Leading

Amanda leads the hymns at church. But Sunday morning she felt ill and did not go, and as I was leaving, she mentioned that she had not called to find someone to fill in for her. I thought, “I’ll ask someone or if not, I can do it.” I mean, I’ve never done it but how hard could it be? I know how to read music, I know what “4-4” means (four beats per measure, each beat is a quarter note) and as long as the hymns were either 3-4, 4-4, or even 6-8, I know the little pattern. Liabilities? Well, I can’t sing but who would know the difference if I were mouthing the words?

Right before the meeting began I perused the hymns. They were 4-4 and I was familiar with them. This would be a snap. I know the organist well enough to know that he may humor me by starting on my signal, but he wouldn’t be counting on me really to keep time. If I messed up or went too fast or slow, I would be out of synch with the music which he would be playing with the correct meter. I could do this!

When the moment arrived, I confidently strode to my place on the rostrum, waited through the intro, then raised my hand. A lot of people looked at me and I think many of them were thinking, “Where’s the girl?” or “Who is this goofball?” I had a perfect little upstroke to begin the hymn and then a confident down stroke for the first beat in the first full measure. I could totally do this! Then I remembered that I needed to mouth the words too and apparently this threw me all out of whack. I was doing the 4-4 pattern but I think I was going too fast, because I was down stroking too soon. I tried to make up for it on the next measure but I was faced with choice of either stopping my arm (a tell-tale sign that the chorister is clueless) or adding a little curly-cue or something to the pattern (another tell-tale sign that the chorister is clueless.) So I think I did both and now I was behind. OK. Wait. Just wait for the next down stroke. Go! OK, all good again.

But something seems wrong. Oh, yeah, I stopped mouthing. Finding the words apparently got me off again and this was turning into a train wreck. Good thing the organist (and the congregation) was ignoring me. I did a better job on the sacramental hymn but it still wasn’t good.

During the meeting I asked Ryan if he knew how to lead music and if he minded doing the closing hymn. He assured me that he could and would so I breathed a sigh of relief. My chorister internship was over. I will say that Ryan did horribly, worse than me, but I was not critical; I know it is harder than it looks! Afterwards I considered that it is probably somewhat rare for a father and son to both give their music leading debuts in the same meeting.