Shaking Hands and Heart in My Throat

Yesterday was ward conference in our new ward, and I was asked to play a piano solo for Relief Society. This was only our 3rd Sunday in the ward, so the RS president referred to it as my baptism by fire. :)

I had a little over a week to prepare, so I opted to play one of my own pieces. Well, sort of. So far I haven't completely anything COMPLETELY original, but I have written arrangements of and accompaniments to hymns for choir. The first one I ever did is a medley of the hymns on prayer, and with a little tweaking it works as a piano solo as well. I figured that my nerves would probably kick in pretty good since I'm not in a comfort zone anymore, so I chose that one (I performed a not-my-own-work solo of Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing in our old ward a few months ago and getting it ready gave me fits, so I figured that taking nerves into account it would be a bad choice this time).

Practicing went well and I actually got pretty bored with it. Didn't feel nervous at all the morning of, not in Sacrament Meeting or anything. I went to the RS room during Sunday School to run through it a couple of times and get the feel of that piano, and it went fine; even with people walking in and out and setting up for RS. (The tone on that piano is so lovely that it really smacked me in the face how badly our piano needs to be tuned!)

Then Relief Society started and I about had a stroke! Something that always worries me is blanking out while I play. Sometimes I'm able to get into this "zone" where I'm not consciously concentrating on what I'm doing and I get lost in the music, and that's when I play best. But if that gets broken by a distraction I can find myself staring at the music without it registering where I am, even though I've been reading it the whole time. It's horrible when that happens! That worry, coupled with seeing again all these sisters whom I don't know, really got me going. It didn't help that as the RS president was introducing the program she said that she had heard me practicing and I was "amazing." I sat there thinking, "Well now I'm jinxed for sure!" I said a few prayers and was able to enjoy the speakers and found myself relaxing. My hands didn't get cold or anything. Then, when it was time I started playing and it was fine. Then halfway through the piece, as I got into the more involved parts that also call for more emotion, my freaking hands started trembling, and my heart literally moved up into my throat! Through that, though, I actually was able to pull off one of my better performances and made few mistakes--more obvious to me than them, I think.

I ended up happy with the performance, and so many people were so kind and complimentary. That was a good feeling. I was even happier when I was able to stop shaking about 20 minutes later!