I am back in a music calling for the first time in several years (well...okay, I do technically play the piano in Relief Society also but that hardly counts!) I have been called as the ward choir director. Woot!
While I am very excited for this, I am also really nervous about it. I am not kidding when I say that this job will be much more time consuming and stressful to me than my last one was. Why? Because I have never been a director of choral music, and really know very little about it. This might surprise some people, so here is a bit about my music background:
At age 10, I spent the night at a friend's house and she played the piano. I was entranced, and asked my parents if I could start learning. There was a teacher in our ward who charged, I believe, $1 a lesson, and they figured they could afford that. We didn't have a piano, but we lived across the street from the church and my dad had a key. My parents said if we (me, my sister, and the oldest brother) would do well at it for a year, they would buy a piano.
I caught fire with it and practiced constantly. I think in the first year I probably went through several levels. It came pretty naturally to me, plus I practiced like a maniac.
Before too long (around age 12 maybe?) I was asked to play in church sometimes and for the school choir. People started asking me to accompany them sometimes. I loved it.
When I was about 13, my piano teacher had twins. She also had a multitude of other kids and didn't feel like she could teach anymore.
There was one other teacher in town, and she was an amazing musician. She was also very expensive (probably $5 at that time - ha!), but luckily also my Beehive advisor and also luckily my mom's good friend. My parents said they couldn't afford her, but maybe we could "work something out." That working something out turned out to be me cleaning her house every Saturday morning in exchange for a 30-minute lesson. It was totally worth it though. I remember our first lesson. She told me I was very talented and natural at it, but that I was doing almost everything technically wrong that I could do. My fingering was awful. My fingers weren't curved. I had monster fingernails that were getting in the way. I was pedaling wrong. You name it, I was doing it wrong. That's what a $1 lesson and teaching yourself will get you!
I took for a year or less with this new teacher. She helped me a ton, and by the time we moved (boohoo) I was able to accompany almost anything, including the organ at church. I still didn't know a lot about theory though. I am guessing that she figured her main job was just to correct my "issues" and then that other stuff would come later. Unfortunately, we moved when I was 14 and I never took another lesson. Thus, I know as much about theory as I do about nuclear physics. My husband laughs at me because he is a music nerd, but I literally cannot tell you what key something is in. I also cannot tell you what most of the symbols mean. Give me an f or a p, or a crescendo or ritard and I am okay. Go much beyond that and I am completely clueless.
What I can do is sight read well, and I put so many hours of practice in as a kid that I can be a fairly adequate accompanist for most things of moderate difficulty. I don't do fancy stuff like my husband does, but I can play almost anything I've ever tried to...and that was my goal so I'm happy at that level as a pianist.
Now, for vocal music. I took choir in high school, because I needed an arts credit and there was no way I was ever taking another art class after my D- bumped me from 3rd in my class to like...50th (just kidding, maybe to 15th). Anyway, that's a story for another time. :)
I liked choir, but it was only for 1 year and it was not all that technical either. We sang. We had fun. But I really didn't learn anything about how to sing correctly or anything new about theory - still stuck on my f and p knowledge and that's it.
On my mission, I started to sing a little more. We were asked to sing often at baptisms and such - more often I was accompanying someone else, but sometimes I would sing in a group. I don't have a great voice. But, I like it and meet fun people that way, so I stuck with it.
I sort of met my husband in ward choir too. Well, at least that's where we started interacting.
So yes, I have a choir history.
We have always sung in the choir. Dee has been the choir director before. We sang when we had little kids and we sang when Dee was in the bishopric if at all possible. We just made it work because we liked it, I guess.
So I have 20 years of choir participation and absolutely ZERO in directing and nearly zero in theory and technique.
I just have to say this: It is a good thing we have such talented people in our choir because there is no way I could ever teach them to sing. I can certainly choose the music and conduct it, but as for really getting into the nuts and bolts of music, not so much. It scares me. I know everyone there knows more than I do about music. I am grateful that SOMEONE knows. :)
P.S. I had a dream a few days before I got this calling. It was a bit of a foreshadowing, you could say. I don't remember the dream at all, but I do remember my first thought when I woke up. It was, "You better start losing weight if the whole ward is going to see your butt every month!"
So yeah, I am excited to learn. I hope I am able to stay in this calling long enough to learn something new and be able to contribute to the spirit in the ward through my favorite thing I am not very good at - MUSIC.
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