piano

i had a humbling (or in eric's words, terrifying) piano experience yesterday. the girl who normally plays the piano for our last church meeting on sunday had to leave before the closing hymn. so she happily points out before said meeting again that i play the piano. she asked me to find a song that i could play so i picked one of the one's i have been practicing...and then we decided i would just play the right hand of it because that would be easier. i sat nervously through the meeting and then sat down at the piano at the end of the meeting to play.

well, i played in recitals when i was a kid, but i have never played when people are singing while i am playing. so i played the song once through and then everyone started singing on the second time. needless to say, i messed up a lot. the first time i did it there was a pause but then everyone kept going and i started again where they were. this continued through all three verses with the third verse being the best as far as my playing was concerned. i am grateful for all the women who were singing and didn't let my errors disrupt the song.

it is amazing how you can practice by yourself and play BOTH hands with no errors...and then when i played in front of people who were singing i was only playing one hand (which is easier) and i messed up a lot. my friend lindsay informed me after church that that is pretty standard. she said her brother would play at home and it sounded amazing but when he played in church he'd mess up.

i practice for 30-60 minutes a few times a week, but this gives me all the more motivation to practice (which i happily did for a good hour and a half yesterday afternoon too). it also gives me more appreciation for the people who play every week in church and never seem to mess up!