A Moment Of Panic

Lessons Learned

Lights To Black

We were fifteen minutes from show time. The cast of youngsters was well prepared and perfectly ready to shine. The adoring audience of family members and friends had trickled in and, with fresh bouquets on their laps for their after-the-show stars, these enthusiastically supportive folks were a-buzz with gleeful anticipation to finally see in context the lines they had been hearing in isolation for months. Costumes, check. Props, check. All cast present, check.  We convened the full cast backstage for our final detail check and for the “fire-up, yes-you-can, you are awesome” talk. They were set, and, now, on their own, as I left them to go to the piano to accompany their show. Just prior to the curtain opening, the mood for the performance would be established with a quick five minute overture of music from the show, while the youngsters waited excitedly in the wings with their happy toes on the starting line ready to dash into the opening scene. As I sat upon the piano bench, our light technician took the lights to black; time for the overture. In the blackness which was fully charged with expectancy, I realized there was no light on the piano. Each second of blackness weighed as an eternity on this accompanist who could not see her fingers to play the overture. Everyone waited, but only one waited in sheer panic. Overture. Now. Before anyone noticed the problem. Reaching for the keys, those familiar friends I can see in my sleep, I set my hands in relation to middle C, closed my eyes and began to play the overture. It wasn’t perfect. But it was okay. It fit the bill.  It provided the adequate and expected mood-setting opening crescendo that ushered in scene one and then the rest of the youngsters’ brilliant performance.  In the flurry of accolades, applause, photos and flowers that followed the show, no one noticed the deep sigh of relief exhaled by the accompanist who would never forget a light again.

Heart-Filling Joy When Children Sing

Lessons Learned

The Sound Of Heaven

I sometimes wonder if the sound of Heaven will be children’s voices singing, because on earth, there is nothing more precious, more beautiful than this. Frequently, when I am accompanying our three hundred elementary aged students singing with all of their hearts in our weekly chapel, I close my eyes and feel overwhelmed by the power of their sweet yet unconstrained and glorious sound. Absolutely angelic. One year, with the sixth graders, we were working on creating motions to a contemporary Christian song which we were preparing as a part of a program for an upcoming trip to a retirement center. At last our work was finished, polished, and ready for sharing. One of our students’ moms heard that the song’s recording artist was to be in our hometown and on a whim, emailed him describing our project. He responded and wondered if he might stop in and watch them perform.  We gathered for an all-school assembly and began by singing many songs all together, filling the gym with huge, magnificent, all-in, raise-the-roof, beautiful song. He arrived in time to be blessed by this. As he unobtrusively stood in the gym doorway, he shut his eyes and sang along with the voices of the three hundred children. He watched the performance of his song. We thought he would quietly slip out after that to prepare for his own performance that evening. But no. He asked if he might share a word with the students. He spoke of love and gifts and music and blessing. He spoke of the importance of reaching beyond ourselves and sharing. He had the rapt attention of each student. The gym was silent, but for his voice and words. In closing, he asked if he might play a song for the students to sing with him, which they were more than thrilled to do. He played. They sang. He sang along for a while, but then he closed his eyes, kept playing, and just listened to the children as they filled the gym with their heavenly voices. He was blessed. They were blessed. Many are blessed…when children sing.

Lessons Learned…

The Universal Language Of Music

Six languages in one first grade classroom.  Swedish. Greek. Japanese. Afganistan. Spanish. English.  Our hope was to teach them all to read.  Our priority was to build a community, to communicate, but the first few days of school made that priority seem quite remote and that hope nearly impossible.  We had no means by which to connect and our only apparent common ground right then was that we shared a classroom, a cold, lonely one at that. After lunch each day, we had a twenty minute window of time during which we played acoustic instrumental music, and the students were encouraged to either look at a picture book, quietly draw a picture, or simply relax and listen to the music. Surprisingly, most students opted to listen to the music. It was calm, soothing, peaceful, and biased toward no one language. Each mind processes music in its own language.  Perhaps music held a key. We wrote a song about counting to ten. We asked each student to count to ten in his or her primary language, which we phonetically wrote down.  We all learned how to count to ten in each of our class languages with great and enthusiastic help from each other. It was a spectacular song, made exponentially better by the robust participation and growing  esprit de corps of our classroom community.  By sharing a little piece of each other’s language, we were able to share a little piece of each other’s heart.  Our community grew. Our trust grew. Our learning grew. We became readers.  We became friends. We shared a song.  

Lessons Learned…

From The Heel-Digging-In-Place Called “I Can’t”

“There’s no way. This song is just too hard to play. I could never learn it.” The student was overwhelmed.

“Yes, you can. One note at a time you will learn it. You must learn it, because your choir director needs you to play it. I will help you.” The teacher believed.  

So began the arduous work of learning the piano accompaniment for Beethoven’s Halleluia Chorus from The Mount Of Olives, a brilliant, stunning, powerful, but outrageously challenging piece of music for this extremely ordinary high school junior piano student. Time. Patience. Encouragement. Commitment. Tears more than once. Then, at last, in the nick of time, accomplishment. I could. I did.

Fast-forward thirty-five years.

“There’s no way. The Gettysburg Address is way too long. We could never learn it.” The students were overwhelmed.

“Yes, you can. One word at a time. One phrase at a time. You must learn it, all of you, because it’s in the script. I will help you.” The teacher believed.  

Of course they learned the Gettysburg Address. Of course they could. Of course they did.

“I can’t” can be an insurmountable hurdle, a place where effort becomes paralyzed by doubt and fear of failure. Words of encouragement whispered optimistically, sincerely, and frequently from the heart of a “yes, you can” believer, a teacher, who promises to train alongside and then run alongside all the way, provide the impetus of hope that ignites the spark of a willingness to try. Encouragement believes. Encouragement inspires. Encouragement motivates. Encouragement energizes. Encouragement says “yes,” and more often than not, it is all that we need to move beyond “I can’t.” Have you been an encourager today?      

Challenging the Treasure...Through Pre-Performance Jitters

Challenging the Treasure…Through Pre-Performance Jitters

“How many are out there waiting for the curtain to open?” hesitantly queried a slightly nerve-stricken first grader.

“Looks like a million, cuz I just peeked,” her not-so-reassuring best friend co-cast member cringed.

“A million or one, it makes no difference as long as you look over their heads and project to the exit sign on the back wall. Just whatever you do, don’t look into their eyes cuz that’s when you forget everything,” sprightly piped in the resident class aspiring Broadway star.

“I feel sick. Really, really sick. Oooooo, my stomach!”  whimpered the friends.

***Pause the story***

This is not an unusual conversation to have or to hear backstage just prior to a performance. The rumbling tightness in a tummy before a show, sometimes called butterflies, sometimes called stage fright, sometimes called the jitters, is just the adrenalin running through the body getting a performer ready to do his or her very best by focusing attention on all that must be remembered. Understanding this and performing through the tummy tightness is very empowering and confidence boosting regardless of the age of the performer. The subsequent uproarious applause is glorious and affirming and is truly a sound everyone needs to hear as a recipient at some point in their lives, for the echoes of applause ripple through one’s memory forever. Thirty years of writing, directing, and accompanying children’s musical plays have given me an excellent glimpse into the power of the performing arts to reach, touch, and transform a child, a cast, an audience, a director. Perfection? That’s never the goal; never even mentioned.  Collaboration, cooperation, full participation, and best efforts all around comprise  the perfectly worthy and always attained expectations.

***Resume the story***

“Deep breath. Think about all of our practices and remember how good you all are together. We’re a team. And we’re fabulous. Your families and friends can’t wait to see all that you all know!”  cheered this teacher.

Just as our rumbling tummy tightness group was focusing on preparing to cast their eyes above the audience heads and in the process forgetting the rumbling, which by the way focusing does, the backstage door burst open and in sprinted a very panicky first grade cast member mother.

“Jane has the chicken pox; the doctor just confirmed it. She’s devastated. And I am so so very sorry. I have to run, she’s in the car,” gasped the mom as she turned and dashed out stage left.

“Send her a hug from us,” we offered to the whoosh that was her mother exiting.

Backstage silence. Ashen-faced cast. Wide-eyed shock. Breathless pause on the brink of tears.  Jane was the lead forest animal and had a solo to sing.

This teacher dared the question, “Who can do Jane’s part?”

Momentary backstage silence filled with dubious anticipation weighed rather heavily on the question, until a soft, unexpected voice in the very back simply said, “I can. I will do my part, and I can do Jane’s, too. I learned everyone’s lines.”  Focus returned. The show went on. Confidence soared. And the chicken pox ran its course.