Hey, Gaugs,
Lesson in humility today--- and this was a "really painful" but has a happy ending, so please don't suffer too much, ok?
Today- my grand debut at my new church. In an attack of hubris I decided to do the piece from memory. ANd guess what...I shouldn't have. Two pages in and I took off happily on a rewrite of Mozart, with the poor accompanist scrambling madly to figure out where I was. Two things in my favor--I couldn't blow the words- there's only one in the whole number- "alleluia"- and the piece is coloratura-- full of all those fast runs so no one had a clue what was going on anyway. We did a few hours of this and finally found each other two pages before the end.
But here's the happy ending. No one noticed a thing. (Sorry, Wolfgang)They all ooohed and aahhhed and applauded, while I dripped sweat all the way back to my seat. But here's the BEST part!
Dan said,
"I know you're not happy with your performance."
"Yeah, you could say that!"
"WEll, the tempo was a little slow, but really it sounded fantastic."
"What about the ten pages of improvisation?"
"Really? I didn't notice that."
I think it's important to realize that 1) you (that's the general you not the gaugie you) is just not as important as you think and 2) the nicer people in the world are really not out to get you when you screw up.
If there were any musicians in the congregation, I hope they were at least impressed with the creativity shown in my vocal gymnastics as I looked for a mutual resting place for the piano and me. |
