One of the best days of my life

Today isn't yet over, but I expect by the end it will still be one of the best days of my life.

In sacrament meeting today, I sat next to Stanley, who's in the Elders quorum presidency. He asked me to play the piano for our priesthood meeting. The hymn was 322, Come All Ye Sons of God. (He had it written down as Come All Thy Sons of God.) This isn't an hymn that I've played a lot, but I'm pretty sure I've played it a couple of times in the past. So I wasn't too worried about playing it without practicing in advance.

As announcements were being made at the opening of the priesthood meeting, I decided I probably ought to open the lid a bit on the baby grand piano in the chapel, because a musical number that had been played on it earlier was a little quiet with the lid closed. And this was supposed to be kind of a rousing song, and I was also a little afraid that people wouldn't know it well, so quiet piano wouldn't help them sing with confidence. So I opened the lid.

We got to the hymn, and I thought it went fine. There's one spot that was a little tricky for me, and I had to improvise a little leaving out a couple of notes, but overall it went fine. There were two things that could have been better - I couldn't see the kid who was leading the music very well, and I couldn't tell if he was trying to speed things up, slow them down, or if he just didn't know how to conduct music very well. In trying to look around the lid to see him and follow the music that I didn't know very well, I decided maybe it was the third, so I just ignored him and played at what I felt was a reasonable tempo. The other thing that could have been improved was the singing, which seemed kind of weak and disengaged. Like maybe most people didn't know the song very well. I tried to play with gusto to encourage a similar response from the congregation, but I didn't get it. Neither of these two things bothered me too much, but they could have been improved.

But this was the best, or possibly second best part of the story: The instructor who gave the lesson today in Elders quorum began by apologizing for the hymn, which he said he chose - he had hoped for a rousing priesthood song. And he pointed at me (I was on the front row) and said, "It wasn't your fault that it was so slow," which got a decent laugh, at least from me and my friends sitting right behind me. I'm pretty sure if it was anyone's fault, it was mine, because I had chosen to ignore the conductor. (I'm still fairly confident that he wasn't trying to speed things up, but if he was then it was even more my fault.) The instructor mentioned how songs at devotionals just really drag, and that this hymn had felt that way. I felt a little bad that he'd felt it had dragged, but really I thought the tempo was fine so I enjoyed the way he pretty directly criticized me by trying not to criticize me.

A little later he asked me to read something, and pointed at me and said, "Piano player..." searching for my name. Robbie then sent me a note (written in pager code) saying that he and Greg are now going to call me piano player.

This is possibly the best, or second best part of the story: After the meeting ended, the 1st counselor in our bishopric, who's a really nice older man, came up to me and made sure I understood how much he appreciated my piano playing, and he thought it was a fine tempo. And he told me about his nephew who plays piano and asked me some questions about what I like to play, and said I need to make sure I don't neglect other aspects of my life, which was his lead-in to ask, "How's your dating life?" I told him I'm not an avid dater.

And then the executive secretary in the ward (who's an excellent pianist) came up to me and told me he thought I'd played the hymn just fine. And later the Bishop told me he'd liked how I played the hymn.

I think it was just those three, though there may well have been another person who said about the same thing. If I'd been hurt by the instructor's remark, these comments would have been incredibly appreciated and helpful. Because I wasn't, they were incredibly appreciated, if not necessarily helpful. It's nice to have such nice people around. This could be an indication that people see me as insecure - I'm generally not.

This played a small role in making the day so great. Another thing that was enjoyable was in our ward choir when the director told the basses to bring out one part where we had a slightly different rhythm, and told us to sing as loud as we could. I didn't, but I did sing out loud enough on that one distinct note that she looked up and laughed each time.

This reminds me of high school orchestra - every now and then Mrs. Larsen, the director, would tell the violas to play out in a part of a song. It was my goal to make sure that that never happened without her later telling us to tone it down just a bit. I was generally successful. I can't claim that I played viola particularly well in terms of tone, but I can claim that I played viola particularly loudly if I felt like it. We recorded a tape to send to Knott's Berry Farm before we played there on our "tour." (We played out in a barn where no one ever went, and our audience consisted entirely of our high school marching band which we accompanied on this tour. We didn't play anywhere else.) Mrs. Larsen played the tape back for us, and I could be heard above all the violins combined. This can be explained not only by my exceptional loudness, but also by the exceptional weakness of our violins. And by the fact that one of the two microphones used to record us was hanging about three feet above me.