If you're happy and you know it......

My, "If you're happy and you know it..." would be "...sing a song". Because, if I am happy I will be singing who knows what, just singing. Sometimes I will start singing and usually church hymns start coming out of my mouth. Or sometimes I just make up songs or new music to old lyrics, just whatever comes into my head comes out my mouth. And I would sing in the ward choir from time to time. Well you know how they say, "If you don't use it you will lose it." well it is true. I lost my voice for a couple of years. Just could not make the pipes work for me. I couldn't sing anything and that was truly sad for me. I think it was allergies or something but for whatever reason it didn't work.

Then a couple of years ago we got a new ward choir director, Brother Troy, and after being asked to join the choir several times I realized that I actually had a voice again and began to sing with our choir (missed a lot of preformances because of traveling so much last year, lol!). Choir practice is at 11:00 Sunday mornings and we were supposed to sing a new arrangement of As I Have Loved You. When Brother Troy handed out the music he asked for a volunteer for the solo part. I thought I should offer to sing it because I have sung that song before in Sacrament meeting but being unsure of my ability to do a good job I kept quiet. Sister Penni, being a great soprano, was voluntold. We were supposed to sing it last Sunday. I kept feeling that I was supposed to sing it and actually went to Brother Troy's house on Wednesday before our last practice to tell him that I thought that I was supposed to sing the solo. But he wasn't home and then I forgot about it and I figured that it was too late to get help practicing so I didn't say anything more. However, when we got to choir practice we were told that the plans for our singing that song were changed to the last Sunday of the month. It was then that Sister Penni announced that she was having knee surgery and would not be able to sing that week. I wispered to her that I would talk to Brother Troy about my singing it. So what does she do but announce it to the whole choir. Ah swell! So after choir practice, Brother Troy came over and asked me if I would like some help practicing and we set up practice time on Fridays at 3:00 p.m.

Today at 3:00 p.m. I went to his house and found out that I was going to have two months of singing lessons. Oh my goodness! That is way more than I had expected. He checked my range, which was two and one half octaves. He checked my breathing by having me take in a deep breath and then releasing air with an S sound and he timed me as to how long I could sustain the sound, 47 seconds. He said that that was very good and that my range was very good. But with practice I would be able to hold my note out for over a full minute and that my range should increase by 8 notes. Again, that was way more than I had expected. So we practiced the solo part several times and he gave me suggestions on improving my diction and a couple of other things. He is so sweet! He didn't want to overwhelm me with his critiquing and I just felt really comfortable and tried to do what he asked of me. What a blessing! Perhaps this will give me the confidence I need to be able to sing the songs in my heart that will bear testimony of our Savior Jesus Christ. I know that Heavenly Father wants me to sing and this will help me do that!!!