Tuesday, October 9, 2007

And the Winner Is...

As expected, new opportunities are starting to present themselves (Yeah! I can put off cleaning that closet for at least one more week!) I received a new unofficial church calling - unofficial because it came from the ward music director instead of the bishop. We're not sure exactly if it's legitimate, but I'm not going to ask too many questions unless I get fired.

The story starts several months ago with our previous ward music director who decided to start a youth choir. No one asked her to, she just did it as part of her calling because, as she told me, it gave her the "youth fix" that she needed. It was a big hit - about 60 kids in the first performance. (Yes, we have a gigantor ward) But as happens when you do your job too well, she was put into a leadership position, namely primary president. She really wanted to keep doing the choir, but it proved too much, so she asked the new music director to keep it going.

So guess who she called? Yep, little 'ol me. I admit I might have dropped a hint about how fun that would be when I talked to her about the choir's next performance for the ward bulletin. But it's not like I forced her to call me.

As I told my daughter, if the bishop had asked what I'd like to do next when he released me, I would have said, "Well Bishop, leading that youth choir looks really nice." So maybe Karma is finding me after all.

Here's the deal about leading a choir: I lead one a while back, and decided right away that this was the perfect job for me. It basically requires waving your arms in rhythm to the music, which is absolutely the best use of my musical abilities (notice I don't say talent, having rhythm is the only talent that comes naturally to me. Remind me to tell you some time about the time I played a piano solo and asked the congregation to leave so I could get through it. I mean, I literally got up to the microphone and asked them to leave. And that's after about 100 years of lessons.)

But this arm waving thing--I can so do that. And better still, I get to do it with my back to the audience, while MOUTHING the words. I don't even have to worry about staying on pitch. And the best part is, I get to make faces at the choir to get them to sing louder. It is so absolutely fun...well, assuming you don't get carried away and fall off the podium like a doofus. But that's yet another story for another day. Anyway, now I get to make those faces at those young women that I've been missing. And if I do fall, well, hopefully they'll have my back.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

You deserve a treat, Suzanne :-)
Hop on over to my blog and help yourself. Mind you, it could be a trick, right? It's that time of year.

Tristi Pinkston said...

That sounds like a great calling! You can pull lots of faces and try to crack them up while they're supposed to be serious. There's definite possibility for prank pulling there.

Rebecca Talley said...

I absolutely loved, loved, loved, being the Primary Chorister for the same reasons you listed. It was such a great, fun, entertaining, rewarding job. I still miss it (7 years later). Sounds like you have a very fun time!

Unknown said...

How fun for you! It sounds like you're going to have a blast.

Okay, had to laugh. You really asked the congregation to leave? You're my new hero!