♫♪♫Daddy Sang Bass, Mama Sang Tenor♫♪♫

 

As the ward organist, I was playing, “Love At Home” for our opening hymn this happy Mother’s Day morning in Sacrament Meeting, but something just wasn’t right.  I was trying to concentrate on getting my feet to all the right pedals, which unfortunately kept jumping all over with the bass line, and figure out what was wrong at the same time.  I couldn’t hear people singing parts anywhere and the ladies in front of me that have very strong beautiful  voices sounded awful.  What in the heck were they singing?  The melody an octave lower in the tenor range?  Jim, with the lovely tenor voice, is up on the stand wondering, “And since when could I hit all these bass notes?  Dallin, (my previously paid ward choir deep bass guy who is home for Mother’s Day weekend), is stymied as to why he can’t even come close to hitting the bass notes that he’s always been able to before, and telling Nathan beside him that he’s lost his singing voice.  All the while, my mind is scrambling for answers.  Dare I start messing with knobs in the middle of the song?  Should I try and do something in between verses?  Just how many places can I look at once and not totally massacre the music?  But  -- the people in the congregation are obviously in pain, what should I do?

I decided to just wait and search for answers after the song was over, but I can tell you right now that “Love At Home” is an agonizingly long song when it sounds that awful and you know that you’re the reason. 

In the event that you are ever in a similar situation, let me tell you about a nasty little knob on the left hand side of your organ, (should it happen to be an old style “Allen” organ like ours), that just might save you some grief.  By turning the knob to the left or the right, you can transpose the music up or down five steps.  Well, some knot head had turned that knob completely to the left and the organ was playing the music so high that everyone was hopelessly aiming for the octave lower than what was written in the hymn book. I set it back to ‘Normal,’ but when I started the sacrament song, it sounded like the song was written just for basses, the contrast was so great.  My, my, what a way to start a Mother’s Day.

Then, for the strangest of Mother’s Day gift remembrances that the bishopric has ever given out. . .  The counselor in the bishopric stood up after the closing prayer and asked all the mothers in the congregation to stand, and then for some wild reason he mentioned how during the ward service project on “Earth Day,” he had talked to women in the ward and when asking them what they would like from the bishopric for Mother’s Day, they had given him a very specific answer.  He then asked the young men in the ward  to go back to the foyer and bring back a tree for each mother.  I’m playing the postlude “mood music” at this point, wondering, “A TREE???  WHERE in the world am I going to put another tree in our yard?  I don’t need another tree, I get no sun as it is.  In fact, I don’t WANT another tree. What women in the ward were responsible for this travesty?  Dang.  What am I going to do with this tree during the rest of the meetings?  Maybe Jim would take it with him when he left to go do stake business in another ward.  What kind of tree would our bishopric buy us, anyway?”  This is all too weird.  And then the young men come out with baskets. "Just what kind of tree would fit in a basket?”   I can’t see what’s going on, this is all basically being picked up in my peripheral vision and I’m getting a headache from all the unanswered questions zinging around in my now “mystery-ed” out brain. 

Honestly, when the little deacon shoved the basket full of See’s chocolate bars right in front of my face, blocking my music as I continued to try to play the postlude, I almost grabbed him around the neck and hugged him anyway.  No tree after all; just a “treat” I can easily manage without needing a shovel, manure, or space to put it.  Happy Mother’s Day Sacrament Meeting ending after all.