Nasty surprises to herald a practice session...WARNING: not for those with weak stomachs!!!?

I found a ghost in an old upright piano I had. :o

oh wait, that was an episode of Paranormal State....

Oh OK, I now remember...I found cat gut on my violin.... :o

edit:

Oh hafwen, if only. Assuming I would even be lucky enough to find a piano, it would probably spontaneously combust before I ever found the ghost hiding away in it. (with all the luck that I have :))

Everybody knows that if you really want to see a ghost, you never do.

That is just like a ghost too...hiding out laughing at your ill fated attempts at trying to find them. It is a conspiracy I say!

When I was at Hartt in the Sixties, I took the Music Ed multiple wood class, and single reeds were taught by the wonderful Donald Sinta ( he made up play the slow mvt. of the Mozart clarinet concerto for our final!!!). Anyway, he came into class one day and announced that he had good news and bad news - his good Haynes flute, which had been stolen, was found. The Police had found it in a pawnshop, undamaged, although the perp said he did play it some. Unfortunately, this was an escaped prisoner who has tuberculosis - so the whole flute had to autoclaved as is (what tech would tough such a germy flute!), then stripped and completely repadded, recorked, etc. Turned out fine, eventually.

Since I have to play a LOT of flutes, especially ones that I try, buy, or belong to students, I bought a UVC light, like they use in labs. All flutes go under the light - and I never close the keys, stick the bell on my thigh and SUCK the headjoint to check compression anymore - ever. Ick . . .

The nastiest surprise for me came once when I sat down to play piano. The lid was slightly open but not much; I usually keep it closed to keep out my cat, who is blessed with an insatiable curiosity but also... alas... a certain lack of judgment and more than a touch of the maladroit. I had just started playing when I heard this frantic scrabbling inside, then a gigantic fluffy orange and white cat explodes out in terror, onto the table and runs smack into a cluster of vases. The entire tablecloth slid off as he got it caught in his claws, and cat, then tablecloth, then vases all took a not-so-elegant dive off the table. My parents in the other, without getting up, simply proceeded to compliment me on my "percussive" abilities.

It was funny, but I can imagine that the stories of woodwind players will be somewhat more disgusting. Except that spider in my viola that one time (lucky I didn't break the instrument!), I haven't had too many encounters with creepy-crawlies

My old band director told me a story about a clarinetist. Apparently, she NEVER took her reed off of her mouthpiece, so over time, combined with the pressure of the ligature, and I assume the process was sped up by her saliva, the reed actually got STUCK to the mouthpiece, with some disgusting substance. To get the reed off, they had to pry it off. Needless to say, I never left my reed on my mouthpiece for a prolonged period of time...

In my work as a piano tuner, I've come across wood boring beetles, moths, cockroaches, plenty of spiders, mice, rats, two kittens, and a floppy-eared rabbit. Fortunately not all in the same instrument...

Funny! 100!

I once discovered a piano infested with cockroaches and rats in a warehouse. I felt bad that this could happen to a piano, as it was a grand, but I sure as hell was glad it wasn't mine.

A horrible spider slept inside my guitar one whole night...I was too afraid to get it out immediately, so I let it stay there until I got help the next morning..That spider must have thought my guitar was the Marriott Hotel!

As a piano tech I've encountered more than a few dead mice in the bottoms of old uprights.

... Plenty of droppings under keys as well.

Oh my stars, hafwen, that's just creepy-gross, thanks! =)

So I asked my son, since I couldn't think of any particular nasties in my musical past. He has complained of a nasty smell coming from inside his trumpet, but he just said, "Naw mom, that's nothing. You should smell the band room after 6th (final) hour at school. It smells terrible like me and my friends." lol