Grrr.
*sigh* So, for the past year, I've been the ward Primary Chorister. I love my calling. I love teaching music and playing around with the kids singing and being silly getting them to sing. It's been a little hard being pregnant and not having the energy I did when I first was called, but I've made it work. (I'll have you know that at seven and a half months pregnant, I can still do Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes just as fast as anyone in the Primary.) I have great kids to teach and I've had a wonderful pianist who was absolutely amazing.
Well, my pianist had a baby a month ago and then moved two weeks ago. So, for two weeks we had to scramble to find a sub to play in Primary. I can play the songs fairly well, top hand no problem and I've improved significantly on most songs to do both hands. (thanks Brooke for storing your piano at my house.) It's shaky, but I can't lead the singing and play at the same time. And finding a sub at the last minute is incredibly difficult as it is, let alone find one who can play piano and is willing to do so. Still, we managed to find wonderful pianist quickly and fairly painlessly.
Two Sundays ago, they called a new pianist for the Primary. I had never met her before, but I knew her name--they call a lot needing appointments with the Bishop. Charles had told me that they had a name and that they were just trying to get her in to extend the call, so when the First Counselor in the Primary Presidency called and told me who my pianist was going to be, I wanted to make sure that they had really extended the call before I gave her any music. Since the counselor called me late Friday night, it wasn't until late on Saturday that I double check with Charles that everything was cool. Sunday morning, I had all the music ready and a month's worth of planning all done, with every song we would be singing picked out and put in order. I had a schedule made up of when we do what in primary. They called her in church and she was there and that was the first time I saw her. By the time Primary came around, I went to Primary and waited for her to at least come in and introduce herself and ask for materials...I wasn't expecting her to come and play or anything. Ten minutes pass (with me playing prelude and trying to keep kids quiet) and she doesn't show. Thankfully, Charles was waiting in the hall to see if she did come and was able to catch her talking to the first counselor, telling her that she didn't feel well and didn't feel prepared enough to play today. So, he found me a sub and let me know what she said. Very nice, since nobody else told me anything. He also let me know that she was an inactive member and that it was pretty impressive that she came and that he had never seen her at church on Sunday before.
So, later on that week, I called the new pianist to see if I could bring over the music and stuff so she could practice. We set up a time (it was actually a little weird, she set up a specific time) I took her the music and explained everything that I brought over fairly explicitly (Charles was there and backs me up on this.) Saturday afternoon, I get a message from my pianist saying that she must have a different songbook than I do, because one of the songs I listed wasn't in her book. Then, in the background, I hear her husband saying that the song wasn't Teach An Angel Came to Joseph Smith, but that I was going to teach An Angel Came to Joseph Smith.
So, Sunday morning was Mother's Day and the Primary was going to sing. We had practiced the song, but never with the new pianist, but I wasn't worried about it. It wasn't a hard song, anyone who can read fairly basic music can follow the songbook. She gets to church and then the first counselor comes up to me and says that my pianist doesn't know what she's supposed to play today. I sat there thinking, "this is impossible, I explained to her that we were singing this song in sacrament meeting and my plans for each day are very explicit." So, I went over and explained it again to her. Sacrament meeting starts and it's time for the Primary to sing. I get the kids up on the stand, nod to the pianist to start playing and get ready to start. Oh my goodness. She played just the top hand (I'm fine with that...it was her first time playing with us), didn't pay any attention to the repeat sign in the song, which then puts her at a different place in the song than us, and she had no sense of tempo, at least not that I could hear. It wouldn't have been so bad, except for it threw the Primary kids off and they kept looking at her when they should have been singing. After the song was done, I sent the kids back to their seats and sat down, shaking. Charles was in shock about it too. Not that we were expecting John Longhurst talent, but I wasn't expecting quite what happened either.
We get to Primary, and I had to explain to her that she needed to play quietly while the kids came in to help them be reverent. All through Primary, I kept having to explain to her that if she wasn't going to give me an introduction for the song, she needed to at least give me the starting note so I could start the kids in tune. A few times, I had to go over and show her where to start the song. She could barely keep up with us. She was so flustered by just what we did. And we didn't do very hard songs. And because I kept having to deal with her, I couldn't pay attention to the kids like I needed to and couldn't keep their attention.
And now, I have to figure out how to make this work. Charles told me that she told the bishop she had had two years of piano lessons. Two years could mean that she finished two books of piano lessons--which doesn't mean two years. And she could just have been really nervous. And, since she has been inactive, who knows if she will keep coming to church, or just decide that she can't do it and stop showing up, leaving me without a pianist. Plus, she doesn't seem to be able to handle a change of plans well, which is bad since I often have to change my plans due to no time or the kids already knowing a song I was going to teach or just being rowdy and needing to calm them down. Not to mention the fact that I can't plan when I'm going to have this baby or that a sub will do what I planned to do.
And I'm torn because I feel like I should be helping her, but how? I can't teach piano...I'm not qualified to do that. Plus, not knowing if she will be there or be able to play what I need her to play leaves me feeling horribly unprepared, which then makes me feel like I'm not prepared for anything else. It's stress that I don't need and can't get rid of. What's worse, is I feel like I'm being really judgemental of her, when I'm just worried about trying to make all this work. I can't simplify the music any more than just having her play the top hand and she was barely able to do that.
I guess I'll just have to see how this week goes and go from there.