A Sunday of Slightly Stressful Song

This weekend was supposed to be musically low-key. Supposed to be. And this isn't a complaining post. It's funny that nothing seemed to go right or easily for me.

I play the organ for Church. There is another organist and we switch off playing every two weeks. It makes it nice. I get to sit with my family, can go on vacation, don't have to have that stress each week. This week, the other organist called me and said she was very sick and wouldn't be able to play without having a coughing fit. We organists are here for each other. So I said I would play.

I realized after I said I would play that we had to leave for Church in 30 minutes if I wanted time to run through the songs before and play prelude. I hurried into my dress, threw a lunch together for El, and woke her up early from her nap (NOOOO!!!!). And off we went to Church. I looked up the songs I had to play. They were easy, familiar songs that wouldn't be challenging: "Praise to the Man," "I Stand All Amazed," "We Thank Thee, O God, for a Prophet," and "Joseph Smith's First Prayer." So that was good news. But when I started to play, I immediately realized that someone had changed the stops. And I hated pretty much every single one. Since I am a pianist who just took a seminar on playing the organ, this becomes a problem for me. I was annoyed and am pretty sure I know who it was of the other organists in the other wards. Then I felt flustered as I tried to find the most appropriate stops for each song and memorize which number it was so I wouldn't accidentally sound like a circus organ. Feeling flustered that the prelude was not awesome and neither were the songs with the congregation. Ahhh, life.

Then, the normal Primary pianist came up to me after sacrament meeting and asked if I could fill in for her in the third hour. I said yes and knew it wouldn't be a problem. It was funny that I was filling in last minute for everyone. I love playing in Primary. I was really sad when I got released, but it makes my Sundays a lot less hectic to not have to be playing all day. I came in and found out I got to play two new songs I had never played nor heard before. That, fortunately, went well and the kids all applauded for me.

After Church, we have choir practice. It is pretty much the worst time ever for choir. We go to Church at 1 pm, it lasts until 4, then choir from 4:15-5:15. It is awful. But since the director is my BFF Shannon, I go anyway. And then I remembered that she asked me to switch from soprano to alto in "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing." And we are singing it in two weeks, acapella. Awesome. I learned the part but it is really tough to not have that piano with us when I'm not super confident.

Basically, this is a story about how I was very musical on a Sunday that was supposed to be relaxing and not terribly musical. I lived and music always makes for a good story, right?