Sitting Pretty in Fourth Chair

This past week, Johannah was set to attend the PMEA Regional Chorus Festival.  This is the second round in festivals, leading up to All-State.  The festivals are auditioned with chairs awarded to the best performers.

When Johannah attended Districts last month, she received first chair as an Alto 2.  Learning from the past experience of her brothers, this was no time to rest on her laurels.  Regionals are typically the hardest festival of the three, and she knew that she needed to know the music.

It comes as no surprise that my three children have prepared differently for Regionals.  Ethan, like most things in his life, preferred to study the music.  I spent the most hours with him at the piano, playing the music for him while he made notes about the different intervals and worked things out in his mind.  Mark, being Mark, would hear the music once or twice, make big pencil notes all over the music, and have it learned.  Actually, he might not have the music learned per se, but with his written notes, and his aural memory, he could walk into the audition, basically sight-read the music and perform well.  Johannah has her own technique, drawing from the lessons of her brothers.  She likes for me to play the music for her so she can hear it.  In fact, she has me record the harder parts for her, and she listens to them non-stop.  She makes some notes in her music, but really it's about the listening.  By the time she is ready to audition, she has all of the music for her part (typically 9-10 songs) completely memorized.  And as everyone knows, the best way to learn music is to memorize it.

This round was no exception.  She reviewed the music one last time the night before the festival, and she could sing it all straight (with just the starting note for each song).  It's quite amazing to listen to her sing her part like it's a melody line.  As she went to bed that night, John asked her to say the family prayer.  When she prayed for herself, she didn't offer the typical plea, "Please help me to make it to States," but instead offered this prayer:  "Please let my audition reflect the hard work I have put into practicing."

After the prayer, I couldn't help but comment on her mature way of thinking.  She has come to know that auditions aren't about playing perfectly (although that's always a plus), because it's an almost impossible task.  Auditions are truly about doing the best you can, and hoping that you have practiced enough to give your very best performance.  Good for her!  I wasn't worried for her at all--she was completely prepared.

We waited the next day to hear from her, and I was excited to see her name pop up on my cell phone at 10:30 p.m.  Although my cell phone indicated it was her calling, I certainly couldn't recognize her voice.  She was overcome with tears.  Actually, it was more full-out crying.

Her audition had been a disaster.  Knowing that she's not a music drama queen (you know those people who say they did terrible on an audition, or test, but end up getting the highest score), I knew something was wrong.  Although she had to explain herself a couple of times because we couldn't understand her through the crying, we figured out that things hadn't gone well.  The excerpt hadn't started on a standard breakpoint in the music, and she couldn't figure out what she was supposed to sing.  In fact, for 10 measures, she didn't have any idea what the notes were (and unlike Mark, she doesn't depend on sight-reading in auditions).  Too, she actually had to start over--the most dreaded words in audition terminology.

All I could do was sympathize with her, and tell her that this is all part of learning how to be a musician.  There are good auditions, and not-so-good auditions, but every audition is a learning experience.  I knew that she had done her best, and although it wasn't going to be good enough to advance to All-States, it was okay.  Life would go on.

After I hung up, I was upset.  Not at Johannah, and not at anything in particular.  Maybe just upset at the Fates for giving her a weird audition excerpt like that.  I tried to console myself and just be satisfied that she had made it this far.

The next morning, I woke up telling myself the same thing.  She wasn't going to advance, and it was okay.  I just wanted her to enjoy the rest of the festival.  However, something kept nagging at me.  I felt as though it wasn't right to give up hope; as if there was something greater to be learned from this experience.

In our church, we call this personal revelation.  I don't know what other people call it--hunches, maybe?

I was taken back to her prayer of two days earlier.  She hadn't prayed to go onto States.  She had prayed that her audition would reflect the hard work she had put into practicing.  I needed to have faith in that prayer--that indeed her audition was a reflection to the judges of how well she knew the music.  I knew at that moment that she was going to get fourth chair.

Sound strange?  I know it does.  There were 22 women auditioning on Alto 2, and only the top four would advance to States.  Johannah would have the fourth chair.

I didn't share this with anyone.  I needed to believe in it without hearing doubts from anyone else.  Of course, I didn't want to share it with Johannah.  I just knew it, and I knew it was an answer to me from God.  I have had several experiences like this in my life in regards to my children--I look at them as gifts from God.

I had waited all morning to hear, and I put my phone down to let the dogs out.  I could hear our home phone ringing loudly and ran back in to catch it.  The first words out of John's mouth were, "Fourth chair?? Can you believe it??  She made it!!"

I could believe it.  I wasn't surprised at all.  And I was reminded once again that God knows us all.  He knows the innermost desires of our hearts, and when those desires are good for us, he grants us our wishes.