Music, music, music!

I finished the music for the General Young Women's Meeting and sent it on the deadline date they gave me, January 10th, which was Sunday. I didn't hear anything back, so I called Monday to follow up and make sure they got my email. Diane Bastian, who is over the church music committee, said they would review it Tuesday afternoon and call me back. I talked to her Tuesday night, and she told me they really liked it but they wanted to request a couple of changes/improvements--a longer transition on the key change, and more movement in the accompaniment in the last verse. I had to smile when she told me the key change was "Wilberg-esque." She said the big key changes that just move into the new key right as the singers come in is how Mack Wilberg does it. She said it was getting common, and besides, she thought it would be better for the amateur young women's choir to have a little time to hear the new key before they sang. She was asking for a change, but little did she know that the fact that my music sounded "Wilberg-esque" was just what I wanted to hear. I love him! It's okay. I can dumb it down. (Go ahead, laugh at the picture)

Sister Bastian said they would be presenting the music to the Young Women's presidency the following afternoon and they would love to have the changes by then. So, I went to the church at 7:00pm and got on the organ and hammered it all out in about 2 1/2 hours. My kids stayed at the house and made pizza, and Russ was out of town with work. I went home that night and got it on the computer, reviewed it a couple thousand times, and emailed it.

The next day in the afternoon (Wednesday, January 14th), Sister Bastian called and said they played it for the YW presidency, and everyone loved it. They especially loved the changes I made......BUT......the YW presidency thought it would be really nice to have a cello with one of the songs in the meeting, and they thought mine would be best! Argh. Back to the drawing board. But this time I knew for sure that they had decided to use it, so I was more than glad to attempt a cello obbligato. It was much harder than I thought it would be, mostly because I would have constructed the accompaniment differently had I known there would be an instrumental part.

I decided to give myself a few extra days; she didn't give me a deadline and I had a hard time being satisfied with what I was coming up with. I sent the final copy last Sunday night, January 17th. I don't really love the way the cello part turned out, considering it was an afterthought, but I suppose it will do. I haven't heard from them. They are extremely busy at their office, so I didn't really expect to hear from them, unless they were dissatisfied with it. Maybe they will decide not to use the cello part! At any rate, the General Young Women Meeting is on March 29th, and Emily, Hannah, and I will be there, live and in person.

This brings me to the next part. I think Sunday the 17th was that same day that my sister, Barbara, called me and asked me to arrange "Called to Serve" for the funeral of a recently returned missionary, Josh Jenkins, who was killed in an avalanche. He was my nephew's close friend. His companions and other returned missionary types were going to sing it as the only musical number at the service. Initially she just asked for a beefed up introduction, interlude, and ending. The hymn has only two verses, but they were going to sing the first verse twice with the second time being in Thai, the language of Josh's mission, and then sing the second verse to finish. Well, I have a problem with doing things in a small way, so I set out to write a whole arrangement. I kept choking up every time I went to the piano because of what I was writing for, so I went to the internet and looked up everything I could find about Josh. After I read several news reports about the accident and talked to Barbara some more, I was able to be calm about it. I worked on it over the next few days. Thursday afternoon was my theater class dress rehearsal, and when I left for it, I still had 10 measures to come up with. I called Barbara and told her I wouldn't be home until 6:15pm, and her practice was at 8:30pm that night. Talk about stress! My husband says I work best under pressure. At about 6:45, my friend called and invited all of us to come eat with them because she knew what was going on and that I probably wouldn't be cooking dinner. I sent the kids--how convenient!

Barb called me around 8:00 and when the phone rang I was literally putting the last note on the paper. I listened through it one more time and then emailed it to her by about 8:10. Nothing like living by the seat of your pants. Thank goodness for email! It makes so many things possible that wouldn't be otherwise! Barbara liked it, and the piano player liked it....it went well the next day with about 40 men singing, 20 in Thai.

I think I am done writing music for a little while (at least a month or so). My children always breathe a little easier when I finish a project because there is always a period of intensity right before I finish. It's always rewarding, though, and I am extremely blessed to have the ability to write music in an edifying and useful way.