Recital

[livingdeb]

Today was the recital I wrote about previously.

Since you are reading my journal, I'll assume you want to hear about me first.

I've learned that I get so nervous and red when I'm in front of people that I get very hot and sweaty, so I took off my coat and jacket that I'd been wearing. Seriously. Bright red.

First I did do the twangy, loud stalker song with some falsetto that I talked about. This is "Little Darlin'" by Buddy and Julie Miller. Favorite line: "Love can taste as sweet as muscat wine, but then go down more like turpentine." I did the first word or two badly, and then restarted. My voice cooperated, and the room was completely quiet. Later I got several compliments on this song, and people said that they didn't know I had such good white trash roots.

Second I played the guitar and sang "Our Town" by Iris DeMent. This is a beautiful but sad song about someone who loves her town, but it's turning into a ghost town. By the end of the song, she's leaving town, even though she doesn't want to, and she has stopped calling it "our town" and started calling it "my town." It's chilling.

Now if I had been given the choice of having my singing go better than expected at the expense of my guitar playing or vice versa, I would have chosen the good singing. And this is what I got. But I would not have realized just how badly the guitar playing would have to get in order for my singing to go that well. Specifically, my right hand, which I use for the strumming, was shaking almost uncontrollably. So, it was playing nearly random strings, and bouncing around on them.

I also messed up a few chords, but that was no worse than expected. Fortunately, I was just clamping down on chords with my left hand, so any random string strumming would have led to some kind of note that went okay with the song. Also fortunately, the guitar playing was much softer than the singing, and the lyrics are interesting, so I think people were paying more attention to that.

Then I played a third song, "Lord, I Have Made You a Place in My Heart" by Cry, Cry, Cry. It's a beautiful song so sad that it's funny. People actually laughed at these parts, so that means I was intelligible. For example:

Oh Lord, why does the fall get colder each year?
Lord, why can't I learn to love?
Lord, if you made me, it's easy to see
That you all make mistakes up above.

This is not the kind of party where people come up to you and say, "Your playing really stank. I hope you never play at one of these things again." Even if they're thinking it. So my impressions based on people talking to me afterwards might be biased. But I got a lot of amazing gushing comments. Seriously. One guy wanted hints from me on how to play guitar--hello? Were you paying attention at all? However, I also got extremely positive feedback from people I know who, admittedly are very nice, but whose opinions I also respect.

So, I'm glad I came and that I did all three songs, though earlier today I had decided not to do the first one.

And now for the other people. There were lots of people. There were thirty songs overall. And an amazingly huge number of them were just wonderful. Most people did not perform flawlessly, but they were a great pleasure to listen to. There was some more folk music, a violin duet, a viola/piano duet, an oboe (I think), some singing duets with piano accompaniment. Someone played a song she had written herself, which stunned everyone (in a good way). Several people were intimidated and decided not to do anything today, but all the ones I talked to were planning to practice something to do for the next one.

There were some things I didn't enjoy, or that I didn't enjoy much, and those can all be summarized by the phrase "audience participation." But overall, it was shockingly good, and I hope the host's recording of it went well, because there are some things I'd greatly enjoy listening to repeatedly. During these things it's so easy to remember that I really like music.

If you weren't invited to this recital, I highly recommend hosting one, especially if you have a piano.

Meanwhile, I still have some recovering to do. Performing those songs completely drained me. I am not used to having so much adrenaline (or whatever this is) running around in my system.

Comments

[livingdeb.livejournal.com]

Thanks for all this information. Also, Robin says paragraph #2 above is one of the most well-written paragraphs of all time, especially that first sentence.