Sunday, December 21, 2008

Accompanist Ramblings

So I guess I have a love hate relationship with the piano. Well... it's mostly love, but sometimes it can be a little stressful. Take today for example. Joanna calls me up and says she wants me to accompany someone at her big Christmas party thinger. Some professional singer. That's just a little intimidating non? But that's okay. Then one of her friends calls me up and apparently I'm accompanying him too. Alright. So we decided to have a practice today(the day before the party and I haven't ever seen any music. Great.).I go just expecting to play one song for each of them. Next thing I know I'm sitting at the piano in the Lieutenant governor's house with six pieces to sight read and have ready by tomorrow. Baahh!! I guess they just must've liked my sight reading so they kept piling them on me. But no one ever seems to realize that my sight reading and my performing are totally different. I guess we'll see how it goes tomorrow. Geeze though. Not that I care that much, cuz sometimes it's more exciting, but dude! I'm a little concerned. I think it'll be okay, but dude this is supposed to be a crazy 47$ per ticket party. People are expecting real entertainment. Yikes! Can't they find a real accompanist? I like that I can play the piano occasionally but holy smokes incompetent pianst! I'm just a willing accompanist and I enjoy doing stuff like this, but I know full well there are plenty of crazy amazing perfection pianist out there to choose from. Just like at my ward Christmas party the other night. I was supposed to play for a clarinet trio... sight reading again on the spot. That would've been alright, but then the trio backed off at the last second and canceled. They still wanted me to play though so they had me sight read the clarinet accompaniment while the whole ward sang Christmas songs. Sometimes the ward would sing something totally different from the accompaniment so I'd have to just improv. Now there are some crazy good pianists in my ward so it was really intimidating. And of course there's the mother of all my accompaniment stories that being the Ballet class I played for this last semester. That was the thing that stressed me out most this semester. Yeah I don't think I need to write how sad that is. But hey their fault for hiring me. We'll see if they decide to keep me next semester or not. Did you know that guy that plays for the BYU auditioned choirs is a ballet accompanist? Talk about intimidating and a half! Phew. Anyway so yeah we'll see what happens tomorrow. It's bad enough that I'll be sitting next to some creeper guy my age and probably end up having to dance with him. Now this. Gosh it'll be nice to be over. All I can say is that it will be some more good experience to gain. But dude when will I ever stop just getting experience? I guess that's what this life is about. Thanks for listening to my piano woes. I like piano a lot. I'm named after a pianist. Playing the piano is like living up to myself. But holy cow I'd like to think I have the right to be the humblest pianist in the world. Dude! Wish me luck tomorrow.
Ps one good thing about piano: Yesterday I was thinking,"My kids definitely have to have piano lessons. Oh gosh piano lessons are expensive sometimes. Dang! Wait! I can give piano lessons! Ta da!" It was a happy moment. See the piano isn't so bad after all:)
PPSS want another inspiring conversation I had with myself? So I was in the shower the other day and my self said," Kathryn, you really need to serve a mission."
Me: Yeah I think you're probably right. You know what? I'm going to serve a mission. Thanks self.
A while later.
Self: You know you should start preparing for that don't you think?
Me: Uh... Yeah.... Umm... Doesn't this shampoo smell great?