A Musical Post

I apologize in advance to any non-musicians who may read this.

Mr. H, myself and a friend of ours usually play the offertory on the 2nd Sunday of each month at our church. Last month we decided what we'd do this month (we NEVER plan that far ahead.) I went so far as to downloading the sheet music, so we'd have it. Well, it sat on my desktop (unprinted) until today.

Today we printed it out...

all 9 pages of it.

We laid it out on the kitchen table, from one end of the table to the other. After Mr. H noodled around on it a bit (a musical term I learned from a former band director), I put down the blue jeans I was hemming for M and picked up my flute to join him. We stood side by side at the beginning of the music (with me to the right to I wouldn't whop him upside the head with my flute) and started.

It was a bit rough (what an understatement!) at the beginning and we had to start several times before we got the rhythm going. Eventually, we got beyond the first 2 pages. I then noticed that we were having to side-step down the table as we were playing. I ran up against a stool and was pushing it aside with my hip as I was trying to play. I finally had to stop and push the stool around to the end of the table, because this song and that stool were not working to my advantage. I think we both had visions of a Victor Borge comedy skit playing in our heads.

After about the umpteenth time we stopped, we finally made it to the 9th and final page. We were in the home stretch. As we finished the final note, we busted out laughing and gave each other a high 5! We had reached the end...at the same time! M, who was sitting at the table, trying to ignore the atrocious noise filling the kitchen, gave us the oddest look!

Now this is not always such a cause for celebration when we play together, but the song "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring" is a tough one. It's long and has tons of notes and there is no place to breathe and everyone knows the tune, so it's obvious when you mess up. It will get better as the week progresses. It certainly can't get any worse than what we just did!