Oh my. I just played flute at church for the first time and it was awful!
It’s Mother’s Day and the song was Ave Maria (appropriately enough).
The music is 9 pages long. I play the first page correctly and then comes pages 6, 7, 8, and 9. What? Omigosh … my pages are out of order!
What was funny was that page 6 sounded just fine while the rest of the choir was singing page 2. And page 7 sounded good with page 3. Page 8 fit with page 4. It wasn’t until I got to page 9, the end of the song, that I realized I was on the wrong page because I knew the song wasn’t over. The choir was still singing!
Panic sets in. Where are they? Probably pg. 6. Oh good, I have rests there. Uh oh, that’s apparently not the right place after all. Even worse: the choir has come to the part where THEY have rests right now, and I’m supposed to be playing!!!
Luckily, the organist covers for me and starts to play the flute line. I’m l o o o o k i n g. Where are they? Normally I could find my place by the words of the song but all they say is Ave Maria about 30 times so that's no help.Then the men come in. I’m supposed to play along with that part, too, but I haven’t found it yet. Then the women sing. Help! Finally Mark, the director, tells me in a very loud whisper “56 – come in at bar 56!” OK. I found it. 56. It’s on page 6. Got it.
Now I play pages 7, 8, and 9 (for the second time) and finish the song with the choir … although I do play the last note an octave lower. On purpose. Because I’m too chicken to try to hit a high E natural.
Oh brother. Is there a hole somewhere I can crawl in? Please?
I was so nervous about playing today. My hands were shaking and Mark kept telling me to relax during rehearsal. Ha. Mostly I was nervous about being out of tune because I’m not very good at that, as my previous directors know. But I wasn’t at all worried about getting lost (obviously I should have been) because I NEVER get lost. And even if I did, I was always really good at finding my place again. This was one of my strengths. Staying in tune is not. Sheesh.
I’ve made mistakes during services before. I’m sure the choir in Portland remembers the F sharp chime that was supposed to be an F natural. But this mistake is going to go down in history as a real doozy. Oh help. I think it’s safe to say that I won’t be playing flute with this choir again for a L O N G time.
