Praise night complications

An update of sorts.

The event is Tuesday. It was originally supposed to be a band, but I lost all my musicians when the date was rescheduled. I have a lot of singers (I think.... hope? gulp), but the instrumentation may just be me, especially if the other guitar players reluctant to take on the challenge of the somewhat more complex arrangements of the selected praise music. We're supposed to have practices on Sunday and Monday. I've got my fingers crossed - one of the numbers is a bluesy gospel number that really needs a full band. I'm trying to swing like I'm a full band on my guitar. I'm quite nervous and worried.

In the meantime... and I'm not entirely sure how this happened... I've been roped into leading the music for a Mass at a retreat. On the team for a retreat like this, there is a team member who is in charge of handling the music. The two most important duties for this person are to (1) sing the retreat's thematic song a few times a day, and (2) find someone to lead the music at the Mass. Seems this fellow wanted the glory of doing #1 without the mundane work of seeing to #2. (My problem with volunteers generally is that they are often too fond of the glorious accolade-earning portions of the tasks they are given, and not the work-oriented portions.)

So on Wednesday night, after Mass, I got asked to lead the music for this thing. I should have escaped from the socializing quicker, I suppose. Two of the songs picked for the thing are things I've never heard. I only have the sheet music for one of them. Now I can sight read on the guitar, but I've always found it difficult to sing from sheet music, so I went home and played it into the computer at home, so I could make a midi file out of it (which I've been listening to, since.)

The other tune, Brian Doerkson's 'Light the Fire Again' - well, there were just chords given to me. Great. That's going to help. Fortunately, it is a fairly popular praise song, and I found a midi file on the Internet. I wish I could hear it sung, but the midi file will have to do.

At any rate, this is all a distraction I did not need right now. I want my praise night - our first one - to go well, and I don't need to be covering up for the laziness and sloppiness of people who want the glory, but not the work! Grrr.....