Sour notes

Well, happy birthday to Mr. Bach...we had Good Friday service (which is usually my favorite service of the year), and we were going to play Bach! So you'd think all the stars were aligned to goodness - I was there on time, we had the lights and I remembered the dimmer control thingy (it gets progressively dark during the service, so we dim the lights throughout)

The first piece (I played) was really cool - just an organ hymn we played on tuba, accordian and oboe (way up high on chorale). I can't believe how great it sounded, and we literally just threw it together. Cool. Then I sang something with the choir - they were short of girls and I try to help out when I can (not that my voice is delightful, but it is better than nothing!) That went very well too, H played the cello (her main instrument, sounded awesome - actually she was awesome starting on the organ, then accordian, and cello, what a woman)

Then we did the Bach aria. This is the one *I* wanted to do, I had an arrangement for just oboe and organ - but H thought it would be so cool to get the new soprano to sing and have the choir director play keyboard (they both did GREAT). It was kind of a pain to organize our schedules and get music and stuff, but we played through it beforehand last night, and it was fine. Lovely in fact. I wasn't worried at all. But then, we had to wait. In the dark. Perhaps I soaked my reed too much? Not enough? Who knows...but I start the whole shebang off, and basically nothing came out. No worries, I just gave a little more air and it seems to get things vibrating, but the reed never really "got off the ground", dropping all the little appogiatura resolutions, stopping during long notes....argh! My worst moment in at least ages (probably not ever, let's be reasonable here). But I felt terrible, I know playing in church is supposed to be about more than how great I sound, but it was a hard thing to feel so badly about how I performed. There were moments of "gee, that part was ok", but mostly it sucked.

So I got chocolate ice cream and raspberries (yeah, I self medicate) went home and we all had sundaes. Jim was all depressed too because he is doing our taxes. So now we are all bloated and depressed - I suppose that is how the disciples felt after the Last Supper? Bah.