Back in 2007ish, I heard the male BYU choirs join to sing an acapella arrangement of “I Love the Lord, a beautiful 4-part, male, hymn arrangement of Be Still My Soul by Jean Sibelius (the theme in Finlandia)…only this arrangement had different lyrics. It was sung in a general conference session, and was very moving: I loved the lyrics…and being the ward music chairman, I ordered copies for a quartet to sing in church.
Well, also being the mother and wife of singers, I ‘voluntold’ my sons, Kevin and David, who both sing and read music well to sing. I also, asked my husband, who sings well, but can’t read music to sing 1st tenor, since it was the melody. The 4th person was a newly-activated young man, who went to all-state choir. We practiced once, then again, before church, and they sang perfectly. They all blended together and used crescendos and decrescendos to add meaning to the hymn.
When I ordered the music, it stated the difficulty level as being ‘medium’. For those who sight read music, that is easy…however this music did have 3 key changes throughout the hymn, to represent the spirit of each verse. That would not be a problem if the chords were standard major chords, but they were not. It wouldn’t have been a problem if there had been accompaniment, but there was none…so, after the performance in Klein Oak Ward, regardless of the stated difficulty of the music, I held on to the copies, waiting for another opportunity to sing it again in a different ward (with the same calling) until I had singers, who could read music.
About 1 ½ months before ward conference, I saw the chance, and asked two great singers, soloist men in our ward, one a tenor; the other, a baritone. I envisioned them singing with their sons, one who I had used before and still had not changed his voice to be anything but a first soprano…but I, who also can sing soprano and bass in most passages, thought he could certainly take the part of first tenor, so I asked him. The other son, the one of the baritone, had sung in stake conference, and I was surprised he could sing, since he had never even shown interest in our ward, so when I went to ask him, too, his father negated the invitation first thing. “He can’t read music and he won’t want to do it. I had to jump through hoops to cajole him into doing it for stake conference.”
OK. Well that really wrecked my plan. I didn’t know who else could blend with those men. I finally asked Mike. Even though he had sung the melody in the previous quartet, I thought he could sing first bass, since I could sight-read and sing first bass. I sent all the singers an audio of their parts played on the piano and the BYU conference version ( floating around on the internet.)
I had no worries about the other men, but Mike…however, shortly after receiving the music, came in very confidently stating that his part was very easy. Great!
Shortly after arranging this to be sung, Mike and I decided to go to Utah for about 12 days. We would get back in time for my Thursday shift—leaving only Friday and Saturday before ward conference open for rehearsing. Well, one person had made an appointment at the temple on Friday, so we moved the rehearsal to Saturday. One person was driving to Dallas and said he would be back by 8 p.m., so we arranged the practice at 8:15 p.m. at his home (so his son would be there).
Turned out that his runathon thing in Dallas took longer than he thought and he didn’t even leave Dallas (a 4-hour trip) till 7:30 p.m. But…we practiced without him. I sight-read the 2nd tenor part at their home and had no problems. We only had one part we needed to practice—a key change, where Mike could not find his note. We tried and tried, and Mike said he would go over it at home. Unfortunately, he didn’t (at least not enough).
Sunday morning came, and the ward before got out late; the man, who had never practiced with us, showed up even later, because he was speaking in another ward. We had time to run through it a few times though, and guess what…he couldn’t get the same key change as Mike. After a few private piano intervals given, he said he was confident he had it.
All through sacrament, I was praying for them to do well. I, have in the past, prayed for angels to supplement voices when it was the choir, but how do you change keys when there are only 4 people, all on different pitches? As I was praying, I felt like I should ask for someone outside of themselves, to correct their pitches. I knew I couldn’t play the piano, as in previous rehearsals, they were going flat and it would be too much of a key change for me to jump in. And I, wrongly assumed the person changing their pitch would be an angel singing in their mind.
I sat at the piano and gave them their pitches, and after an eternal pause, they finally started. It was a bit slow, but they were blending…until the first tenor couldn’t hit the notes that were too low for his voice, so on the notes that were held long, his pitch warbled up and down as he trying to hold his pitch lower than his range. Mind you, he had the melody, and was front and center with the mic pointed at him to amplify his part.
OK, I thought, just keep on pitch. Just keep on pitch. Next came the pianissimo part where Mike and the other bass were to solo. Yep. They nailed that solo, about how wretched they were, and belted it out fortissimo. (The irony to come later.) Right before the last verse, when they were to change from the 'soft', sadness of the song, they were to change key, volume, and to a faster tempo.
What actually happened, was that they changed notes and volume. Ow. Ow. It was bad. How many were off key, I did not know, but right then, I knew that the person that was to correct their pitches was me. I started playing the piano, but since I had never done that with them before, it was a shock to all of them. I can only imagine the looks on their faces as they heard the piano. Mike said he couldn’t find his note for the life of him, until he realized why I was playing the piano and he needed to listen to the to match what I was playing. After several, painfully slow, vocal off-key chords, I played louder and louder, until finally, they blended with the piano and I faded away.
Well…they made it to the end, where there were several intentional minor chords in the music—but since they had been off key before, I’m sure the congregation thought them off key again…sounding like some slow-motion funeral dirge; solidifying their performance, with nails scraping as the lid of the coffin finally closed.
As I write this, I am laughing hysterically with tears running down my face…but I sure wasn’t yesterday. No. After the performance, I watched every participant. Red in the face. Staring straight ahead. No one in their family dared to look or speak to them. The horror of performing that way in front of the entire stake presidency and stake visitors.
The bishop kindly got up to say the music inspired him. Had I heard him say that, I would have questioned what it inspired him to do. Never join the choir? Never volunteer to sing in sacrament meeting again?
Had I not had several assignments after the meeting, I would have wallowed in humiliation. As it was, I was wondering how long the men would be embarrassed. What in the world I could ever say in a ‘thank you’ note to them that was positive about the piece? Would they ever accept to sing in church again…especially since I wanted them to sing at Christmas?
We haven’t spoken since the performance…except the 2nd base, who thanked me for rescuing them—as I played the postlude music, and Mike for apologizing much later for wrecking the piece and not practicing enough. I don’t think we could face each other…but I woke up in the middle of the night laughing uncontrollably about the grim performance. I doubt the performers are to that point of laughing about it, yet. Mike keeps saying 80% of it was good. Oh, my. Think about the 20%! It was that bad. It was painful. Still don’t know what to say to them. I mean. What would you say?
What it was supposed to sound
like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FASG0h6-5XQ
