There is no hiding behind a piccolo. Despite being one of the tiniest instruments in the symphony it is rather loud, giving it a unique character, and making it rather perfect for Ethan M. Stang, the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra's principle piccolo player for more than 40 years.

Mr. Stang, of Squirrel Hill, impressed his fellow players and music students over the decades with a professional musician's pedigree, mixed with a strong dose of humor and wit. Stories about him kept coming up after his death Thursday from a heart ailment at UPMC Presbyterian. He was 80.

Mr. Stang started with the symphony in 1947, as one of the first recruits of conductor Fritz Reiner, who was "desperately trying to improve" the symphony after World War II, recalled Bernard Goldberg, a flutist who joined the same year. The pair would stay throughout a succession of conductors, including William Steinberg, Andre Previn and Lorin Maazel. Stang became one of the few players who could break up strong-willed conductors.

"Sometimes rehearsal was more scary than concerts with Steinberg," Goldberg said, yet Mr. Stang would still get away with his impersonations of the legendary conductor.

Martin Lerner, a flutist who joined the symphony in 1953, roomed with Mr. Stang for many years on the road. On one trip to New York, Mr. Stang went into a costume shop and emerged wearing a wig and beard, and tried chatting up a piccolo player from the Metropolitan Opera while in disguise.

On the same trip, Lerner said, Mr. Stang decided to somersault across Seventh Avenue and made it, unharmed.

Mr. Stang's mischievous side remained after he left the symphony in the early 1990s and taught at Carnegie Mellon University, said Kenneth Keeling, a music professor and former head of the school's music department. "Ask some people what their favorite holiday is, and some would say Thanksgiving, others Christmas or Easter. His favorite holiday was Halloween."

That side may be one reason students took to Mr. Stang, Keeling said. Being a serious musician -- even as a teenager -- is not easy at that level, with great pressures and anxieties about auditions and live performances. Music teachers have to be honest with students -- telling them if they have what it takes for a musical career -- while also giving them aid.

Mr. Stang had "a very special personality and students who studied with him didn't want to study with anyone else," Keeling said.

Mr. Stang was born in New York in 1925 and started flute at age 11 or 12, his wife, Fredda Levy Stang, said. He attended the city's new High School of Music & Art, which Mayor Fiorello H. LaGuardia founded in 1936, then went on to the U.S. Navy School of Music, graduating in May 1944.

He originally auditioned to play flute, but conductor Reiner chose him to play the similar piccolo instead, placing Goldberg in the flutist's chair.

Mr. Stang was a lefty, which gave him a more facile and more flexibile left than the mostly right-handed players, Goldberg said. Lerner also recalled how his old friend used his hands. He said Mr. Stang also had a gift for remembering odd details, such as phone numbers, for decades without ever writing them down on paper.

"He would kid around, writing the number in the air, and from then on it was in his mind," Lerner said.

In addition to his wife, Mr. Stang is survived by sons, William and Robert; daughter Lisa Goldman; and six grandchildren.

Visitation is from 10 to 11 a.m. tomorrow at the Ralph Schugar Chapel, 5509 Centre Ave., Shadyside, with a service to follow. Interment will follow at Temple Sinai Memorial Park.

Memorials may be made to the Temple Sinai Fund for the Future, 5505 Forbes Ave., Pittsburgh 15217 or the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, 600 Penn Ave., Pittsburgh 15222.