Author: Dutchy
Date: 2008-04-22 15:46
Bumping this because although my official "coming out of the closet" may have been a week ago Sunday night, my official "baptism by fire" was two days ago, and I wish to report. ![[grin]](http://test.woodwind.org/clarinet/BBoard/smileys/smilie5.gif)
Sunday night prayer meeting, when we practice by playing through six or eight hymns, is attended by only 20 to 30 people, but Sunday morning worship generally has 180 to 200 folks there, plus this Sunday we were blessed (!) by a visit from the Superintendent herself, as the featured speaker.
So the heat was on, and the Music Minister had laid on an extravaganza of Choir, a Men's Quartet, and of course the Orchestra was going to play.
Now, our Music Minister is about my age, is possessed of an unmatched passion for Jesus--and is also the most completely disorganized person I have *ever* met. Among other things, he seems to be constitutionally incapable of sticking to his own order of worship on Sunday mornings. He gives the bulletin to the church secretary to be typed up on Thursday, and by Sunday morning, he's moving stuff around, "let's put the choir anthem here", and "we're not going to sing that hymn after all". He is legendary for the way he will simply skip a hymn, or add one, or skip or insert a video, all--literally--at the last minute, while the service is under way.
Needless to say, this makes working with him a real challenge (she said drily), and not only the pianist, organist, choir, orchestra, handbells, and people doing "specials" (who have been known to have their specials cut five minutes before the service started), but also the ushers, the sound system person, and the Powerpoint guy who puts the words up on the screen, all have to be on their toes 100% every Sunday morning, because it could all change, at any minute.
We have collectively dubbed him "Mr. Seat-of-the-Pants". Not terribly affectionately.
And of course the congregation is frequently totally at sea, but still game as all getout. They long ago realized that what's in the bulletin should be regarded merely as guidelines at best. So you just sit tight and enjoy the ride.
And as an extra added fillip, he's down to two pianists who will still work with him, and one of them is also the Flute, and the remaining piano-playing Church Lady is in early-stage Alzheimer's, which makes working with HER...interesting.
So.
I get to church so early that only the sound system guy and the pastors are there, because I wanna allow adequate time for reed-soaking, etc.
I look at my bulletin [Scooby Doo: "Ruh-roh!"], and see that although the plan was for the Music Minister to have made his selection of the morning's hymns from the eight hymns we practiced last week, he has included only two that we practiced, and has added three that we didn't. Gee, what a surprise.
However, one of the new ones has the notation beside it--"acc"--which I assume means either "a capella" or "accordion". Knowing Mr. Seat-of-the-Pants, I wouldn't be a bit surprised to have an accordionist turn up. Whatever, I probably won't have to play that one.
Anyway, I sit there in the orchestra chairs at the front of the church, reading through the oboe part for the two new ones I'm assuming I'll have to play in a few minutes (if Mr. Seat-of-the-Pants doesn't change his mind halfway through, of course). One doesn't look too bad, but one, "Majesty", looks like a stinker--it's got a bunch of those 6- and 7-note sixteenth-note-runs, like an upwards trill (?), which I'm sure will be very pretty once I learn to play it (she said drily). And I don't really have a spot where I can go practice, because now people are starting to come in. So I guess I'll just play that one out of the hymnal.
The Trumpet, being possessed of a fine baritone voice, has apparently been dragooned by the Music Minister into participating in the Men's Quartet at the last minute, so he's in the choir room practicing with them.
The Flute shows up shortly afterwards, as does the Alzheimer's pianist. So we all sit there for a while. The Baritone player is not in evidence.
Finally the Trumpet comes out, late, and we start playing our Orchestral Prelude, which is comprised of a quick runthrough of the morning's hymns. I accomplish myself well, sight-reading. And--I am in tune. The three of us, Trumpet, Oboe, and Flute, are in tune with each other and with the piano. Yay!
Five minutes before the service is supposed to start, I am peripherally aware that the Baritone has joined us. And simultaneously, to my deep dismay, I am suddenly FLAT. No, I'm sharp. No, I'm flat. I struggle for a couple of measures to find a pitch, any pitch. And I finally realize that it's not that I'm flat, or sharp--it's that the Baritone isn't playing in tune. The three of us were doing just fine until HE got there.
So I give up on trying to blend with him, go back to Basics--"blend with your neighbor"--and concentrate on blending with the Trumpet. And the world comes back into focus and everything's fine.
For a while.
Everything goes along swimmingly--we get through the first two hymns, Fellowship Time, the Men's Quartet gets up and sings, they come back down, and it's time for the third hymn.
The Music Minister starts singing the third hymn.
The congregation starts singing the third hymn.
The orchestra starts playing the third hymn.
The pianist starts playing the fourth hymn.
There follow a couple measures of total confusion, and you can't blame this one on Mr. Seat-of-the-pants; for a change, he was following his own order of worship. So he hisses to her, "My Jesus I Love Thee! 364!" and she goes, "OH." And immediately swings into "My Jesus I Love Thee".
From memory. Kudos to her.
But.
In the wrong key. The key of the fourth hymn, which was in Eb. But the third hymn--which, you will recall, the orchestra is now attempting to play--is in F.
A couple measures of confusion in the orchestra (the congregation happily and obliviously continues to roar out "My Jesus I Love Thee" in Eb). The Trumpet noodles around for a minute, finds the key, and carries on.
The Flute whispers to me, "Key of C" and continues playing.
Well, obviously I'm not going to be able to transpose the Oboe part from F to C in my head, so I pick up the hymnal again, start trying to play.
Except that it still doesn't sound right, somehow. Hmm...
The Flute whispers to me frantically, "Three flats! Three flats!"
Ah-ha. Three flats. That would explain it.
So I manage to noodle around for the rest of the hymn, and not embarrass myself too much. For one thing, I don't think anybody beyond the first row can hear the oboe anyway, so I don't worry about it.
So, after the hymn, the bulletin says "Prayer" and then "Offertory--Orchestra". However, as I raise my head after the prayer, thinking I was going to play the oboe next, I perceive that during the Prayer, the choir has moved up onto the platform. The Flute and I are both in choir, and we knew we were going to sing, but we didn't know when, as (surprise!) it wasn't in the bulletin. I nudge her and whisper, "I observe that the Choir is up on the platform." We grab our choir books and get up there.
After the choir number, the Music Minister steps up to the mike, and says, as is customary, "We thank our ushers for waiting upon us," and the pianist, as is customary, immediately begins pounding out the opening bars of the offertory, "He Keeps Me Singing", a.k.a. "There's Within My Heart A Melody".
Which the orchestra is supposed to play along with.
Except that half the orchestra is still up on the platform.
I had noticed this about her last Sunday, that as soon as the Trumpet tells her, "Number *whatever*", she takes off like a bat out of hell, without looking over to see, "Is everybody ready?" She's not an accompanist, she's a piano-playing Church Lady.
So the Flute and I hustle down off the platform, and join in about halfway through the first verse, and since the offertory only consists of two verses, it's all over before I really have a chance to get into it, and I am a little bit cross, because it's one of the arrangements that was written by someone who plays the oboe, and it's very pretty. It's the one with trills.
Still, there will always be a next time.
So that was my baptism by fire. All external, nothing I could do about any of it, reed worked well, oboe worked well, sounded good, if a little drowned out by the brass, I felt that overall the oboe didn't have a chance to shine, but hey.
Post Edited (2008-04-22 15:52)
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