Well I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels this way! If I played a woodwind I think I'd be practically paranoid about someone touching it! At least with a piano pretty much all you have to worry about is other people's germy fingers. Although with mine I worry about people chiping or scratching the wood and about the way they lift the cover off the keys. If you don't do it right it will jam and people have a tendency to just yank it up.

Yes, hence my caveat which itself was a commentary on the original sentiment about "grubby kids"..

Yes, I agree, but it is also a scary thought.

Everyone randomly wants me to blow and let them press the valves on my Horn, which I'm OK with as I'm usually supporting it and my valves are mechanical and completely indestructible. I'm also fine with the other players in my section holding it as we had to do this in the Royal Albert Hall to actually give ourselves a chance of climbing up to our places without damaging anything! (My dad's perspective on this was that everyone touching each Horn looked like a pre-performance good luck ritual).

"My" bass steel pans aren't technically mine so everyone goes on them anyway, but I do get slightly annoyed when people steel (it was a typo but I'm leaving it in! ) my set of pans for rehearsal because they're the best tuned set and I'm selfish.

As for people who've actually played my Horn, there are two of them - one of my best friends (I played her oboe in exchange) and The SuperTrombonist™ from the band I play in because he asked. I vaguely remember various people playing my old Horn, though - my sister, my aunt (who plays trumpet) and a couple of other people that I've forgotten. I'm OK with people playing my Horn, though, provided they clean out the mouthpiece before and after and they do actually understand they are holding about £1500 of instrument!

I've had a few conversations along the lines of "but why can't I??" and have to simply respond, "Because you can't afford to replace it...."

Definitely a scarey thought

Very few people have had the opportunity to play my piano, although I am wary of people eating or holding cups of coffee whilst being near it. Otherwise, anything apart from banging is fine.

Actually, speaking of cups of coffee, I'm rather protective of my coffee machines. They're worth more than my violin .

Edit: oh, the one time I thought I best not tell someone to not touch my laptop screen as it would be a bit impolite and they'd know better anyway, they went and touched it .

My recorders are plastic so I'm not *too* fussed (but I will watch you like a hawk anyway! They're my babies...)

Other professional players are the only people I would let loose with any of my instruments.

It's partly down to minimising the risk of damage to expensive instruments - some students aren't very careful and regardless of the rarity or value they'd knock things about without giving it a second thought. Secondly, the instruments I own are of a quality that inexperienced players could not do justice to.

I only let violinists play my violin, and my piano is only to be played by people who won't do anything cruel or of long-term peril to it.

I made the mistake of lending my beautiful hand-made Dolmetsch treble recorder to a buck-toothed co-participant on a summer school .

Yup, you guessed it, it got put back in its case with all the front of the mouthpiece scraped off .

Cost me a fortune to put it right (Mr Rabbit coughed up the lolly in the end, though) - a hard lesson learned for both of us, I think!

Flute: the only people who have played my flute are me, my flute teacher, and nat . I had no problem with Nat playing it, but when my flute teacher did last lesson, he was like "i'll just show you this bit..." picked up my flute. "you don't mind do you". And played it before I could say "well actually..." and got a sort of "errrm...".

Piano: No one wants to play it . It's manky. Except for when my mums friend and her friends daughter came round for coffee with my mum and my mum said she heard that this girl was doing very well in her piano lessons and asked for a demonstration. She repeatedly played "Little Donkey". Not that I have a problem with that the first hundred odd times, but after that....

*nod*

Once, I forgot my flute for rehersals in our music class, and the teacher got this old flute out of the cupboard and said I could play that. One look and I was begging to do anything else. I don't know what was growing on it, but it didn't look safe. I think fumigating would have been more appropriate for that thing.


It was rather good actually, like I said at the time

I'm getting some of the messages in caps.

Better than when I first sight read it

You started it with "stupid MSN" and by mentionning the dum dum de de de de etc piece!

No-one apart from me is allowed to play my new flute - it's too nice. I once let a person play my old flute before a concert - then found out she'd been wearing lipgloss and my flute was all sticky. Nice.....
School instruments - I wouldn't touch ours - considering the liplate fell off the flute and there's only one reed for the school oboe - hasn't been replaced for, what, about 5 years.....

i'm not too bothered with people touching my piano, aslong as they dont bang hard on it, then i tell them off and have to stop myself from closig the fall on their fingers! i'm really really protective of my flute, its newish and no-one gets to even touch it but my trusted friends who play the flute or my teacher, and sumtimes i get my mum just to hold it.

When I first got my clarinet, I wouldn't even let MYSELF touch it sometimes in case I broke it, and for about the first week I wouldn't put the case on the ground outside. Now I'm a bit more relaxed, but only people who play woodwind instruments are allowed to play it, and even then, they're not allowed to play it if I've got my concert reed on it, it's too expensive to replace if they break it. Well, really, it's only about £2 worth of reed, but even so, it all mounts up if someone breaks your reed at every single concert, let alone the bad tone that I'll egt if I have to use my normal reeds. But when I get my new A I think I'll be really picky about who can play it, even other clarinettists may not be allowed to play it!

Only 2 other people have ever been allowed to play my flute 2 of my trusted friends. One being a flautist herself and the other being a clarinettist who knows the basics of flute playing. I would only ever let people who appreciate how much my flute is worth and know what it means to me to play it. My dads too scared to touch it even when it's in it's case!

What is that piece again??? I know you've told me before but I keep forgetting....


Blech....


Sounds like a good qualification for borrowing!

I don't mind other people playing my piano... except small kids who like to slam the cover down again and again. But I'm more picky with my violin. It's gross having to wipe the chinrest after someone has played.

NO-ONE even touches my violin except me, my Dad, my teacher and one trusted friend who is a musician and I've known practically all my life. And with her playing it I'm still a bit nervuos. Thing is it's my Dad's and it's really precious to me. With my 'lectric I'm not quite so up tight and I will let other violinists play it, but I'm still really careful.
My harp only gets played by trusted people with me sitting right next to them close enough to stop them toppling it over/ fidling with the levers/ plucking the strings with their nails.

Thanks

I'm not really that keen on people playing my cello, unless they're other cellists, but my trumpet is only a student one which is a bit dented already and I could probably do with replacing it with a "nice" one. so that occasionally gets passed around (I've got a couple of spare mouth pieces so I don't catch anything ). The other week about 5 different people played it and got ill! lol maybe they won't be so keen to play it again

There was quite a lot of instrument sharing at the forums concert yesterday.
I think quite a few of us had fun trying to get a sound out of some instruments..... and there were a few of us nominated the oboe as 'a trick instument' (couldn't get a sound out of it at all).

I allow people to have a play on my bassoon (it is quite sturdy unless you walk into something or hit the wall) as long as they understand what it means to me/is worth and I have a spare old reed in my case. I don't friends at college have ago, as they are not musical and it was one of those people who broke one of my reeds. The reason I let people have a play is that, not many people get to play a bassoon and it can be such a beautiful instrument at times.

My oboe playing was pitiful!

I sounded like a dying duck. I guess at least I got a sound! It's very hard!


Ceri, it's very generous of you to "share" your bassoon - they are worth such a lot! It's nice when people can be so generous just to let others "have a go"

Thanks to everyone (not forgetting Liz and her alto flute who was generous enough to let their precious instrument(s) be passed around

I'm not too picky but I don't let many people touch my flute and I will stand and watch when people play my guitar cos some people don't understand the meaning of being careful.

Oboes are lovely (I want to learn it!) but hard work, aren't they? I got a go on my friend's oboe (in exchange for a go on my Horn) and I only got a sound half the time (but did manage to play a tiny bit of the 2nd movement Horn bit of Capriccio Espagnol, much to my delight). I guess you're not doing bad if you can get a dying duck sound, really!

I generally have the motto if you let me play yours, you can play mine, and if they're not musical, yes you can have a go, but don't expect me not to hover over your shoulder for 100% of the time.

Mine was silent......

Much better than me then! I just about managed to squawk my way through merrily we roll along

Yes, they are hard work, but sound lovely!

I got a strange squeak out of Ceri's bassoon (and everyone in the room stopped what they were doing and stared at me - embarrassing or what?). And I ended up borrowing Andante's bass recorder for the Grand Ensemble. Willobie said to me "I don't associate you with the bass recorder". To which I answered "That's because I've never played one before!"

I've spent this afternoon looking at bass recorders on e-bay and a number of instrument sellers' websites......

Bass recorders looked fun, especially when I found out that you don't have to be able to stretch as far as you do for the tenor for them

Fatal

Nicki: it is a bonus isn't it? Shame they cost so much.

And of course, it's fun trying to take them apart after you've played

*drool* bass recorder. wouldn't we all love one of those?

Wouldn't be bad - much rather have an alto flute though!!

Planning a Gloucester concert with proceeds going towards the Alto-flute-for-Sarah fund by any chance?

now there's an idea!

Well, let me know when you're ready and I'll send you the planning lists.......

I don't know that it would be quite so popular if the money was funding my obsessions though!

No, maybe not

But we need to look for a venue further west anyway, even if we don't do it for the aforementioned fund.

My church would be a good one, except we haven't got an acoustic piano (Yamaha Clavinova) but I think I'd need to be feeling a bit more human healthwise before trying to organise one... definitely a thought though.

Don't get much further west than Cornwall!

True