> Welcome to a very silent group. I think you are in another group I am
in...?

I'm in both LDS Sacred Music and LDS Choir.

> Are you also getting the piano that plays the CD's for use in the
Primary room?
> I have heard of several new buildings that have those.

Haven't heard anything about that yet. I'll have to ask.

My own children are musically inclined (they play bassoon, alto saxophone,
and euphonium respectively), but I never could afford to give them piano
lessons and now I regret it. I took piano lessons as a kid, but never
learned to play well enough to play hymns in church. However, that didn't
stop our branch president in Lousiana years ago from calling me as branch
pianist when our only organist went off to college. I had to play
one-handed because there was no way I could possibly sight-read two hands at
the same time. When branch conference came along, they let me pick the
songs to play. I closed with one of the few hymns I could actually play
with both hands, "We Thank Thee, O God, For a Prophet." When I played the
closing hymn, the stake president leaned over to look at me because he
thought a miracle had taken place! :-) We have one counselor in the branch
presidency here in Iowa that teasingly gives our organist a hard time if she
goes out of town because he hates the CDs and prefers live music. I called
his bluff one time and brought my flute to church and played the opening and
closing hymn on the flute while the congregation sang so that he could have
his "live" music that he wanted so badly. (I only took up the flute about 7
years ago.) It actually sounded nice, but playing solo still makes me
nervous enough to run out of breath too quickly and I don't sound as smooth
as I would like. Our new organ will definitely be a welcome addition. But
I do believe that we need to get more people involved in taking the church's
keyboard course. My 15yo daughter is interested. We have a piano at here
at home, but our home is one of those places where if there is any flat
surface available at all, it collects things, including the piano. You
wouldn't believe the junk I would have to clear off to get the piano usable
again. But she does have my old electronic keyboard up in her room and she
plays around with that. She composed a really nice piece of music a few
months ago that turned out rather well. Last year she took a class in
school on how to compose music on an electronic keyboard and this year she
put the knowledge to use composing something I thought was really
interesting. We sent a copy to her music teacher from last year and he
could see that she had made a definite improvement.

Charlotte in Iowa