Week of Recitals

This past week was a week of recitals. It seemed that all my time was dedicated to both the piano and the organ. I had to wear a dress every day this week (in the bitter cold, we're talking -14 degrees) due to some kind of performance or another. Wednesday was our student's piano recital. For those of you who didn't know, I was in a piano pedagogy class this past semester. Some of you may be wondering what in the world the word "pedagogy" means. Pedagogy is the art, science, or profession of teaching. So in short, this class teaches you how to teach piano. Each of us in the class were assigned a local student somewhere between the ages of seven and twelve. My student was Ben, a ten-year-old from Rexburg who had never taken piano before. Ben was special and different from the other students in the sense that he had a learning disability. Ben has high-functioning autism. I was surprised when I found out at the initial interview and wondered how that would affect our piano lessons. Ben proved to be a joy though. He was so cute and fun to work with. I learned a lot from him, and I hope he learned a little something from me too. :) The other teachers would always come up to me and say things like, "I love Ben!" or, "Your student is so fun." Ben has the wonderful talent of bringing a smile to your face. I became quite attached to him over the 10-week course and was so proud of him as he got up and performed the song "Hot Cross Buns" in his first recital. I got a taste of what it might be like to be a parent that day.



I was a little more nervous for my next recital because I was the one who was actually playing. On Thursday we had our final student organ recital. It was bad timing, but I happened to get really sick that day. I was miserable during classes and I wondered if I would even be able to play. I walked into the building with my teeth chattering, and they wouldn't stop. I couldn't tell if it was from the cold or because I was sick. I really wanted to play partly because I had friends and family who had come to watch, and partly because I love the organ I was going to play on and I had been working so hard on my piece for weeks and weeks. I took some deep breaths and said a silent prayer in my heart that I would be able to stop shaking. Prayer works. Almost immediately after finishing my prayer, I was able to stop shaking and keep it under control. My pain and sickness went away momentarily (although the nervousness did not) and I was able to get up and perform my piece, and I did well. Not long after the recital the pain came back, but I said a silent prayer of thanks to my Father in Heaven for that small miracle. An organ recital may seem like a trivial thing, but it was very important to me and He knew that.



As I said before, I am in love with this organ. It is called the Rouffatti, and is the third largest organ owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I had been looking forward to playing it all semester. I spent hours in the concert hall practicing on the Rouffatti in preparation for my recital. It is quite a rush to play in there! Between the number of pipes, the volume capacity, and the acoustics in the hall it's not hard to make your presence known. I felt like everyone in the building could hear me. For being a quiet person who doesn't normally like to draw attention to herself, I find it odd that I get such pleasure out of playing an instrument with such a powerful and commanding presence.



Here I am at the Rouffatti. During practice, I accidentally lost my pencil down the cracks of the pedals. I couldn't reach my hand in to retrieve it, so now I guess I have left a piece of me there. :)


This is a picture of me and my organ teacher, Sister Parkinson. We have known each other for about a year now. She is really great, and so funny. She says words like "dude" and "yo" which catches you off guard at first. If I end up sticking around Rexburg, I would like to continue taking lessons with her.