Tonight was the last choir concert of the year.
Because the music department adores me and wants to make sure my piano skills never atrophy, I was helping out with the accompaniment on two numbers.
Now, I pride myself on being a capable accompanist. I am at peace with the fact that I was probably not born to be a soloist, to be bogged down in perfection and playing every single note. Instead, I’m a workhorse, I’m support to vocalists and instrumentalists. But tonight, even though every. single. rehearsal. was just fine, the first song I played was a train wreck. TRAIN WRECK.
It wasn’t really that bad, and the best thing about it was the composer wrote such a ridiculous hodge-podge, multi-keyed piece of ridiculous music that I doubt anyone could tell that at one point I was THREE FULL BEATS BEHIND everyone else, frantically scanning THREE STAVES OF MUSIC to try and figure out where I was supposed to be.
But truly, it was a success. It was a success because I didn’t just stop playing. I kept playing notes in a similar pattern, and I’m pretty sure my face didn’t show the absolute terror that was coursing through my veins.
But it was also a reminder to me that no matter how confident I tell myself to be, it’s probably a good idea to still get a little nervous. It keeps a body humble.
