Thursday, December 4, 2008

Little updates

The gig playing duets with Megan on violin (me on flute) and singing duets went so very well!! I have long battled with performance anxiety. In Larry's words, "Sally doesn't do so well on the spot". And boy, that's usually so very true. But this time, after that initial rush of all my body's blood directly to my face during the first song, and the brief moments of panic and existential weirdness, it all leveled out pretty well, and I think I actually (**gasp**) made a connection with the audience!!! I flubbed a few minor times, but they were a forgiving audience.

So apparently, my ideal audience is well-seasoned church and music people, and my ideal venue is the MCL Cafeteria. After all, who's not comfortable at MCL?

And the Burt Carol Sing was as much fun as ever, and then afterward, my parents and Glen and Beth (a friend) and I sat around the piano and sang other Christmas carols. The kids normally come up and sing carols at the end, but we'd skipped that this year, but Glen was all ready to sing.... So we sang. And Beth did her Elvis impression, which made Glen laugh so hard that he couldn't breathe anymore, and he fell right off the piano bench, still laughing and holding his sides.

The gig at the festival of trees was... loud. They miked us, which was nice. But there was a train going around the middle of the room. A TRAIN. As in .... "Jingle bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle all the... RUMBLERUMBLE TOOOOOOO TOOOOOOOOT RUMBLE RUMBLE... one horse open sleigh!" It was a challenge. But I think we met it pretty well. It was a good experience.

And the recorder consort concert at Cantrell Methodist was a whole lot of fun! It turns out that Dan Blair is a really good MC... and what a great group of people to play for! They made you feel good just for being there. And I got to play the fife for a little snippet (an octave down, for the sake of their hearing).

Anyway, the next few weeks look like they'll be a race to the finish. I am very, very much looking forward to the two weeks off I'll be taking at Christmas, so I can play with my kids on the floor and really pay attention to them and their thoughts and words -- I'm afraid that all the gigs and work and extracurricular activities will take up most of that time between now and then.

Oh, and I am nearly done Christmas shopping! I have NEVER finished before Christmas Eve, EVER. This is so wonderful.

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