Last night, I was playing in an 80 piece concert band.  One of the pieces included a long and very exposed oboe solo.  Our oboist isn’t the best, but she’s pretty good and usually does an acceptable job.  

But last night – ooops! – she came in 2 measures early for her solo.  The conductor tried to get her attention, which should have been easy, since they were only about 8 feet apart.  But the soloist had her head down and was concentrating on the music.  She didn’t see the conductor, also a woman, waving frantically.  Finally, in desperation, the conductor stage-whispered to the musician sitting next to the oboist, “Hit her!”  Repeated taps and then smacks to the leg didn’t get through.  The oboist became increasingly upset and her tone and intonation went to crap.

I had rests during all this and was trying not to laugh out loud.  Screw-ups like that aren’t common during a concert and are very rare with a top-notch band like ours.  

After the concert, about 20 of us went to a bar.  I sat right across from the conductor.
“So”, I asked innocently, “how did you like the oboe solo?”

it's not whether you make a mistake (as a professional, performing musician); it is whether or not people notice it.

As one who has spend a life working in the music industry, mistakes are much more common than audience members would ever realize.

It’s true, most mistakes aren’t noticed by anyone outside the band.  Most of the time, the musician realizes he’s going to mess up in time and skips the note or phrase.  No one notices.
That’s one of the reasons I love playing in a brass quintet.  Every part is independent and no one is going to cover for you.  If you screw up, it’ll be noticed.  
It’s like stepping up to the line in a steel match or a bowling pin shoot.  If you miss the shot or the note, it’s gonna be right there for everyone to see.

It sounds like she was pulling it off until people started screwing with her. And that's another thing about mistakes, if you can be nonchalant about it and roll with it, the audience definitely won't notice. And that's part of the fun of being in a band; those screw ups can be like little inside jokes if you get along well.

Gone, yeah, sometimes that can work.  
But in this case, the chords changing under the oboe solo were horribly wrong with her playing 2 bars ahead.  And her solo was supposed to end with one sustained note against dead silence from the rest of the band.  When that silence happened, she was through playing and had her horn in her lap.
No way out.  It sounded like crap.

Ah, gotcha.

Just call it jazz

The guys in my band always say: if you make a mistake make it look like you mean it. Granted I've played with enough orchestras that I know that something like this can throw the entire thing off. I can't believe she didn't look up.
For the record, we played this past weekend and if it weren't for the bass player doing a count in on one song ... I would have continued to come in a beat too early.  I was thankful he wasn't mean about it.

You’d think counting measures would be so easy that no one could mess it up.  WRONG!!

I write notes on my music, especially when there are four 8 measure rests in a row or something similar.  
“Soprano sax” or “percussion” or “tpts” or whatever, so I won’t lose my place, screw up and come in at the wrong time.
As a bass trombone player, I’m often playing when the rest of the ‘bone section isn’t playing or I’m counting rests when they’re playing.  
In one piece we just played, I have 22 measures of off-beats while the rest of the section just sits there.  Every measure is the same – low G eighth notes, on the “up”.  Now, that’s a bitch to play!  Have to listen like mad to the percussion, the trumpets, the saxes and watch the stick (conductor) while counting the measures and following the dynamics.  By the end of those 22 measures, I’m sweating in my tux.

So, I can sympathize with that oboe player for messing up and coming in too soon.  What I can’t sympathize with is not watching the stick.  Woodwind players do that all the damn time.  They set their music stands low and don’t look up.  When the conductor signals a diminuendo or a FFF or tries to adjust the tempo, they don’t see.  It’s infuriating.