If At First You Don't Succeed

I had the opportunity to sing in Sacrament Meeting yesterday. It was a song I'd sung a few times before, I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day, arranged by Sally DeFord. My friend/accompanist and I met a few times to rehearse and I felt fine about it until Sunday morning. That's when a nervousness I couldn't quite explain crept into my thoughts.

The talk before I sang was a beautiful message about humility. While she was speaking, I had the thought, "Oh dear, I hope I'm not about to have a personal lesson in humility while I'm singing." I even prayed that I would let go of any pride that I might be feeling before I sang.

When it was my turn, I walked to the pulpit and began. The first three verses went well. I hit the key change on the fourth verse with strength and clarity, I remembered to slow down where the accompanist had requested because of a difficult key change. Then I hit the first note of the fifth and final verse.

And it was wrong.

I tried to recover, not quite sure what had gone wrong. I sang the next phrase and it was clear that I was not singing what the pianist was playing.

For the first time in nearly thirty years of solo singing in church settings, I stopped the song. Yes, I've made mistakes (like the time I forgot where I was and dropped a phrase from a song), but I'd never stopped mid-song before. I took a step back from the microphone, asked the pianist (who was laughing out of nervousness) to take it back to where the mistake had happened, then stepped back to the mic. We finished the song strong.

I walked back to the bench near the front of the chapel where my family was sitting. Bryan, sitting on the far end with all the children between us, mouthed the words, "Are you okay?" I shrugged. The next speaker, a member of the Bishopric, thanked me for the song, but the words felt empty. I spent the duration of the last talk making myself stay in the chapel because all I really wanted to do was crawl into a hole.

As we sang the closing hymn, the feeling of disappointment threatened to overwhelm my emotions. I wondered how I was going to make it through the next two hours of church.

As soon as the closing prayer was offered, a friend in the ward rushed over to me. She hugged me and whispered in my ear, "Thank you, thank you so much for messing up." I let out a surprised chuckle and she pulled back far enough so that I could see tears in her eyes. She quickly explained about her teenage daughter, a talented violinist who suffers from a great fear of failure during performances. It's almost to the point that she doesn't want to play anymore. My friend continued, "She saw that you messed up and it was okay and you were able to finish the song. You may not realize it, but that was for my daughter. Thank you."

I was surprised by this reaction, but touched. Over the next two hours I had several people, including a few talented musicians, comment on how much they enjoyed the song and that they were impressed I kept a smile on my face. I joked that I was glad I could provide an example of humility in action, that I was just trying to drive home the lesson of the talk. And then another mom said something similar to what my friend had said, she was so glad her girls had seen me stop and start again, that it would help them in their piano performing.

I apologized to the pianist and she hugged me and laughed and claimed all responsibility for the error. "I really have to work extra hard to pay attention to the music when you sing because I just want to listen." Her words were kind, but of course I couldn't let her take all the blame. Maybe we both hit the wrong notes at just the right time? I don't know, but I do know what counts is that we finished, despite stopping and going back a few lines.

I'm singing again on Thursday at a Relief Society activity. Let's hope whoever goes before me doesn't talk about humility this time...