My Instrument

I have been a singer since my earliest memories. There is even video evidence. Just one video of me as a very little kid, singing the books of the New Testament song my mom taught me, and also "The B-I-B-L-E". In "The B-I-B-L-E" my brother kept crawling over to me, and I had to stop singing to boss him (he was probably 7 or 8 months old which would make me less than 3 years old), and every time I came back into the song (sung a capella), I'd come back in a higher key. At the very end, I'm straining to sing the melody, which goes up at the end, and I make a very funny worried face. It's one of my cutest moments, certainly the cutest preserved on film (then transferred to VHS, and now on DVD).

Not too long after that video, I began playing the piano, with my mother as my first teacher. "Pumpkin Pie" was my first song out of the old Bastian series, and we made pumpkin pies to celebrate. I still remember the song, two phrases long. I have continued playing piano on and off through the years. I now play nearly every day at work. Comes with the territory in choir.

In middle school, I joined the band and played the clarinet. Initially the band director put me on percussion because I could read the notes on the staff already. I could play melodies on the xylophone, which was to me like playing the piano with two fingers. Once I got into 6th grade band, I was terribly bored with snare drum, and the other girl percussionist who would frequently hit me on the legs with her drumsticks, so I begged and pleaded with Mr. P to let me change to clarinet. We had my aunt's clarinet borrowed already, so I played "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" for him and he let me change after the first 6 weeks of school.

It wasn't until my sophomore year of high school that I rediscovered my first instrument. My voice. I joined choir and was in both band and choir from then through my senior year. In college I took the vocal track all the way, not even looking at my clarinet unless I was teaching the instruments of the orchestra to my elementary students back at the very beginning of my teaching career.

Today I took some time to visit one of my feeder schools, an elementary near one of the middle schools where I teach. The 5th grade students there will be coming up as next year's 6th grade class. I went at the invitation of the music teacher there (who I've known personally for more than 20 years) to demonstrate my instrument. It was great fun. I have never really done that. It seems like every other time I've sung for an audience it has been either in church, where the focus is on God, or in an ensemble where no one would really be able to hear just my instrument. I played a couple recordings for them: Brahms Requiem which I performed last Fall, so they could hear an orchestra and choir together, and a recording of an a capella arrangement of "And So It Goes," by Billy Joel on which I was singing alto. I also performed two solos: the Mark Hayes arrangement of Simple Gifts from his folk song collection, and just a snippet of "Tomorrow" from Annie. I wanted the students to hear different vocal styles. I was basically showing off for about 15 minutes with a Q & A session at the end. So much fun...

I thank God for my voice. I hope and pray that it will bring Him glory all the days of my life.