Please Protect My Fragile Ego

I made the not good decision to accompany a men's barbershop group. I've nothing against the group (although barbershop is not one of my favorites), it's just that I really should have given a little more thought to other commitments I have in my life before agreeing to take on one more thing. But, what's done is done, at this point.

I accompany a lot, some might say too much. Now with the additional 2 songs I just agreed too, I have 15 holiday pieces to learn between now and mid-December. Some are easy, some are going to take a little work, and one is the "Hallelujah Chorus" which is causing me to have loose stools. So, the barbershop piece slipped to the bottom of my priority list because I have had bigger fish to fry.

I went to my first rehearsal last week, and although I had run through the piece a few times, I had only played the last page once or twice but I wasn't too worried about it because it was, as I said, our first rehearsal. I'll sum up and say that the conductor wasn't too pleased with me and didn't bother hiding it. It kind of left a bad taste in my mouth but I tried to push that aside and did spend a little bit more time on the piece this week, so while certainly not completely polished, I thought that the progress was quite acceptable, especially considering that the performance isn't for a month.

I don't know why I tried to convince myself that the second rehearsal would be any better. The conductor actually stopped a 30 person choir to point out (in front of everyone) that he thought I was playing a SINGLE NOTE wrong with my left hand. He felt I was adding an extra one. I tried to lighten the mood by saying, "I'm having a enough of a time with the notes that are actually written on the page that I can almost certainly say that I'm not adding in extras." It was not well received. He also feels I can't keep the beat, and anyone who knows me will know that THAT is a ridiculous accusation. I just don't know his beat, becase he gets so into the awesomeness of men singing 4 part harmony that he stops conducting altogether and just sings along. He made a big point of running through the last two pages multiple times "for the sake of our accompanist." The whole thing had me so frazzled I couldn't have played the song right if my life had depended on it.

Well, I never. I don't know what to do with this guy. I'm trying to see things from his perspective, because he doesn't know me and (most importantly) doesn't know that I ALWAYS have my songs ready. But on the flip side, I am not helped by public criticism. I get that music is subjective and I'm happy to take feedback along the lines of "The tempo is a little faster than that," or "We are going to take a breath here so give us time for that," but to have someone stop a choir to point out that the accompanist hit a wrong note is ridiculous and I find it very humiliating.

Maybe the conductor fancies himself to be a "Serious Musician." If that's the case, then I'd like to point out that "Serious Musicians" probably wouldn't be caught dead singing a song with the lyrics, "Rock! Mary rock! Rock the cradle in glory!"

I'm just saying.

What I also should say is that the only reason I didn't up and walk out last night was that the 30 men actually singing in the choir have been unfailingly polite and appreciative. I'm going to need to suck it up and reframe before next's weeks rehearsal. And retrain my left hand and also put a conductor-approved metronome in my head.