Another Sacrament Meeting Blunder

When I am a part of the congregation in sacrament meeting, I do great. I enjoy being in the pews and others enjoy it when I am there as well, I am sure. Unfortunately, I had a part to play in our choirs musical number a couple of weeks ago. And, my part was kind of major. I accompanied the vocalists.

The musical number was 6 pages long. Only 5 pages fit on the piano at a time, and my poor eyes can only see as far as the fourth page. (Past that, my eyes have to concentrate too much and try to discern what they are and aren't seeing, and mistakes happen). So, right before sacrament, someone suggested I tape my pages together. Brilliant. So I did. I taped the first four and then the last two together. It didn't occur to me that it might not be a good idea to try this for the first time in front of an audience. It certainly occured to me later.

Things started off wonderfully. Things even went really well (perfectly one might be so bold to say) for quite a while. As I neared the part where I'd planned to play only the right hand, so as to grab the last two pages, I took a deep breath and voila, success! And I continued to play. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw my failure! I had placed the pages upside down. And we were almost to page 5.

Of course, my heart dropped, because we were past the only place that I had practiced playing only the right hand. But, I soon found a place to fix my mistake. And, it went better this time. Only, by now, because of my first error, as I continued through the measures, I found that there was no controlling my fingers. They were going fast, and not toward the keys that they had been trained to. They were moving up and down (much like the shaking of hands at -40 degrees F, -- and though I haven't been that cold, I think it must be similar). My fingers were shaking bad, and I missed some notes that I never miss.

These notes I missed came right before a key change and that key change (which was already hard enough for me) sounded terrible. I missed the notes and the whole choir paused, wondering what to do (we hadn't practiced it this way, after all--who could blame them)?! But they soon got on track again. Somehow without me, because I continued to make a mess of the next 5 measures before I got on track again. Luckily, the song finished beautifully, and I received no chastisement from the chorister.

Though everything ended fine, (and Eric claims he didn't hear the pause or the clanging of erroneous keys), something has been bugging my brain. I have come to see that each time I embarrass myself in sacrament meeting, it is because I am ill-prepared. And it is all my fault. You'd think I'd learn! And I hope I do, before our next musical number in October.

It's a nine-page piece.