I was the music conductor in Church today!

In LDS Church sacrament meetings in the United States we typically sing in four-part harmony, accompanied by an organ and led by a music conductor.  Our usual conductor is out of town for a couple of weeks and he asked me to be his substitute.

I used to have this calling--to lead the music every Sunday in church and I shouldn't have been nervous, but I was.

source

The opening song went fine, then came the sacrament song.  It was in 2/2 (not my favorite meter) and slow.  In addition it had a bunch of fermatas, which were awkward.  I got through it and was grateful the priests finished breaking the sacrament bread quickly so I didn't have to into the extra verses.  The closing song was short and zippy, so things closed well.

Next week:  I get to lead my favorite sacrament hymn.  Come visit my ward meeting next Sunday to see what it is. :-)

Musical instrument petting zoo

One of our local orchestras puts on a petting zoo.  Animals?  No, musical instruments!

They had two kinds of brass instruments (a big hit with the girls), a xylophone, and three of the four orchestra instruments.  That's our orchestra friend at the back left of the picture below.

Both of my twins have taken orchestra at school for the past two years.  Caroline, below, plays the viola.  All three girls are interested in the cello, mostly, I think, because their beloved original piano teacher is also an accomplished cellist.

Sophia's teacher has already been assigned for 4th grade and I know from last year that he'll sign his entire class up for orchestra, despite its being an optional activity. ;-)  Works for me.  There is at least one school-owned cello that I'm hoping Sophia can snag next year to avoid the rental fees, if she does decide to learn to play the cello.

Here they are with the younger brother of the piano teacher.  He's also the son of our orchestra friend.

This event was sponsored by Bookmans, a great used-book store in our city.

Wild and wacky stake conference!

Stake conference is held twice a year and all the members of our stake (like a diocese) are invited to come to the conference.  Typically there are hundreds of people in attendance and things run like clockwork.

Not so this time!

1.  Two people were asked to give a prayer but at least one of them was not told it was to be the closing prayer, not the opening, so two people walked up to offer an opening prayer.
2.  The business part of the meeting (5 minutes or less) was forgotten until midway through the meeting.  It's usually done at the beginning of the meeting.
3.  Our excellent choir director brought the choir in a measure early on a loud, exultant piece.  Oops!  I was paying attention to her and came in early, along with about half the choir.
4.  A girl was accompanying her singing sister on the piano and the air conditioner kept blowing the sheet music around.  The piano was right in front of the choir but the people closest to the piano didn't notice the problem until the pianist had to quickly push the music back with her hand while still playing.  Then someone sat with her to manage her music and it was fine.
5.  The meeting ran overtime by about 9 minutes.  It usually ends right on time.

Despite everything, it was a delightful meeting.  The speakers gave us practical advice for raising our children, nurturing our marriages, sharing the gospel, finding hope for blessings in the future, and news about the temple that will be built in our area (nothing firm yet, other than one *will* be built) and how the expansion of the missionary program is going (swimmingly).

Here is my favorite of the three choral numbers we performed today:
http://www.lds.org/music/library/hymns/let-zion-in-her-beauty-rise?lang=eng
We used this sheet music from Sonos.

Think about the music to which you listen

I think this also applies to TV shows we watch, what we view on the Internet, and video games we play.

This week's Family Home Evening

Monday was my turn to be in charge of Family Home Evening.  For some reason three pillows had been placed on the floor, each with a large-size hymn book on it, and that gave me the idea to have a musical Family Home Evening.

We started off with each person looking up a scripture extolling the virtues of music and song.  We found scriptures in both the Bible and the Book of Mormon.

Then each person told what his or her favorite hymn or children's song was, I played it on the piano, and we all sang each one.  Most of the family also told why it was his or her favorite.

That's it.  It was a good Family Home Evening and was followed by chocolate pudding cake.  Perfect.

5th grade orchestra

Caroline and Elizabeth are signed up for school orchestra lessons!  Next week we'll rent a violin and a viola and classes start the following Monday.  I love having such good benefits available to our family through the school district.

Orchestra concert

Caroline and Elizabeth have been taking orchestra lessons twice a week at school. 

The PTA pays for the teacher and the students just have to provide an instrument or borrow one from the school. 

We opted to rent a violin and a viola from a local music store for the school year.

Next Monday will be their last lesson and the instruments will go back the next day.  In August we'll go back, see if they need a bigger size, and get new rentals.

This is one concert during the year I actually look forward to.  It's short and fun.  They've had a terrific teacher this year.

Ice cream afterward!

Weekend festivities

I had a fun end-of-the-week. Thursday night was the the evening Relief Society meeting and we made cards to be sent to military members who are away from their families this Christmas. They might be overseas serving, or in a hospital either here or abroad. The cards will be delivered via the American Red Cross. I brought macaroons for the dessert table.

Saturday evening was C & E's piano recital and these pictures prove I did accompany them.

I practiced hours and hours to prepare a simple accompaniment that went with the girls' melody line. Did I say hours and hours?? Over several weeks?? I am so not a piano player, although I pretend to be for FHE and other such family events. I knew I could play with E pretty well because hers was easier, but at the last minute I asked the piano teacher to accompany C. But when it came time to introduce her piece, he gave me that puppy-dog look and I changed my mind again and played with her. I had to drop a few notes but it went better than I expected.

The girls were cute and the music was great. They went in order of skill, so my girls were near the beginning and culminated with a 15 year old that is already a wonderful piano player. The teacher is a senior in high school and my only dismay is that he'll be off to college in less than a year. We'll never have this kind of sweet deal again when it comes to piano lessons (good price, he comes to the house, the family loves him). Here he is with E.

I brought macaroons for the dessert table. :-)

Sunday night was our ward's annual Christmas music and stories. The children sang first and it just about brought tears to my eyes it was so pretty and perfect. They sang "Angels We Have Heard On High." Ward members were asked to present favorite Christmas memories and they ranged from traditions in a Mexican/American family to a Christmas in the military in Afghanistan, interspersed with singing Christmas carols. Outstanding. Oh, I brought macaroons for the dessert table. LOL And when Conor got home he asked if there were any left. They were a hit!

This morning I got up and checked my email and found a forgotten picture from someone's camera. It's Kevin's graduation day 18 months ago. Today he leaves the Brazil MTC to go to Florianopolis to start the proselytizing part of his mission.

Such a busy week!

The week started out with a holiday--Labor Day and a BBQ and swim with friends. But any mother knows a "holiday" with the kids home isn't a holiday for the parents, satisfying though it may be.

I had lots of work this week which is always nice when the paycheck comes. My second job involves being paid to think. I smile when that comes into my mind because I remember when I was little my brother L announced to the family that when he grew up he wanted to get paid to think. The job involves my listening to sound files of foreign people speaking their best English while I determine where their performance falls on a scale of 0-3 or 0-5. Lots of thinking, believe me. However, the week was kind of off-kilter due to the holiday and an apparently huge testing volume. All week there were pleas from the company for anyone with any extra time to work to please sign themselves up. I added one shift that way, but my family time is sacred, so I resisted their efforts to get me to sign up for Saturday or Sunday.

All week the girls were working on Student Council campaigns for E and C. E ran for vice-president and C ran for treasurer. In the end neither won, but they had a good week making campaign T-shirts, pin-on campaign buttons, posters, and writing their campaign speeches. Dh was their main supporter in doing those things and he really put a lot of kindly effort into it. He's a great dad.


The girls also started orchestra at school. Fourth and fifth graders can learn to play the violin, viola, or cello. E chose the violin and C the viola. Perfect. We went to the music store on Saturday and rented the instruments and bought lesson books. We think it's a great benefit of the PTA which pays for the orchestra teacher. Oh, the orchestra teacher happens to be the mother of the girls' piano teacher and she's the former Relief Society president in our ward.


I have a little vacation this weekend because Monday is a Korean holiday, Chuseok, which is Korean Thanksgiving. That means no work for me at that job from Sunday afternoon until I start again Tuesday afternoon. Kind of the opposite of the other job--I hate when the paycheck comes without those two days on it, but I sure do enjoy the little break and time with the kids.

Technology

Last night dh and I were listening to "The Bridge" on Sirius radio. It's "the softer side of Classic 60s and 70s music." We were reminiscing about music. I remembered being on the Music Committee of the church youth dances in about 1977. As a committee we decided on new music to purchase. Every other dance was a "record dance" which meant some adult spun records on the PA system hidden on the stage in the gym. No DJ chatter or anything like that, but it worked fine.

The ultimate reward the year or so I was on the music committee was that I got to keep the music box at home. It was filled with about 150-200 vinyl 45s. That box of 45s was one of most precious possessions I owned! In my room I had our family's portable record player, so I could play any song I wanted, any time.

That is when I fell in love with Bread (everything they sang!), Radar Love (Golden Earring--one-hit-wonder), Cherish (The Association), Dancing in the Moonlight (Van Morrison? Thin Lizzy?), Precious and Few (Climax Blues Band), and Stairway To Heaven (Led Zep). You get the idea. Great stuff.

The music box was homemade out of wood and painted in pastel colors. It was made of 1x8s I'm thinking, so it was tall and wide enough for for a 45 to stand up. It was quite deep with a long lid fitted with a heavy-duty handle.

Dh and I laughed as we compared that box full of records to an MP3 player a DJ would carry in his pocket today, holding many times that number of songs.

Today I ran across an article about IBM in the paper. Look at the storage unit from 1952 compared with one from 2011. Stunning, isn't it?

I love practically everything technology has brought to me in my life as it brought me my husband and much more!

Church today

Dh had visited our new ward but this was my first time. I LOVE our new ward! It's huge, for starters, clear back into the overflow area at the back of the chapel. There are older folks, middle-aged families with teens, and lots of young couples with babies and toddlers. They were very friendly as well.

I thought I'd died and gone to heaven when I heard the music though. The Sacrament Meeting music conductor is wonderful with just the right amount of emotion and the congregation SINGS. Two of my favorite hymns happened to be on the program. The opening song was As Zion's Youth in Latter Days which has the same melody as a beautiful song our choir in Salt Lake City sang. Boy, was I surprised to happen upon the same melody with different words right in our own hymnbook a few years ago! Then the sacrament hymn was my favorite song in the whole book which is We'll Sing All Hail to Jesus' Name. I was sitting in front of a wonderful tenor and a gentle, melodic alto and the song was so beautiful it actually brought a tear to my eye. Trust me, that doesn't happen often!

There has been a recent ward reorganization and there were about 25 new callings announced today. That gives me great hope for the future as a frustration with my former ward was the ultra-slow process for callings.

The whole church experience today was, well, "divine."