A month ago, my little cousins came over to play. And, like all children, they instantly scrambled over to my piano in the living room and just started bashing it with everything they got. My aunt was encouraging them too..."Making music," she said.

So of course when they left, I wanted to practise. And guess what? It was completely out of tune, and some of keys even failed to rebound when you played them.

So after a month of getting frustrated trying to play a mutated piano (although I haven't got it tuned in almost a year), my parents finally called a tuner in. I was just recently playing on it, and it feels like playing on a brand new piano

Has anyone else got their own horror stories to tell?

Well, I already reported on another thread that I had just started playing (piano) Beethovens Sonata no 6 Op30 No2 in A (piano/violin) at a concert and the keys starting staying down. Somone preparing interval refreshments had spilled some sugar at the far end of the Bechstein Baby Grand. It took a good whil to clean it all out!

Also wasnt it Nicola Beneddetti who had dire problems with a chin rest in the BBC Young Musician string final ?

Not an instrument malfunction, but a musical terror....when I was young, I was playing a violin piece in a musical festival - about g8 standard with a complicated piano accompaniment. My mother had worked (struggled) really hard on the piano accompaniment, and for the festival had photocopied the piano part to make it easier for the page turns. About half way through she suddenly stopped - it transpired that she'd missed out photocopying a page and hadn't noticed till then!

Fortunately the adjudicator had the master copy and gave it to her so she could continue! I was too young at the time to realise how awful that must have been!

Not an instrument malfunction, but a performers one. My friend informed me that his clarinet was 'broken' and could he have a look at mine to see what it was supposed to do. Further inquiry revealed the fact that the key he was using was definitly not the one he should have used! And he really should have known the difference!

in my last bassoon exam (gr 7) i think one of my left pinky keys got stuck (the ones for low Eb and C#) - although they don't change notes they can drastically change the tone of the instrument and tuning, so I was playing through half my study sounding pretty damn bad (the first half must've been OK though as I got 26 in the end )

also once the low F key got jammed underneath the G# key... that was an interesting experience, and i've never told my teacher as he wouldn't have been inmpressd with me forcing back where it should've been

The incident that involved the piano, a set of piano tuning tools and my father. I shall say no more

In the regionals of this band competition, there was a section in our piece with just 4 flutes. My line was really important, and I was supposed to make it sound really loud. But just before the section, my flute stopped played, and nothing would come out. It turned out, I had done something with one of the screws, but I was mortified...when it did play stuff, it came out all airy and it wouldn't do octaves..AHH!

Erm .. During my grade 6 exam , a key was stuck! And I had to do a trill!

I had a really bad time with my flute when I was playing in a band for a show. On the opening night every think was going really well, and when the show finished every one was really excited and I had my flute in my hand and this guy ran rite into my flute and it knocked on the side of the stage. It wudn't play a single note . I came into school next day crying my eyes out, six months of rehersals and I no longer had a flute to play and since I was the only flute player we were stuffed! My music teacher was trying really hard to fix it but he couldn't seems to find a loose screw, dent, brokens key or loose pin anywhere. After a very stressful day I managed to borrow some ones flute at last minute ( at 6pm when the show started at 7pm). It wasn't as good as my flute but it was a flute. It turned out that the flute (the actual pipe) had bent slightly. It was such a complicated repair it had to be sent away and took 2 months.
When I went to my flute lesson my teacher felt really sorry for me and let me use her really nice flute which made me feel a bit better!

Without wanting to sound a boring old f**t, I think I would have said something. Children (even from a very young age) should be taught to respect other peoples property and even more so when it is something that requires extra respectful handling.

Excuses such as, "oh but he/she is only young", are pathetic. If they don't understand what you are saying and continue to inflict abuse on something, then the child should be removed from the situation. If they cry, tough, they need to learn that they can't just do as they please.

I hope these children do not go to a house where there are even more fragile muscial instruments and remains unchecked in their behaviour. Toddlers and young children are amazingly strong; brute force can quickly bend keys on woodwind instruments and pull bridges down on violins!!! I once saw a four or five year old pull the hair from a cello bow! To add insult to injury, the mother of the child laughed about it, which not only shocked the staff, but also the other customers in the shop at the time. With a reaction like that from a parent, what sort of message was the child getting!!

My first flute teacher had greased the joints on my flute (we all know thats a big NO NO) after my lesson one week. I had to play in a concert the following night, and when i went to put my flute together the footjoint just kept falling off. My school music teacher found it most amusing!! Luckily she lent me her flute in the end (meanwhile my mate was using her clarinet as a key had totally fallen off her own - good job our teacher wasn't actully in that concert).

First Xmas concert in my school band I was a bass clarinetist at the time. All was fine before going on stage, as soon as I got on stage it broke and wouldn't play a thing It was like that for the whole first half of the concert. So I had to mime