# Do Classical/Jazz Artists Ever Mess Up?



## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

I at least am not at the level where I can detect it easily. The mark of a good performer is to make mistakes sound good.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

The mistakes are what makes it jazz. Zappa said if you make the same mistake twice it's the start of an arrangement! But probably not good in classical music.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

starthrower said:


> The mistakes are what makes it jazz. Zappa said if you make the same mistake twice it's the start of an arrangement! But probably not good in classical music.


I over worry about making mistakes live in my own performances.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Yes, they mess up. But in jazz, sometimes they are known as “happy accidents”. In classical music, they are usually edited out.


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

Larkenfield said:


> Yes, they mess up. But in jazz, sometimes they are known as "happy accidents". In classical music, they are mostly edited out.


Got it. Thanks for calming my anxieties!


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Captainnumber36 said:


> Got it. Thanks for calming my anxieties!


Try listening to Schnabel. You'll feel better.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Captainnumber36 said:


> I over worry about making mistakes live in my own performances.


Sunday I hit a c natural when it should have been a c#. I just held the c, then slowly moved up half a step, like it was planned. If you close your eyes and lean into it, people think you're an artist. Of course, that was in church, not the Met.


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## Dan Ante (May 4, 2016)

I remember back in the 60s our semi pro jazz band made a record, it was a special label that promoted locally known bands, on one number on the very last note I hit a wrong note, I knew we would have to do it again but the Trombone player insisted it be left in as it showed we were all human and it made everyone laugh except me.
Some time later the drummer in a trio I was playing in asked if he could borrow the record, that was the last I saw of, he said he had lost it.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

The number of mistakes noticed by the audience are inversely proportional to the number of modern works on the program.


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## senza sordino (Oct 20, 2013)

Do Classical/Jazz Artists Ever Mess Up?

Yes. 

1) Consider a 100 piece orchestra performing a Mahler Symphony. Do you really think every musician played every note correctly? Highly unlikely. 
2) What kind of mistake are we talking about? Holding a note too long or too short is a mistake. The wrong rhythm is a mistake. A poorly executed or articulated note is a mistake. Wrong bow direction is a mistake. Too loud or too soft (wrong dynamics) is a mistake.
3) Who will notice the mistake? Especially if it is a minor mistake. Does the listener know every note of the piece? Can the listener even pick out what one instrument is playing in a full orchestra to find a mistake?

Expecting no mistakes is very demanding, perhaps too much pressure for anyone to live up to. There is probably no such thing as perfection. 

The real test of an artist is to make a mistake and then leave it behind. If you make a mistake in performance, and then dwell on that mistake in your head, you'll make another because there is a lapse of concentration.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

Amateurs practice until the don't make a mistake. Professionals practice until they can't make a mistake. And yet, it happens. Recordings, especially the live ones, are often full of errors. I've made my share in concerts - you just go on and realize no one died, we're all human. That's one reason though why hearing some orchestras in concert (Chicago, Boston, Berlin, London) is so thrilling - mistakes are rare and often non-existent. When players mess up, it's usually no big deal, but when a soloist or conductor screws up the result can be catastrophic - and a source of great party tapes!

I used to keep a log of errors on recordings. After a while I realized that in the LP era some of these mistakes wouldn't be audible because of the surface noise on the vinyl. But transferred to CD and the absence of that noise, the goofs are quite easy to spot. Like the wrong entrance of a sole bass player at the beginning of Klemperer's EMI Mahler 2. Then there are some that are inexcusable: the wrong entrance of bass drum and cymbals at a spot in Borodin 2 with Gergiev on Philips. Someone, conductor or players or producer, should have caught that. One of the most notorious is the Bernstein Mahler 9 with Berlin when the trombone section decided to skip a passage in the finale.


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

every performance, every recording will have mistakes...usually, very small, nit-picky and of little consequence. a section attack, not quite together, a flawed balance, a missed note, a release not done together, etc...
missed notes, or cracks may be edited out in studio recordings. live performances, not so, but most live performance recordings are usually a composite affair...most material ltaken from the supposedly best concert, edits plugged in from other concerts in the series...


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

My local orchestra, the TSO is not the most clean orchestra, at least playing Live. Noticed a big difference in Detroit.

Also hear it in some recordings, especially live. Wrong entrance by a trumpet in Tchaikovsky's 5th by the MSO under Dutoit on Decca stuck out like a sore thumb, which takes a bit away from otherwise great recording.

The sound engineer in Britten's version of Mozart's 39th really messed up on Decca. The sound switches from thin to full twice mid-movement. Only time I heard that in a recording.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Only went to one jazz festival for a bit, nothing to note there. But Coleman's Free Jazz have a few obvious screw ups where a guy improvises a motif or riff, and another comes in to play along at the wrong time, and the 2 just don't gel.


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## Dan Ante (May 4, 2016)

Phil loves classical said:


> Only went to one jazz festival for a bit, nothing to note there. But Coleman's Free Jazz have a few obvious screw ups where a guy improvises a motif or riff, and another comes in to play along at the wrong time, and the 2 just don't gel.


I am not surprised. If it is really free how can anyone know what comes next. And who is to say it is wrong.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Orchestral horn players often develop nervous problems because it is relatively easy to split a note on the horn and horn contributions are so often exposed.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

DaveM said:


> The number of mistakes noticed by the audience are inversely proportional to the number of modern works on the program.


I'd like to see an experiment where someone programs a piano piece and calls it by a fake opus number by Webern or Berg and just started playing random notes in a seemingly informed way to see how many in the audience would notice.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Enthusiast said:


> Orchestral horn players often develop nervous problems because it is relatively easy to split a note on the horn and horn contributions are so often exposed.


Seriously, why would anyone do that to themselves when there are other instruments which are perfectly good? I know of a horn player who took a plaster cast of her teeth so that in case she were in an accident, they could reconstruct her embouchure. Wow.


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## Simon Moon (Oct 10, 2013)

Since jazz isn't written out note for note as it is in classical, there is a bit more leeway than in classical. But that does not mean that mistakes are not made, or that they are not noticeable. 

If a jazz soloist hits a 'clam', it sticks out like a sore thumb. 

Jazz solos are not just a bunch of random notes, they are harmonically, modally, rhythmically and in other ways, related to main piece being soloed over. So, mistakes are still noticeable. 

I think the main reason why mistakes are more tolerated in jazz than classical, is because a great soloist in jazz, is composing on the fly, in real time, and they are attempting to push boundaries (within parameters). So, 'mistakes' are more likely to happen, if they attempt to push the envelope. With great rewards, come risks.


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## philoctetes (Jun 15, 2017)

Went to hear the local orchestra play Sibelius #2 - the wind section flubbed the intro...


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## Gordontrek (Jun 22, 2012)

Yes they certainly do. As good as the pros are they're still human beings. 
The great Chicago Symphony trumpet player Bud Herseth was as close to perfect as you'll ever hear. There's an anecdote that during a rehearsal of Also Sprach Zarathustra, Fritz Reiner decided to make Bud mess up, so he kept rehearsing the part with the big trumpet octave leap over and over and over ad nauseum, the purpose being to wear down Bud's chops and eventually make him crack a note. But time after time Bud sung out the solo perfectly each time. Finally, after the umpteenth run through, Reiner just stopped and stared at Bud, who said "It's OK, I'm here until 12:30." Reiner finally gave up.
BUT even Bud has messed up, and I know of recordings on which you can hear it. It happens to everyone. God knows I've messed up more times than I can count.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Manxfeeder said:


> I'd like to see an experiment where someone programs a piano piece and calls it by a fake opus number by Webern or Berg and just started playing random notes in a seemingly informed way to see how many in the audience would notice.


I'm sure there would be a few saying it is so Berg- or Webern-like, that they were touched. It is the same as these sort of experiments, with cheap shoes, fish, wine marketed as high quality, with embarrassing comments made by unsuspecting customers.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

All shoes are cheap garbage now made in China. So you may as well pay as little as possible.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Here's where one can hear slight imperfections of technique, but it really doesn't matter or detract from the performance because the spirit behind it is so strong and understanding:






It's not always a matter of a performer making a mistake but how he overcomes them without destroying the overall mood of the performance.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

starthrower said:


> All shoes are cheap garbage now made in China. So you may as well pay as little as possible.


Not quite. There are unaffordable, high-quality shoes made in Italy. There are also high quality shoes made in Mexico and Texas: Cowboy Boots. That's all I wear. They aren't cheap, but a good pair lasts a long, long time. But your comment has some real truth. There are also Chinese-made cowboy boots sold under the Ariat name. They just don't fit as well as ones from Texas. They wear well, the soles are really well made. What's this got to do with CM? Ozawa wore them all the time, and Bernstein always conducted in boots.


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## Pat Fairlea (Dec 9, 2015)

Yes they make mistakes: listen to some of Alfred Cortot's recordings. But does it matter?


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Manxfeeder said:


> I'd like to see an experiment where someone programs a piano piece and calls it by a fake opus number by Webern or Berg and just started playing random notes in a seemingly informed way to see how many in the audience would notice.


Among those who like a fair bit of Webern or Berg I feel sure that most would notice in a piece of any size (which, of course, is relative for Webern). I doubt there would be any (among those who know those composers) saying (or convincing themselves) that they liked the piece. But if, instead of random notes, there was an effort to produce a believable forgery ...


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## Open Book (Aug 14, 2018)

Enthusiast said:


> Orchestral horn players often develop nervous problems because it is relatively easy to split a note on the horn and horn contributions are so often exposed.


The Boston Symphony's horn section made some noticeable flubs during live performances in the late 70's.

The Berlin Philharmonic's principal French horn player says that every horn player is victimized by the instrument once in a while.


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

Open Book said:


> The Boston Symphony's horn section made some noticeable flubs during live performances in the late 70's.


they hit a lot of clams in the 50s and 60s as well...


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## Open Book (Aug 14, 2018)

Heck148 said:


> they hit a lot of clams in the 50s and 60s as well...


I don't listen to every BSO broadcast anymore, but I think you hear a lot less of that today. I think just because there are more people in the world, that means a larger number of technically excellent musicians competing for those top spots, less tolerance for this sort of thing.


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