Singing Along

Today Emily, Cindy, Laura and I had our first semi-performance. We have been singing together since the beginning of September, simply for the sheer joy of singing. We all love to sing, and all different ranges, making us a pretty good combination for a group. Cindy sings a lovely soprano, while Laura switches between singing 2nd soprano and soprano, and Emily sings 2nd soprano or Alto, depending on our needs, and depending on how loud I can sing. I sing the alto part, and I have really been enjoying myself. We also have a accompanist who is quite talented.
Anyway, one of the first pieces that we started practicing was a beautiful arrangement of 'Beautiful Savior' by Sally Deford. She has a website that you can print free music arrangements from, and somebody found this piece the morning of our first practice. It's the only piece that we sing that is 'sacrament' appropriate, so that is where we performed it today. We were all feeling really confident about the performance, as we have been singing this piece for months, along with several other pieces, and are very familiar with each other's voices. When we showed up to rehearse before sacrament meeting on Sunday morning, it wasn't going well at all. We were all singing the wrong parts, coming in at the wrong places, and missing notes that had never been missed before. Nerves had finally set in! I spent the first half of sacrament meeting staring at the clock and willing the speaker to go over on time so that we wouldn't have to perform.
Fortunately, our piece went well, and the many hours spent rehearsing together paid off. I'm proud that I have been a part of something so good and, as one woman put it, completely inspiring. Hopefully our show at the assisted living center next month will go as well!