The Tribulation of the Choir Director

Let me walk you through my day: First, I had to cover for the Elder's Quorum President today in Ward Council. Normally that isn't a big deal, but since we have the early session this year, I had to be at the church at 7:00 a.m. That means I had to get up at 6. Again, not that big of a deal. However, since the choir was performing today in sacrament meeting, we had rehearsals before church started at 9:00 a.m.

Right after Ward Council, I called home to make sure everyone was ready to be picked up. No worries there. So I race home to find out that Benjamin had thrown up in the 15 minutes it had taken me to get home. Leslie had to conduct Primary today so couldn't stay home and I had to direct the choir so I couldn't stay home. We quickly decided that I would take the non-sick kids to sacrament and then I would come home and Leslie and I would switch.

With the kids loaded up we raced back to the church, thinking I was going to be late for the choir rehearsal. Two people showed up. Two. Normally no big deal. But we haven't practiced in the past few weeks due to several different issues. (Is Valentines day really an excuse to bail out on choir? I mean, church gets out at noon and if someone REALLY needs to be with their spouse that bad that they can't stay for the 45 minutes after church we have for choir practice, who am I to say otherwise?)

So there I was, sitting in sacrament with 4 kids wondering if anyone was going to bother getting up when it came time for the choir to sing. Lucky for me, they did. Not very many, mind you, but at least there were some. (I may be overreacting, but it seems like our ward choir has been getting smaller and smaller since I was called as the director. Meh...whatever...) We sang "Love at Home" - first verse in unison, second verse guys on melody and women on the alto line, and last verse in all 4 parts. We sounded like a typical small ward choir. I'm not judging, but I do have to keep reminding myself that none of us are professionals and with so few of us, I have to really scale back on my music selection (like strictly out of the hymn book. Luckily we have a fantastic piano player who is able to embellish the accompaniment beautifully.

A quick 15 minute run back home saw me rushing in the house and Leslie out of the house. The car engine was never shut off and I felt like high-fiving my wife while yelling "You're It!" Ben was asleep and the rest of my morning was fairly quiet. I think I was supposed to go home teaching today as well, but my companion and I never really touch base with each other and, since I wasn't really at church today, I didn't think about it until just now.

As a brief follow-up from my last post, apparently everyone in my entire world has a facebook account. Who knew? There is a lot of stuff that I just don't quite understand yet and (justified or not) there are a lot of things that the privacy freak in my head is screaming about. (i.e. I wouldn't mind playing a game or two on there, but when it asks for permission for some third party to access my personal information I tend to say, "Huh, what do you know? I didn't want to play that as much as I originally thought...") Overly paranoid? Possibly. I've accepted this about myself. I'm not sure how much I'll use it, but there it is. If someone wants to get in touch with me, they now can.

Arm-Waving Freakoutery

One of my official jobs is now to wave my arms about like a spaz in front of a bunch of people. Yes, that's right, I've been called to be the choir director at church. We perform in church once a month...and today was my first "performance".

It was actually a lot of fun - I really, really like music and I have very distinct memories of "conducting" the music to an old Hooked on Classics tape as a young kid. I remember thinking it would be neat to conduct a full orchestra, but let's face it, I have never been that interested in putting in the effort to be a professional musician.

In any case, our choir is small and widely varies in the number of members depending on the day, the weather, the song, etc... I don't expect any miracles anyway. This ain't the movie Sister Act and I certainly ain't Whoopie Goldberg (although I'm sure I'd make a terrible nun too).

Here's my philosophy when it comes to the church choir: When something wonderful happened in the heavens, the multitudes there either shouted for joy or sang. Now I don't really care if us mortals are more shouters or singers, but I figure if there is room enough in heaven for both, there certainly is room enough for both in the choir.

For today, we started our song acapella (no piano): Listen, Listen and then went right in to Search, Ponder, and Pray, both of which are songs written for little kids. Still, it was fun and they sounded great. I think next month we'll do Now Thank We All Our God since it is the Thanksgiving season.

It Ain't No Kumbaya, But It'll Have To Do

I went and bought a guitar last weekend. I now know a whopping three chords (A, D, & E). I can't get my fingers to move quickly between them yet, but there it is. Speaking of fingers, mine hurt; I don't have any callouses built up on my fingertips yet. If I go really, really slow, I can get through the "Lego House" song (listen to Al Simmons sing it here). Impressive, no?

Mellow May

I'm currently sitting at my computer listening to a James Taylor CD and feeling pretty mellow about life in general at the moment. After that, I'll probably put on my B.B. King/Eric Clapton CD...that's just the kind of mood I'm in.

I've purposely not writen anything in the past few days - irritation with current events have been running high. But right now, I'm trying to forget all that and just "chill". 

In other news, it's supposed to rain most of this week. Fine by me. I rather enjoy the rain. Besides it helps our newly planted vegetation. Speaking of which, our carrots, beans, and zuchinni have sprouted. The onions, lettuce, and strawberries seem to be doing fine as well. The tomatoes are still dead, however; gotta get those replaced.

Because I Can't Think of a Good Turkey Song

"C"...that's the way it begins
"H"...is the next letter in
"I"...that is the third
"C"...you've already heard
"K"...that ol' letter's my friend
"E"...now we're nearing the end
C-H-I-C-K-E-N, that is the way to spell "chicken"

Therapeutic Shower Singing

Yesterday was a bad day. Nothing specific, but I just woke up mad and kept up a low-level irritation all day long. Well, almost all day. When I got home, I started listening to some Bobs music and started to mellow out a little. Finally, I decided to take a shower.

Many years ago, I used to sing in the shower. I'm not talking about generally mumbling out a tune, I'm talking about singing at the absolute top of my lungs. I haven't done that in many years, but today... Perhaps it should come as no surprise that every one of my kids (even Benjamin) was huddled around the door listening to me, giggling, and occasionally shouting out requests. What did come as a surprise is that none of them are old enough to have heard me sing in the shower before. Leslie told them that I used to do it all the time and they thought it was pretty funny.

It really kinda shocked me to realize that I really DON'T sing as much as I used to. I really should do it more. It does wonders for my kids, my mood, and (perhaps most importantly) it makes my wife smile.

3rd Times a Charm

Well, my third Bobs concert was a lot of fun. They did a lot of new material that is on a soon-to-be-released album. And it wasn't just the music - they had a great time just chatting/joking/giving a hard time to the audience and each other. The only down side to the evening was that, in the end, it turned out to be a fairly spendy night. On top of the tickets, I picked up their 25th Anniversary documentary on DVD. There goes my birthday AND my Christmas presents. Oh well, it was definitely worth it.

Bob, Bob, Bobbing Along

The Bobs (THE greatest alternative-acapella group of all time...in case you didn't know) are coming to town on Friday. We managed to scrape together enough money to get two tickets. Consider it an early birthday present for me...yea! The concert is in a dinner-theater type place, so we'll grab a bite to eat while we're there as well.

I first came across The Bobs...oh, what was it...1990 or 1991? In any case, they've remained one of my favorite groups over the years. In all honesty, not every one of their songs thrill me, but the majority of them are incredibly awesome. It's music you can really brush your teeth to, ya know?

If you're interested (and I know you are...stop lying to yourself...and DON'T shake your head at me...yeah, I'm talking to YOU!) you can check them out here and here. Enjoyment is mandatory!