During marching season, we had to set our instruments down at the beginning of the show. This guy, after he set up, wasn't looking where he was going and STEPPED ON MY FLUTE. My lip plate is bent on one side (not on the side you play on). I'm glad it's a student tho... but I still cry.

Funny thing, When i was in middle school I had a dent on the bottom part of my head joint. This dent was made it impossible for the head joint to go in the flute body. When i told my band director he took a drumstick, put it inside the flute, grabbed a hammer and just started pounding. This fixed the flute perfectly in less than 10 seconds. i was horrified, but it worked perfectly, The dent was gone and it played perfectly fine

My heart drops when I get a B on a math test and I know my Asian mom is gonna get pissed

I have several nightmare flute dent stories. 1) Doubling on flute/picc, I lost my grip on my brand new Altus and watched in horror as it crashed to the ground. I was so stunned that I didn't even grab my piccolo. I honestly thought I was going to throw up. It only wound up being a tiny dent on my head joint, about the size of the one you showed being worked out of yours, Joanna. 2) USC marching band, we did a lot of dance routines where we set our horns down on the ground. We were playing some tailgates before the start of the Las Vegas Bowl in 2001 (wow I'm old) and during one of the dances we were crammed into a very tight space and I stepped back and nearly bent the neck tenon off my section mate's flute. Luckily he didn't want to kill me. I was so exhausted and out of it when it happened, I didn't even realize I'd done it. 3) 2004 Rose Parade, I'd loaned my piccolo to a section mate because the G# key had broken off hers. We were about half way through the parade and doing all of our horn moves along to the drum cadence when just ahead of me I saw something shiny fly off into the audience. It was the head joint to my piccolo shooting through the air! The gal who was playing it managed to break rank and find it lying there on the shoulder of Colorado Blvd. After the parade, she was beside herself when she showed me how the end of the head joint was bent so it looked like a half-moon instead of a tube. I told her not to worry. I reamed it out with the cleaning rod so it approximated a circle, handed it back, and she played the whole game and post-game concert on it. 4) I learned to play on a 30+-year-old Buescher Aristocrat (even cheaper Bundy) that belonged to my school. It was an ornery, super hard blowing, nickel-plated jerk of a flute. It was sheer bullheadedness that allowed me to survive playing the stupid thing. One night at a quick pep band rehearsal before one of the first basketball games of my sophomore year of high school, I accidentally hit the lip plate on my stand and the director and I were treated to the bizarre sight of watching the lip plate come off the flute and skid across the linoleum band room floor. If I'd thought it was difficult to play and it sounded bad while it had a decaying riser, it played and sounded a hundred times worse after it came back from the shop with the lip plate soldered back on a full millimeter off from where it should have been. 5) Same year and same flute as No. 4, it somehow got shoved over the lip on the footwell of the second to top row of bleachers in the gym. I had to wait until the following Monday so the janitor could let me under the bleachers to collect it. Not even a scratch . . . Thank you for your great videos.

OMG I totally understand the I-just-dented-my-flute feeling...

I went to my stepdaughter's first concert last night. She's 3rd chair! 😄 There was a child sitting on stage, with her flute sitting up right, between her legs, swinging it back an forth, back and forth No hands on it, mind you. I have this kid on facebook live and I'm saying, "oh my god! She's going to dent the mess out of it! I'm so glad she's not my kid!" Well.... my stepdaughter told her this morning what I said & that it is expensive to fix it. Guess what... she said it was the school's loner flute because hers is being fixed! Talk about panic attack!

After reading all these stories of people sitting on their instruments I'm going to go get my flute off the bed RIGHT NOW.

I just remembered a story about playing and denting my flute. I was playing a job years ago with a latin jazz group. I dented the head joint very very badly, and I didn't have a back up with me. Young and broke as I was at the time. I luckily am pretty savvy and Macgyver, like. It happened at a place that had a pool table, so I removed the end cap and pushed the cork out of the head joint, and pushed the pull stick up into the head joint following the shape of the head joint (tapered head joint to tapered pool stick), and took another pool stick and hammered out the dent, very very gently. I managed to repair the head joint and finish the job and the flute looks to this day, like it never happened. This was sometime in the late 80s.

A few years ago, I was practicing in my living room, and I had forgotten my flute stand at school, so I placed it on the couch when I got up to go get a glass of water. (You can definitely already see where this is going.) I come back and half mindedly sit down and it was only a slight second but within that time frame that my butt came into contact with my flute it was dented completely, right at the A key. I immediately began freaking out, screaming and crying at my mom saying how we need to take it to the shop right this instant and how I was so irresponsible and how I hated myself for all of this...Needless to say, I had an entire mental breakdown. Thankfully, we got it to the shop and they completely fixed it, only with a slight discoloration where the dent was, and it still plays perfectly! It was only a student model, so it wasn't the end of the world, but still heart breaking nonetheless.

When I was starting off on clarinet in the six grade I snapped my instrument in half, I had it on my bed and It got covered by my blanket so I didn’t see it when I sat on my bed, LOL I literally had that exact same feeling, thank God it was only a plastic student model and it was just a rental, it also helped a lot that It was insured.

My first flute had a somewhat very loose head joint. One day while in the middle of switching music, I accidentally kinda "flung" my flute. I had my hand firmly on the body, but the loose head joint hit the wall and the bottom of it basically bent to become half a moon

The day I broke my violin bow was the worst of my life I've been crying for hours :(

I'm a Bari sax player and last year my band teacher was given the opportunity to try out a beautiful Jupiter, professional may I add, and a trumpet player just walked right on by swinging his trumpet around like an idiot and hits the low a key and the other side of the bell twice. Our entire sax section heard and we all just wanted to lay down and die. Let's just say that trumpet player was excused from band for a while.

My flute was on my bed and my mom stepped on it to close the window. And bent it completely in half!

Long time ago, I was playing flute before a house party and when the doorbell rang, put the flute down on the couch. Forgot about it. As it happened, a large person was drinking at the party and not looking where he was sitting, sat on the flute, promptly bending the flute into an almost 70-degree bend in the middle of it. Someone brought it to me in the kitchen and it being so absurd to look at, I tried to play it, but not a sound in any recognizable key could be generated. The headjoint and low end joint were undamaged, the bend was all at one point in the middle. I took it to a musical instrument repair shop in Ontario and for about $150 they heated it up and straightened it out and it worked fine after that. They probably took on the job for the laugh of it, but they did an amazing job. I had no hopes that they could fix it. The bend was clean, in the body and key mechanism bars, and no individual keys themselves, were damaged (very lucky!). The person who sat on it agreed to split the repair cost with me. By the way, I think the model was an Artley standard student model back then (built like a tank, highly repairable by most welders), a company now long out of business. Theoretically, silver might be even easier to fix for an experienced repair shop, but who knows, I haven't thrown an instrument-bending party since and don't quite know for sure. Cheers all!

Thanks for the segment on taking out the dent. I had no idea little dents could be fixed! I better save up some money for my flute to take a trip to Fluteworks!

I was at a concert once and one of the bass players put his bass down and started to walk away when his bass just tumbled off the stage onto the floor! Pretty much the whole front of it fell off and he just stood there staring at it in shock for a while. I would have just curled up and cried tbh if that was me.

I dented my flute and felt bad about this all these years... Thanks! I feel so much better now! I was a biggish dent too, i did it while I was relaxing, comfortable on an armchair with wooden arms, I was playing and noodling for fun, just chilling and I put my flute down and the head joint knocked against the armrest -> dent!

In my band class a girl dropped her flute and everyone looks and gasps😂 GIRLLLLLLL DUDE IT BOUNCED!!!! BOUNCED!!!😱😱😱😱

Geez!...I have played the flute for 3 1/2 years. The professional flute world sounds harsh!

The moment when you accidentally knock over....a flute stand. Those that let your flute stand upright nicely. Yea I almost died of guilt.

I scratched the engraving on my Zemaitis MFJ-101-BK Engraved Metal Front with a screwdriver adjusting the action, I feel your pain...

If that's how you feel when you dent your flute you'd die if you saw my tenor sax from marching band lol.

after an hour practice session, I cleaned my headjoint and then my headjoint fell and the bottom of the tube folded inwards

One time I was at a rehearsal and the tuba player had left his tuba on stage, still with the mouthpiece on, somehow the tuba fell off the stage, and the stage It's like 1,30 m high. Needless to say that the tuba got dented and the mouthpiece got stuck, It wouldn't come off, it was horrible!

I'm so sad, my flute just got a huge dent right in the center of the headjoint next to the mouthpiece, it's so ugly and I'm having that feeling...

Not to long ago... I had my oboe and... IT FELL! THE CASE OPENED UP MID-FALL AND MY OBOE WENT ALL OVER THE FLOOR OF MY MATH CLASS! Luckily it did not break. 1 like = 1 safe oboe

One time, while putting my flute away, I set my head joint on the case, which was on the piano. It rolled off of the case and after smacking into the piano a couple of times it landed on the tile floor and dented the thin part of the metal. Luckily that was not my professional flute.

always love seeing notifications for your video. great video as usual! :))

I’m 13 and play a Trevor James cantabile. Not even 10 minutes ago I was sitting on a chair practicing, and I put my flute on a blanket on the floor to take a breather (my 1st mistake). I go on my phone with my music stand in front of me, and I just relax for a few minutes. My legs spring from underneath my chair and hit my music stand, which starts leaning towards my flute, my precious. It turns out I have two small dents and one fairly big scratch on my head joint. The flute seems to play perfectly fine, I’m more injured than my flute honestly. It’s barely even noticeable.

I was in band class and my flute was sitting on my lap. When I went to grab a pencil to write something down on my music, my flute rolled off my lap and landed at the bottom of the music stand. The dent's on the top of my midjoint.

This was last year..I was taking my flute home from school, just got off the bus and I didn't notice that my flute case was half open..the other side opened and the whole case opened and all of the parts of the flute fell and hit the sidewalk(made of rock)... bad news: my head joint(by the place where you connect it to the body) was dented, like around the hole.. Good news: the body joint and foot joint were all ok.. I still haven't given it to a teacher to have them take to someone to fix yet tho..

I scratched my flute pretty badly putting a 3M anti tarnish in my case under the body of the flute. Make sure you have room for those in your case if you decide to use one and if necessary cut it in half to make room for it. After the 3M strips are used up I plan on using another brand that's less abrasive such as this Intercept product I keep reading about online that's made out of plastic not paper. I also got a circular scratch on the cork plate while cleaning my instrument with the plastic rod and supplied Yamaha gauze, but I hear that is quite common and the cork plate/stem can be replaced when you need a new cork so I guess its not a big deal. I'm still a beginner flutist and learning these things as I go along. Sometimes we have days where like she said were just not on the ball or off days where we aren't at our fullest. Accidents happen. To add to that my rod fell out due to a loose pivot screw so now I'm also checking my pivot screws (NOT ADJUSTMENT SCREWS) before I play my instrument. I hear this is common too. One solution (NOT RECOMMENDED) for this I read online albeit a bandaid solution is to use thread lock or Loctite that you can use to prevent the pivot screws from coming loose, but I'd stay on the side of caution if attempting to do this as its a glue and might gum up the rod beyond the thread where the screw goes in. (RECOMMENDED) It's probably best to let a flute tech handle that their own way with their own methods. My flute which I bought new is a Yamaha 222 so its not like its a $100 flute bought off Ebay or Amazon made from cheap shit or by a manufacturer that makes garbage flutes. I plan on taking better care of it going forward.

When I got done playing my beginner flute when I was younger, I left it on my bed. When I went back into my room to go to sleep, I was half-asleep and I PUT IT ON THE FLOOR! I got up in the middle of the night and stepped on it, bending the keys😬😬😬

I learnt to play on my sister's old flute. She stepped on the head joint. I played for years on a flute with a huge dent. It never tuned right. Still has the same dent haha

It's that break up feeling :-/ I've had that before :-/ my undergraduate flute teacher dropped her flute footjoint first to the ground right next me. It was so sad :-/

I'm a beginner flutist, and I still have my first flute. I bought it used, so it came with dents in it and it bothers me so much. At least I know it wasn't me!

I just dented a flute... terrible and traumatizing experience! Your video helped me through the grieve and reliving the shame! Thank You! ;)

I have a brother with a vindictive attitude (never having any valid reasons) bent by flute & cleaning rod. What a brother I inherited !!! (And I assure you it was not my Playing !) Love your Spirit !

I've also definitely broken my reed before. One time, I had just played on the reed for the first time, it was great, and then when I put it back, it broke in the case. I was so mad!

Around the middle of December, I was playing oboe with my school band and I had dropped it on the floor. The reed ended up bending at the cork and later on one of the screws for the octave key came out ;-;

Not necessarily instrument damage, but I have been in string ensemble rehearsal and the bridge on my violin has popped off into my face...twice. Also there is a spot on the side where, in the beginning stages of learning, I would be bowing on the wood itself. Lastly, there are permanent scuff marks on my piano, from when my sister accidentally kicks the foot board.

Never had my oboe crack, but seen a lot of people's oboes crack. Ive seen my fellow oboists/english horn players faint in the middle of a solo from their reed cracking. The worst thing that ever happened to me was that I was in a concert, and the reed cracked mid concert. Being the person i had to leave the quintet to get a reed out of my case (Very Embarrassing). Ive also had someone step on my oboe case, and broke all of my reeds in the case (Around 6).

yes your right I would hate to see dents on my flute but regarding wear and tear this happens. For example when your sitting next to another flute player they may inadvertently touch the head joint on your left Side or the right side if your sitting in the middle. This happens mostly in flute choirs / orchestras / Bands as we still call them in Northern Ireland. sorry I should of said the right side meaning the foot joint. so it's always better to hold the flute up vertically when not playing your part this may reduce the possibility of this happening.

My flute/piccolo always finds a way to break right before a competition or concert. I don't even remember the last time I played my flute during a performance that it was in full working condition.

i have a friend who played clarinet and this was 7th grade so she was really deep in her emo phase, so she carried her back pack around with her constantly? im not sure why, but for some reason she left it on a bus when we were on a field trip but the buses left, so they just threw it off. she was so careless with her instrument she didnt even use a case, so when the buses came back to pick us up, they ran over her bag and just crushed her clarinet. she stopped playing after that.

Hello!! I play the contrabass in my school's concert band. Our band have an annual Passing Out Parade (POP) and it usually happens at the end of every year. We're required to play 3 sons. 1 March, 1 Concert and 1 with gimmicks. Just the day before POP, I just my bow was too tight, and when the fast, crazy, hard bass line with quavers at the speed of 144 BpM, the strings of my bow snapped. And this was during the last rehearsal before the actual day. Luckily our section had one extra bow left since one of our section mates was going overseas. All went well for the actual day. Love all your videos and stories, Joanna. Always looked forward to see your videos. Greetings from Singapore!!! *A tiny dot of a country called Singapore located in Southeast Asia. You should come and tour Singapore!!*

One time I was getting my flute out of my locker but the buckles that close the case aren't very sturdy, and when I took it out the case opened and dropped each piece in the hallway. The head joint dented and it was extremely hard to even put it connected to the body. 😁

Just yesterday our middle school band had a band festival. While in the warm up room waiting to perform, I bent down to fix my shoe strap and MY FLUTE ROLLS OFF MY LAP AND LANDS ON THE FLOOR AND HITS THE KEY SIDE. Luckily there was NO dents. I still feel so bad and I feel like my Flute hates me😭😭

I like your honesty and appreciate it!

I warped the head joint of the school flute, because I was an idiot and banged it over the edge of a trash can to get the beads of spit out.. then I put on the body and that's when I discovered I had a misshapen head joint in my hand... and I got that feeling.. 😢😭

My bassoon reed split IN TWO after a dress rehearsal, THE DAY BEFORE MY CONCERT. This was the best reed I had at the time, so I was panicking. I couldn't order a new reed on amazon or make another one, so I took my second best reed I had, and completely "edited" it until it was performance ready. I was so scared that whole night. To my surprise, I did just fine the next day, and revived the most compliments I've ever received post-concert from the audience. I guess it was a blessing in disguise :)

Well 3 times in a span of 5 weeks I had leaks in my flute. So I was first chair (still am) out of 11 flutes and like this one girl (i still don't know who) was messing with my flute and was doing something that was breaking my flute. Like we have these challenges that like if the band director thinks you're more skilled than the person in the chair in front of you (for example 3rd to 2nd), you move up a chair. So like I challenged 1st chair when I was second chair, and I beat her. So she challenged me again after that because she was jealous, lol I beat her. And btw we do these challenges on Thursdays. So like every Wednesday I have flute lessons, and every day before I had a challenge I had a leak. 2/3 of the times it was my F# key so that's weird. And what's even better is that when she challenged me for the second time, all the front row flutists (1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th chair) challenged te person in front of them. I stayed first chair, 3rd chair got 2nd, 4th chair got 3rd, 5th chair got 4th, and 2nd chair got 5th. If this girl didn't challenge me, she would've still been in second chair (still is fifth). Ever since she moved down to fifth, my flute hasn't had a leak since. I think that girl was the person who was messing with my flute. Too bad for her that her jealousy took over.

well one day I was practicing with my guitar and while i was adjusting my amp settings my guitar trap decided that this was a good time to break my poor baby fell on the ground without me been able to do anything about it I got to admit I never felt anymore powerless good thing is there was just some minor dents on the headstock

I have a few instrument damage stories. I somehow put a dent in my student flute during marching band, not sure if it happened by hitting it against a stand or during a rehearsal when it was on the ground (yeah, I can almost hear the cringing "You put your instrument on the ground!") but it actually made the flute sound better and it was right where my right thumb sits so I left it there and used it as a thumb rest. My first piccolo Al (named because it's a Bundy) got scraped when he took a nose dive off of a stand (this was before I got my flute/piccolo stand). It was his first outdoor performance and a gust of wind blew the stand over and Al landed on his head. He never really worked well after that, I think he got brain damaged :). He's since been replaced by Jenny and some day I'll have the money to take Al to the doctor. My band does parades on a float. One of our clarinetists bought a cheap plastic clarinet in bright red that he uses when we do outdoor shows. During a parade a screw fell out and he did a temporary fix with a pipe cleaner for the rest of the parade.

I'm playing the violin, but I love to watch your video. I still was a beginner, when the most BRUTAL damage happend to my violin. My cheap beginner-violin had a very slippery paint. So my shoulderrest tendet to slip off. As if it wasn't enought, I was sick at that time and wore a scarf. I was to lazy, to take off the scarf for practise but put the violin up to my shoulder. Of COURSE I couldn't hold it with chin and shoulder as it is supposed to be held. My violin fell on the hard, cold tiels.. and one peg littlery broke into pieces. I cried. Then cried even more, even though I had a new peg because I wanted to replace the old pegs. I learnt from it to NEVER put my violin without direct contact to the naked skin of the neck. I even refuse to play with roll collar sweaters.

I tripped on the clarinet riser at the dress rehearsal right before a concert and whacked my Powell foot joint on the timpani. Fortunately the timpani had enough dents already that they couldn't tell if I had added another one, so I was off the hook on that. The low C and B no longer worked properly, but fortunately those notes were not in my part for that concert. The first repairman (I can.'t believe I have forgotten who that was) removed it enough to make the keys work, but was afraid of splitting the tube, The second repairman actually got the dent out completely, and you can't even tell where it was any more. Lucky me.

The feeling when you break a reed during a concert😭😩😩😩

My mom is a band director and she let me use her beginner flute for 6th and 7th grade and it was the beginning of my 7th grade year when I was sitting in online class for band and I was holding my flute with the foot joint touching the floor (not the best idea I know) and I was letting it lean on my leg while I was changing my music (again not the best idea I know and I’ve learned from my mistakes) and I moved my leg just right and it fell and hit the leg of my stand and it dented my head joint needless to say my mom was NOT happy with me when she found out but she was able to fix it and I have never dented my flute since YET

I've had my flute for 4 years I haven't fixed it ever and for like 2.5 years I didn't care for my flute at all... now my flute is uh...yeah...

I had an absolute meltdown this past marching season... I was drum major, so when my flute was on the ground by the podium while I conducted, there was a water break, and my friend completely stepped on it and it bent on the curb and I went home and cried and my life felt like it was over...

I've had the screws on my clarinet fall out before as well. It was really scary when you could just take some of the clarinet off! :O

I heard of a clarinetist whose clarinet's keys were bent by accidently been smacked off the stand. This happened right before the final performance of her degree so she had to play on her teachers clarinet. She still got the best mark.

It was time for band class (middle school). I got my flute out of my locker and at the time I had a case with locks that were pretty old and loose. Sometimes even the locks would come undone just by taping on it. Anyways, as I was walking down the hallway both of the locks came free and my flute fell out of its case. My face went from a smile to almost a completely perfect circle because I was in shock. Thank the lord it was only very minor damage. One of the keys got bent and that was about it. I did eventually get a new flute with a new case.

My sad damage story is the one I'm living right now. I'm a clarinet player and for various reasons, I haven't played in about 4 years. I stopped practicing when I didn't have ensembles or anything to work towards, so it sat in my closet. About a year or so ago, I took it out to try to play something and as it turns out, most of the pads have disintegrated and god knows what kind of damage I can't see. The only notes that actually come out are the E4 - Bb4. I'm terrified to take it to a shop to find out it's going to cost like, $700 to fix or they'll tell me the instrument isn't worth trying to fix. My child that I've had since day one. I feel an overwhelming sense of guilt about this, since this probably could have been prevented if I hadn't stopped playing. :(

My worst one so far: In the two bands I'm accepted in, I play a metal, plateau keyed clarinet, probably close to 100 years old. A couple of months ago, when warming up before a rehearsal, I noticed that some notes sounded weird an a few others didn't come out at all. On just a casual inspection, it was obvious that a screw had decided to leave its post to make the whole LH assembly to become unhinged. Fortunately, it hadn't left the post completely. Neither I nor our first chair had brought a screwdriver - he normally carries a lot if useful things like spare reeds, cork slivers, grease and whatever in a case probably originally intended for sewing supplies. Asking around, our bass clarinettist (BTW 82 years old, I'm just 75) had one. Me holding the assy in place and him working the tool succeeded. From then, I religiously (despite being an atheist) check all posts, screws, rods and what have you before and after every rehearsal or training session. And check that I have a set of jeweller's/electronic screw drivers in my bag...

My friend was playing her clarinet and the bell just fell off. It was broken cause the part that connected the bell to the body was stun in the clarinet when it fell off.

I dented my head piece right next to the thin metal part, but just right above it. Do you think it would effect the sound the way I play? I am getting it repaired this weekend. So I have to use it for school for now. The dent is pretty small, but it’s kinda hard to put in the body tube.

I so understand what you're saying because I'd just gotten my pearl. I have 6 flutes and I had just gotten my pearl and I looked down at it one day. I had it sitting on a flute stand in my living room floor and I picked it up and saw a huge Dent and I literally could not catch my 2nd breath. I thought I was going to black out so I understand that feeling totally and then the whole day I just hated myself

I slammed my flute in my car door... MY SCHOOL FLUTE, GOD HELP ME!

Made me feel better about denting my headjoint on the first day.

When I was in 6th grade, I left my flute on my bed after practicing so I could go to softball practice. When I got home, I forgot I left it there, and then jumped into my bed, directly onto the center of my flute. It was completely bent in half at legitimately a 45 degree angle and I still have nightmares about it to this day.

My trumpets 1st valve got stuck right when I had to play loud but didn't realize. Yeah, I legit was about to jump out the bleachers, it sounded like a cow was dying. Everyone around me just stared after the song. Never again....

Recently bought a new gold head joint. Within two hours of receiving it, assembling my flute and testing it, I placed my flute on its stand for a break, and it fell. I don't know if you've ever had that slow motion effect when something expensive falls, but it was the worst experience of my life. Now my new head joint has a giant dent right where it connects to the body because it hit my coffee table. Well done me!

have you ever messed up during a concert but it wasn't really bad because you actually did an awesome funky sounding trill that actually went really well with the song?

I have a professional Powell with soldered tone holes that I recently discovered a large, nasty dent under the D key near the footjoint tenon. I am now too familiar with the feeling you described. I also know the feeling of shame because I know when I dented it rushing to put it away at the end of a performance.

Thinking about the time i was overzealously doing pizzicato on my violin and the bow screw chipped part of the varnish on my new instrument

4:08 sounds like a scary movie

Was having a display band performance about 4 years ago. I'm using the marching euphonium (not the convertible one). I had this part where I had to march backwards diagonally with ridiculously big steps, but on that day, the nearest tubist's step size wasn't big enough and caused me to trip; made the mistake of half-twisting my body and my instrument hit the ground with a resounding clang >_< At the end of the day, the right rim of the bell had a 2cm long dent that the school didn't have money to fix. The pain... ;-;

There was a completely crumpled trumpet bell, and the band teachers son just took a drumstick put it in the middle of the bell and started rolling the creases out

The mechanism on my current flute (my two week old flute) is messed up and can’t play an F sharp and a couple other notes because I accidentally moved it out of place while I was cleaning it and my local music shop isn’t open for 2 more days. I’m freaking out at the moment and I’m gonna have to use my old flute until the shop opens.

So, about 6 weeks ago I was in Band class and we were rehearsing our 3 songs for our concert that night and I was squeaking on my clarinet way more than usual, I was thinking to myself like I can't squeak in the concert it will make us sound bad, and I didn't know what to do, and the reed I was playing on WAS my best reed that I had, all the other ones were either chipped or I hadn't played on them yet, and I bent over to pick up my case so I could pick a new reed, and I hit my mouthpiece on my chair and the reed was cracked. Now i'm FREAKING OUT because the concert is tonight!! So I made a VERY RISKY mistake... I played on a new reed on the day of the concert. Luckily, I didn't sqeak once during the concert that night!!

I have to record myself and give the film to my teacher for maybe 60 percent of my mark. I got my head joint and I dropped it, the bottom was dented so it wouldn’t fit the body. I have to tell my teacher why my flute is dented and why I have no film to hand in.

I chipped my bass clarinet reed once during a concert measures before my entrance as I was sitting up and bringing the instrument up to my face. Reeds... ugh. It's the worst feeling because all that rehearsal and at a concert it's a one take deal. And there I am with chipped reed... Another time during sectionals I, like a genius, placed my Bb clarinet on my music stand (the ones with space on the bottom for pencils and stuff) and it got knocked over (by me I think, it's been a while...) And all the side trill keys kinda like jammed together. So no matter which of the four trill keys I'd hit, they all would get pressed down.

I was in high school, getting ready for this big saxophone solo. As I go onto the room, I bump my mouthpiece straight into the wall, and my reed got this big chip. When I tried to play on it, I did nothing but squeak, and I was sooo embarrassed. I still got a division one though (highest score)

Dropped my Stradivarius trumpet (not my marching one) from the stands under my seat where it crashed to the concrete under --- it was repaired like new for a mere $350

This tuba player in my band dropped his tuba 3 times in ONE FREAKING CLASS PERIOD!!!!!! And it’s a SCHOOL INSTRUMENT!!!

one day, I was playing my oboe and one of the pads fell out outside in the grass. and it was one of those smaller pads so I was worried. I found it but they still had to replace that pad and a bunch of other pads. so that was fun

I love this video so much! Every time I find a dent in my flute Ii feel like I have to hide it from everyone because they'll make me feel so bad about damaging such an expensive instrument- nice to know that other people feel the same way and that it shouldn't be shamed on :)

I still remember Breaking my guitar string half way though my solo in melodica by neil zaza

My worst story is: I was playing at a competition and after playing (Thank the lord it wasn't before) I was swapping out my piccolo and the cleaning cloth got stuck!!!!! I couldn't get it out and I thought I had to take it to the shop to get it removed, but then I tried using a crochet hook and I got it out! Never in my life have I been this scared!

I bought my Yamaha 271 used, so it has its fair share of dings, dents and scratches, but they’re only scars, which have stories. Other than that, the flute plays beautifully. The flute prior to that was a dented Jupiter, same thing: scars, stories. To date, it plays without trouble. My german-made Professional Bass has dings and dents here and there mostly because of my carelessness. But since it’s made of very thick wood, once again: they’re only scars. So long as it ain’t some serious damage that really compromises the sound, I let them be. I myself have scars, so 🤷🏻‍♂️

This happened to me like 2-3 years ago, I was in beginning band and we were putting our instruments away. My head joint fell to the ground and now have few dents on my flute. I don't really know if I can fix it or get a new flute. It works the same though.

Once upon a time I was walking upstairs in my college's music building. With an untied marching shoe. While holding my flute. My flute came down so hard on the edge of one of the stairs (with all my weight on top of it). The dent was of the large variety, and I found that there were notes that I could no longer play...

oops I'm slightly late to the video. When I first started alto saxophone I figured that metal = strong and so I took very little actual care of where it was at all times. As a result, I had several dents on the bottom of the bend and all of them were leaking air wildly affecting my intonation. (I fixed it with tape until we just got a better one since it wasn't worth repairing.)

I love your keyboard ⌨️

This story isn't about me, but when I was in school orchestra, we were setting up when we heard a loud crash on the top of the stage. This guy (whose one of my friends) dropped his cello and the bridge BROKE. We were freaking out and we eventually got it fixed, by getting him another cello. He didn't play cello next school year...

Not long ago I had learned this new piece and I was doing a really excited happy dance after having set my flute down on my bed. Well, my super happy jumping and dancing ended with me flopping down on my bed which in return launched my flute off my bed and on to the side of one of my dresser drawers. I frantically scoopted it up and screamed, "My baby oh MY GOD" And immediately started looking for dents which I found none. But the next day I found one right there that I had missed. I felt horrible. 😓

I know this was posted ages ago but it’s fine, deal with it. Today at a band camp (we play for 6 hours which is great) I had my flute on my lap and I reached over to the stand to change the music and my flute flew forwards and hit the bottom part of my flute on a chair in front of me and now there’s a just smaller than an inch size dent ( I have a Yamaha yfl372, it’s the first flute I’ve ever owned and it’s less than a year old)

This is my favorite video