Not Half Bad

Warning: This is just a regular post, and not any fancy story. Hope this doesn't disappoint!

So last night's concert went pretty well, considering there was the one and only DISASTROUS 2 hour rehearsal the day before the concert. I did pretty well, and was able to keep focus during the concert. And my hands didn't even shake!

I was pretty stessed about the whole event, and I spent about 7 hours all told on the piano yesterday, trying to make sure I had everything perfected. I felt ready, yet extremely nervous. Especially since the rehearsal didn't leave me feeling confident at all that this concert would turn out well. We had 1 hour per choir class (so the choirs didn't even practice together) to practice 12 songs. You can imagine how that went. We practiced half of some songs, and others we practiced a couple of times, but we did not get to go through every single song. And each choir practiced different songs. Which I guess was okay for them, since they have been practicing the songs all year--but NOT okay for me, since I only had 3 weeks. And I had never practiced with the choir before. And here were a couple of songs that I practiced, but she announced the day before the concert that we wouldn't be doing them.

So I got to the school at 6:00 pm, and I thought we would go through all of the songs, but we didn't. We only went through a couple--the ones that needed the most work. Which was fine. But then she decided to play "Hawaiian Rollercoaster" for the performance--I think because her version and my version were slightly different. I had been playing the straight rhythm that was written in the music, but she wasn't playing that, and so I think she was afraid that I was going to throw the whole song off.. Not my fault that she wasn't playing it like it was written. That's the problem with not having an accompanist until the last minute--it makes it difficult because there is no familiarity between the director, choir, and pianist. So it is almost impossible to mold a piece.

But all in all, the performance went well. I made a few mistakes, and there were some timing issues, but I don't think they were very noticeable to the audience. I think the mistakes were pretty minor. So I am happy with the job I did. And all of the prayers I said--I know that the Lord really blessed my performance. there is no way I could have done it without His help!

The only glitch in the evening was at the end of the concert, she didn't acknowledge me--and so I didn't get to bask in the applause of the audience. Oh well. It's a thankless job. But of course my mom went to bat for me and went up to her afterward and told her that she should have acknowledged the accompanist at the end of the concert. She said she had just forgotten to do that. Whatever.