How it Went

Well, my Sunday is over and I survived with sanity no less intact than it was before.

We got to Church a half hour early so I could practice and ease into comfort behind the organ console. The skirt I was wearing was too long and billowy, and it made it hard to see the organ pedals. I think that next week I'll wear the shorter skirt I wore last week. When I was at the top of my game being ward organist at BYU-I, I was so good at the pedals I didn't need to see them, and the skirt I wore today was no problem. But this morning it made it hard to play the songs as well as I could have. Plus the fact that I really wasn't able to practice the pedal part until this morning also made it hard. I have Grandma's organ, and can practice the hands (a big help!) but the pedals are very different from a real console. Anyway, I did okay, not as well as I would have liked, but I think next week I'll do better. The songs this week were just a bit difficult, is all.

On to Primary. I actually didn't have a hard time at all. Most of my stress dealing with this was about preparation - I didn't know what to expect. Once I was there in front of all the kids leading the music, I was able to do pretty well. I think the junior primary singing time was the funnest. All I had to do was stand there and sing with a big smile on my face, and a cheerful voice and demeanor. We played a fishing game which I borrowed from Mom to choose the songs: I had a little fishing pole with a magnet attached, and little paper fish with paper clips. Each fish had a song on it. I'd choose a child to come up, and they would "go fishing" and use the little pole to "catch" a fish. Then we'd sing the song that was written on the fish. The kids loved it! For senior primary, I was planning on doing the same thing, but I had much less time, so we just sang the songs they're working on for Father's Day, and then I had them choose their favorite songs to sing until we were out of time.

Anyway, it was fun, but I'm pretty glad I don't have to do that every week. I was called as Primary pianist (but I won't start that calling for a few weeks; until then I've been asked to stand in for whatever primary music duties they need me for - hence primary chorister today). I'm much more comfortable sitting behind the piano as opposed to standing in front of the kids keeping their attention and making it fun but keeping them reverent all at the same time.

Fast forward to this evening at choir practice. I was asked to sub as the pianist. So I got there a few minutes early to run through the songs we were practicing. They're not too difficult, but a bit more practice would have been nice. As people filed in and time passed, it became obvious that we would have no sopranos this week. Except me. And I wasn't singing because I can't sing and play the piano at the same time unless I'm very familiar with the piano part. Which I wasn't. Our choir is really small. I feel bad for the choir director every week, because he had to pay to get permission to copy the songs in order to not step on any copyright issues, and most of the copies he made just sit there, unsung. I felt especially bad this week, with no one to sing the melody part! But we all muddled through anyway.

After the practice I went and played on the organ for a few minutes. One of the choir songs was meant to be accompanied on the organ. It sounds okay with the piano, but kind of empty. Inevitably the low notes get skipped because they're supposed to be played on the pedal, and they're not written so that the left hand can reach them all. But I played through it on the organ and it sounded just beautiful! I wonder if the director would let me accompany that song on the organ when we perform it, because it really did make a big difference.

Anyway, I feel like I'm just babbling right now. It's late and I'm tired, but I keep writing because I want to get in everything, report on all the stuff I was kind of stressing about yesterday (and pretty much all week). The day turned out nice. It was busy, and I hope that most of my Sundays don't end up being quite this full of responsibility, but it was nice to feel needed.