Didn't know it was possible...

I have played the piano nearly the entire day, yet I think I could still go for several hours if I needed to.

Most of the day was spent practicing with different high school band students who are preparing for solo & ensemble contest on Saturday. Their music is classical, which is what I used to play exclusively, but I haven't had the opportunity to play any of it in probably fifteen years. I have had an interesting time navigating through it. I'm playing for most of them, too, which means I don't have a lot of down-time. I will be honest when I tell you that I really haven't had the time OR inclination to spend a great deal of outside time practicing it on my own, but I'm actually rather pleased at my sight-reading skills. I'm sure I could be much, much better if I only played for one student, but with fourteen of them, they'll have to be happy with what they get.

Several of them are just awful at keeping a steady count throughout their pieces, so most of my accompanying is actually just trying to find where they've jumped to and start playing there. Heck, I'd be upset if I'd spent a great deal of time learning the piano parts to these things just to have the students botch it like that. So I try not to invest TOO much time into it. It's not about the accompanist, anyway; as long as I don't detract, I'm okay.

As soon as I was finished practicing with them this afternoon, I went home briefly to make sure the babysitting was going as planned, then I went BACK to the high school to do a "dress rehearsal" of each of their songs. Two hours of that, and two more people handing me their music at the last minute (!!)... and as soon as I was done there, I jumped into the car and headed down to Norwalk to the rehearsal for Sunday morning worship. I know, I said I wasn't going to do it this week, but I couldn't stand it. It's just a totally blech week if I don't get to hang out with them and play music, so I begged Jeff to let me come late and at least play on one or two songs.

I knew it would be an interesting night when the first song they ran through after I got there was a reggae-style version of Amazing Grace.

Oh. my. word.
You have GOT to be kidding me.
But amazingly, it worked. I have to say, I've never ever in my life played reggae-style. There's a first time for everything, eh? It was fun. I don't know how much fun it will be for the people listening, but it's certainly fun to play.

We also rehearsed the one song that needed to be mostly keyboard-driven; I had spent a great deal of time listening closely to that song on a CD to get the keyboard part down correctly. It's really stretching my mind these past couple of weeks, because I've actually sort-of gotten used to doing it all by ear, and I've had to dust off my music-reading abilities for the band students.

I wish I could play the piano for a living. Well, that, and paint watercolors.