ITEC 2001:

Not only does 17-year-old Carol Jantsch play the tuba -- she hurls it. In fact, she hurls it so well that she won first place in a tuba throwing competition. "It was at a tuba players' conference in Finland," she explains. "All of the competing tuba players stood at the end of a dock and took turns tossing this beat up old tuba into a lake, and then reeling it back in." Since there was no running allowed on the dock, Carol figured out that the best way to optimize her throw would be to have so much follow through that she'd wind up falling into the lake. "Since I was the only female willing to subject myself to the cold water, I threw it the farthest and won the women's division!" she laughs.

Joe Baker, in a post on the old Tubenet, wrote:
"Piano Burning" was an avante-garde piece performed between the library and the music building [at University of N. Texas, in 1980 when it was N. Texas State Univ.], wherein a piano had its strings tightened to the breaking point, and a pipe inserted into the sound board (with a microphone at the other end of the pipe). Then the piano was doused with kerosene and set ablaze, causing the strings to break. POING!! SPRUING!!! Great fun!

Then there was the marching band's playful little poke at SMU (who, for the unaware, use Dizzy Gillespie 'upward bell' trumpets). I was playing trombone in the marching band there, and we all went out and bought pawn-shop horns and bent the bells upwards.

______________________________
Joe Baker, who had a LITTLE fun at N. Texas...

chronolith wrote:In my younger days (as a trumpet player) I did not have a lot of patience for the learning process and frequently got a bit angry when bad sounds came out of my horn. I once took it out on my trumpet when I introduced it to the wall at high speed one day. I was ashamed of it then, but now I look back at it humorously. I am older and wiser now and get very zen when things go badly, because as you know - the more frustrated you get, the worse you sound, adding to your frustrations... on and on.

My dad told me a story about he destroyed his cornet in a similar manner.

As for me, I never have bad sounds come out of my euph, so i've never been tempted to hurl it at the wall.

There was a guy my freshman year of high school who tried out for section leader but didn't make it. He got so mad he took his six month old Stradivarius trumpet to the brick wall outside the school and then stomped on it. He quit band shortly after that, I'm pretty sure his parents were a little mad about the christmas present he'd ruined.

Ben Dennis

There was a guy my freshman year of high school who tried out for section leader but didn't make it. He got so mad he took his six month old Stradivarius trumpet to the brick wall outside the school and then stomped on it. He quit band shortly after that, I'm pretty sure his parents were a little mad about the christmas present he'd ruined.

Ben Dennis