While sight reading my part during a rehearsal for a performance of the Weill opera excerpts: (at such times, to weather the anxiety, I give myself pep talks)

Hey, Rebecca...you're nailing all the notes! And you were worried! Worried over nothing! This is great; you just got the music this morning and you're not even dropping notes! You musical genius. Oh wait. No one else is playing here? My solo? Pretty boring solo, if you ask me --

I looked up from the piano while carrying on with my part. The conductor had his baton in mid-air, stopped conducting and made eye contact with me. I kept playing my "solo" while my fellow musicians held their instruments and, one by one, turned around to look at me too.

I stopped playing. Oblivious, as if they stopped the show for no reason, I said, "What"

They broke into laughter. The conductor shook his head. "Rebecca, there's a fermata at the end of bar 45. Everyone paused and waited for my cue, you played right through it."

I looked at my score. Oh right. There it is, the fermata. It wasn't a solo.

Musical genius, hmph. You're just an idiot.