You cant win for trying aka. You cant always get what you want

Part 1: The curse of the piano

First of all, I never claim to be a pianist. I have had minimal lessons over the years, but the whole doing scales thing never really stuck with me. Not to say I wouldn't give it another shot someday soon, but for now, I am a liturgical guitarist and a vocalist. When I was hired on at Good Shepherd, I made this evidently clear. So, we set up some goals: 1) Convert the parish to guitar music, or 2) cultivate musical talent from the congregation, or 3) learn how to play piano (or organ) and lead the music that way. I got to work right away with the first two possiblities, knowing that I would get to the third in time. Due to some constraints, I was the only instrument at the early Sunday mass, so I played guitar. If anyone's ever been to an early Catholic mass, they know it's not a guitar sort of crowd. I would get comments like "I love the music today, are we getting a piano player soon?" A couple months ago, I was feeling invulnerable, so I tried my mediocre piano skills out on the early mass crowd. I could never have expected to be swamped at the piano after mass with congratulations and wishes on my continued return to the bench. To this day, I have played piano at every early mass, and now I play for our "Over 50's" mass as well as prayer services, reconciliation services and monthly benediction. I still play guitar for school masses and with our Spirit and Life choir, a nice balance I thought. Well, Fr. Attila comes up to me this weekend and makes the comment that he misses the guitar. Talk about irony.

Part II: "Baptist" music isn't all bad.

Also, when I was hired, I was asked to be a cheerleader of sorts - to bring energy with my music as well as new and exciting music. I've done my best with this, slowly seeping out the repatoire I had gathered over the years. This weekend, I choose "Shall We Gather At the River" as our closing song. This has been one of the favorites and a song that seems to invoke quite the passionate singing. One man came up to me after our Saturday mass and wondered how this "Baptist" song made it into the mass. I tried my best to answer him as I was thinking he was joking by saying "Well, its in our hymnal and I like it, so I put it in." He replied in a cold, brutal way with "Well, anything will get in there if its shoved up someone's a**" and walks off. Yikes! I'm glad my job doesn't depend on his opinion. Fortunately, a woman also came up after our later Sunday mass to say hi. She said how much she appreciated by spirit and my body movements as I directed the choir. I know sometimes I get a little too into the music. :) So, I guess these two people I dont remember meeting before kinda balanced out for me. I'm still pumped up about music and picking the right songs for the litugy and making people glad to be there. A once in a while negative comment is good for keeping my ego in check.

In other news...

I played guitar for our scouts on their spring outing this weekend. As I was setting up, two girls from our school came up and volunteered to help me sing. That just made my night. I have been leaning what I can about leading children, and I took every opportunity to encourage them to come back and do it again someday.

The adult choir performed two of my arrangements this weekend. I know they aren't original songs, but they are my harmonies, and that left me with some butterflies today. I have been feeling much more confident about writing and arranging for voices and instruments. I am so looking forward to this month's Spirit and Life choir as I get to arrange for a variety of instruments (depending on who shows up). Heck, we may even have a ukelele this month. Whoo hoo!