My Only Concert

If the walls of a home could absorb music and then reflect it back some day, the music in the walls of the Grover ranch house would be Franz Lists' Leibistraum.

 

Sometime in my last years of high school I took in upon myself to memorize this reasonably difficult piece. I have a good ear for music and I am all right at interpretation. Reading the music and transferring it from brain to fingers was an exercise that I had to work for. This work happened early in the morning sometimes even before Dad was awake and after school. I'm sure it made Mom happy as she had encouraged any of us who would pursue the piano beginning with my first piano teacher Ruth Clark. For the rest of this small three bedroom one bath household there would have been no escaping these endless drills on the Kimball piano.

 

Sometime after I had memorized this music someone talked me into performing it at the regional high school music contest at Evanston Wyoming. I think I only agreed to this, because I knew that was no real audience. The individual performers played only before a judge [A BYU music professor] and what few other performers happened to be waiting for their turn. The place for our performance was the LDS Stake Center and I was scheduled to play in the afternoon. Several of us wandered over to the stake center in the morning to see what was going on and the professor told us that if any of us wanted to play at that time there were openings. I didn't want to play ever but I was dying to get the anxiety cloud that was following me gone. I went outside ran around the entire stake center to calm my nerves, came back in and told him I was ready. To my surprise he gave me an "A".

 

This "A" came with a price. Those who got "A's" were then invited to perform at the closing music concert at Star Valley High. This was an audience of the entire student body, faculty, and parents. What was I thinking? My biggest audience to that point was playing the hymns occasionally for seminary class. In SVHS the guy heroes were athletes not piano players. Most of the student body didn't even know I played the piano and now I was the featured pianist in the closing high school concert. There was something wrong with this picture. At the appointed time that evening I left the relative comfort and anonymity of the trombone section and made my way to the grand piano. Apparently I was too ignorant to know that there was a very real chance of tunnel vision and complete black out setting in such a situation. With the exception of playing one part twice the performance seemed to go without flaw.--------Athletes of the high school eat your hearts out. Is it possible that the meek shall really inherit the earth?  

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