Stage fright
In the modern symphony orchestra, the guys at the back, the winds, get lots of nice tunes to play, but actually spend most of their time counting bars. The stress can be considerable; a combination of coming in at the right place, and then playing your bit faultlessly.

The bass clarinet doesn't get much to play, being a rather obscure instrument, and thus spends 99% of its time counting bars.

One particular bass clarinet player had a watch which could measure your heartbeat over a period of time, and he thought it would be interesting to do so in his next concert, printing out the subsequent results on a graph for all to see.

The following week he showed his colleagues the results: as expected, a steady heartbeat for a long period followed by a large, short peak, gradually returning to normal.

"So that's where your solo was?" asked someone, pointing at the peak.

"Erm, not quite. That's when I realised I'd missed it"
(roysin, Fri 19 Aug 2011, 13:31, 6 replies)

ha ha ha :)

( The magic of chutney Shakes it like an Instagram filter!, Fri 19 Aug 2011, 13:40, closed)

Love it
*click*
( ogwen69 has returned from Reddit, Fri 19 Aug 2011, 13:46, closed)

This gets a massive click
from a wind instrument player that spent a large part of many childhood orchestral performances trying to work out where in the piece we were.
( Jsysco is mostly a lurker, mostly, Fri 19 Aug 2011, 13:55, closed)

Nothing like hanging around in the bar for an hour 'cos your bits not up yet and realising as you sprint in late that it's, well, too late hoping noone notices but someone always does. Is the triangle worst for this?
(Benzyl, Fri 19 Aug 2011, 22:32, closed)

From what I've seen
it's the brass players who like to cut it fine. Of course, if you're playing the same opera/ show 6 nights a week for a month, you can pretty much get it down to the minute.
(roysin, Sat 20 Aug 2011, 23:17, closed)

Lol
Brilliant.
(danniekavanagh did nothing constructive on, Sat 20 Aug 2011, 21:25, closed)