Concert week

It’s concert week this week.

That means a lot of rehearsal, a lot of time away from home, and a lot of stress. If you could heard the thoughts running through my head, most of them would be music. I go to bed with songs in my head, and I wake up to songs in my head. Or I wake up to counting those songs in my head. “One and two and three and four, five, six…” One of my bell choir friends said that she dreamed that her life was in 6/8 time and her daughter refused to come in on four. I know that makes no sense to most of you, but I thought it was funny and I totally understood where she was coming from.

We only have one performance this year, and that means one time to get everything right. Add to that pressure that we have people recording parts or all of the concert, and our director expects each song to be perfect. I know that I have the ability to play all the songs perfectly. While I may not have played every song perfectly without mistake, I have played every part of each song correctly at one time. If I could just edit together all of my BEST run throughs of each song, I’d have it all done perfectly. And it’s not just me, there are 29 of us all attempting our very best performances. Oh, and many of the songs we will be playing have been arranged by our director. No pressure or anything.

But I know that I have done everything I can do to prepare. We have rehearsed and rehearsed and I have put in my time. Now it’s a matter of being THERE, in the music, and not getting distracted during the performance. And praying. Lots of praying.

I LOVE playing bells, and the experience is absolutely wonderful. I treasure my association with my fellow choir members, and we work together to make the best music we can. But the pressure. It’s still there.

If you want a sample of one of the songs we will be playing, you can take a listen to this one right here. This song, Holiday for Strings, has given us our share of headaches and stress, that’s for sure. (Click on the link, then click on “listen”. Or, if you want to see the sheet music, you can click on “View”)

We will also be playing the Overture from the Nutcracker Suite. I just searched on you tube and found this absolutely AMAZING performance by a bell choir playing this song.

The choregraphy! 6 ringers all sharing and playing all those notes! WOW! Now I’m feeling like I can TOTALLY play our version of the song. At least I don’t have to do that!

On Sunday morning, our bell choir will also be performing with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir on the Music and the Spoken Word broadcast. We will be playing two songs with the Choir and one song on our own. None of those songs are songs from the concert, by the way. Tune in if you can! My sister’s artwork will also be featured during the spoken word!

Amid this week of rehearsals and stress, last night was another BRIGHT spot of fun. My book club was meeting for their holiday dinner, and I had hoped that I could stop by after rehearsal and say hi and maybe sneak some yummy dessert. We were excused from rehearsal at about 8:30, and I hurried as fast as I could to my friend Melinda’s house, and made it there by 9. I was SO delighted that many of my book club friends were still there. I haven’t been able to attend our monthly book club meeting in several months, and I really missed my connection with these friends. Even though it was late, they fed me dinner, and it was FABULOUS! Butternut squash lasagna! Can you say Yummy? I knew I shouldn’t be snarfing dinner so late and so quickly, but it was all so yummy (and I really was hungry. I had only eaten a granola bar before rehearsal in anticipation of at least a yummy dessert later), and I was so happy to be with these friends. I am so lucky to have such wonderful and talented people in my life, and I bathed in the bright smiles and conversation with my friends.

I am truly blessed.