All right, so this post is about music. But right now I've just taken some muffins out of the oven (raspberry, in fact) so it fits. I will address my history with music and then talk about how it has taken shape as one of my gifts/talents.
Music and I go way back (stop me if you've heard this one before - Alison says I might have already done a post about this, but I don't feel like checking and it's been on my mind lately). When I was a little kid I would lay on my parents' water bed and sing hymns with my mom. My favorite was "The Spirit of God," which is still stirring to me although it is a beast for me to play on the piano. When I was a young lad, Jenny and Josh were both taking piano lessons and I was jealous. I had my mom sign me up with Sister Hart, who taught using a method she had (I think) developed with boys and trains as themes. I had been introduced to David Lanz's solo piano music (by Aunt Nancy? You can see how great my memory is by the plethora of parentheticals) and wanted to learn enough that I could play some of his music. I took lessons for something like a year, then decided I had learned enough. Jeremy dropped me off after school, and I walked in and said "I've decided to quit" and walked back out. Jeremy saw me walking home and was a bit upset; I don't remember my mom's reaction.
I got a David Lanz songbook for Christmas and started learning Cristofori's Dream, which was my favorite at the time. I had a hard time with anything above two sharps or flats, so I would transpose songs into C Major instead of learning them in the correct key. I played Cristofori's Dream for Jeremy's mission farewell and Return to the Heart (in C instead of E) for his homecoming. At that time I had tried to play a few hymns, and could go through Choose the Right and Sweet Hour of Prayer, but that's about it.
In the meantime, I was singing in the ward choir, first as an alto, then later as a bass. I don't think I ever sang tenor so I guess The Change must have been abrupt or something like that. Anyway, I kept singing and had a knack for vocal stuff. My mom once remarked that she was impressed that I could improvise an alto harmony to a melody line, and a teacher told me in fifth grade that I had a good singing voice, which I think was what really started me going. I sang to myself when I was alone since my low self-image by that time didn't exactly lend itself to exposure. I also whistled a lot. I mean, just about all the time by high school. I would walk home and whistle the whole way; I think I whistled even when I was reading a book as I walked home (another talent I developed; I became good enough at it to step over the feet of would-be trippers at school without interrupting whichever novel occupied me that day). While I was a CNA at Apple Village, where there were finches in cages, I composed a Song For the Finches which I whistled at work. I could start whistling a theme as I walked home, stop paying attention, and when I noticed it again I would have added variations. Anyway, I digress.
During the last few years of grade school, I had a mad (read: obsessive) crush on Heather McPherson. When it came time to move to junior high, everyone was deciding which instrument they would take in band. I guess it didn't occur to me that I wouldn't be in band. I'm not sure how that happened. Anyway, I thought I had heard that Heather would be taking percussion, so I signed up too. She ended up taking the clarinet, but I was introduced to drums and the marimba, which consumed me until I graduated high school. I think I can say that percussion saved my life, spiritually and emotionally if not physically. It gave me something to focus my energy and mind on, and I practiced obsessively. My band teachers in junior high and high school got used to telling me to let myself out and turn off the lights. When I hit high school, I started marching band, which led to my being on the drumline during the last two years of high school, first on quads and then on snare. I also started into choir, which led to Madrigals during my senior year, which led to Alison and I getting married eventually. These topics, however, are the subject of another post some other time. Marching band and choirs are a subject in themselves. I was in two band classes and two choir classes my senior year.
So, when I was getting ready for my mission I had a combination of some skill on the marimba, a lot of skill in reading choral music, and no confidence in my ability to do either in front of others. I could practice the marimba just fine (I could pretend nobody was watching me) but when it came to performing I always choked. I'm not even exaggerating. Every. Single. Time. I would get up to perform a marimba solo I would get all anxious and mess up. In band concerts I would lose track of my place and come in at the wrong time. There was something about the exposure that killed my accuracy and self-confidence. It was worse in college, when I played percussion parts to accompany choral pieces. In percussion ensemble I had no such problem, even with lead parts. Choir was no problem, but you couldn't have bribed me to perform a solo. And, I still couldn't play more than a few hymns, and only if they were in easy key signatures.
Fast-forward to my mission. I sang all the time in the MTC with my district (we sang Hymn 82 almost every night) but didn't play the piano much. When I got to my first city, where I stayed for only six weeks, I developed a sudden ability to play more hymns. In my second city, I was asked to play for sacrament meeting when their pianist left on her mission. In my next city, one of the elders was a big-time pianist so we planned a Christmas concert with our branch. We established a venue and he was planning a couple arrangements and a new composition. But, due to an incident with his companion and an obsessed/crazy new member, he and his companion were transferred away and I found myself responsible for the program. This time, I was given the ability to arrange songs (one with cello), although my performance anxiety problems still led to a bad performance. Two cities later I was a ward organist learning to play the organ, albeit sans pedal use. Toward the end of my mission I could play a lot of the hymns in the hymnbook.
In our last ward I was called as a ward organist and as a primary pianist, and I am a ward organist in this ward as well (when the principal organist is out of town). I can play really basic stuff with the pedal now and set stops. A couple months ago I suddenly was able to sight read, which I have never been very good at before. I played my way through the whole hymnbook a couple weeks ago with only a couple problems. So, something is coming up for which there is the need for me to sight read or at least be able to learn songs quickly. In the past I have interpreted sudden increases in skill as the need for me to perform somewhere. Last Sunday the ward choir director handed me a piece of music that I am going to accompany next month, and which I wouldn't have been able to play just a couple months ago. I can play all sorts of David Lanz pieces which I couldn't play before also. I'm not sure what's going on exactly, but I guess this could be the Lord's way of saying that I need to get out and use my talents more to bless other people.
The point of all this is to say that I have no idea why the Lord decided to bless me with a talent for music, but I can see in retrospect that he has been able to increase my ability just when it would be needed. And, I have also noticed a couple times (once with a piano performance at an assisted living center, and once with a marimba performance at a hospital) that as soon as I have committed to perform somewhere my playing ability increases so I can learn songs in time to perform them. And, I have slightly less performance anxiety than I did before, at least on the piano. I find that as soon as I start to think that my ability has anything to do with how cool I am, I can't play well; but, in proportion with seeing it as a gift to be used for the benefit of others I find an increase of talent and joy.
Sorry this post was so long - as always, this was primarily a journal entry.
