“We are altogether unprofitable servants . . . 

which includes the Mozart Requiem.  (Head on over to my “Behind the Music” blog to read the posts so far on this masterpiece.)  I always struggle with learning new music, especially the difficult stuff (of course).   We usually have some very helpful practice music files on our member page, and this time is no different.  In fact, there’s a plethora of material out there on the Requiem, as there is for most big, well-known pieces.  Our web administrator has posted a YouTube series that shows the sheet music page by page as a music file plays.  You can choose which

vocal part you want to hear emphasized and that will be in the foreground.  So, pretty cool, but the source of the music is something called a midi file, which is electronic, not vocal.  Or of course there are tons of actual performances out there, either on video or as audio files.  But then everyone is singing together, so you can’t hear your part separately.  Or there’s always the old sit-at-the-piano-and-plunk-out-your-part method, which I’ve certainly done many times.  So you can play your part as slowly as you need, stopping and starting at will, but you’re not hearing the words or accompaniment and you have to be sure you’re playing correctly, both for the notes and for the rhythm, not always true for me.  I’ve said in the past that I dearly wish there could be a vocal version of the separate parts, so that someone could actually be singing my part, words and music, in my ear, and all I’d have to do is sing along.  But I realized that this type of thing would probably require more work and expense than a freebie video, so I sort of forgot about it.

But those sixteenth-note runs in the fugue sections weren’t coming together very well for me.  So one evening I did a little more googling.  I don’t even remember what exactly I put in the search terms. (It’s all in the search terms!)  And suddenly, there it was, the site of my dreams:  SingleParts.  (And then of course I discovered that they’re not the only one–I just came upon another one, ChoraLine, and there are probably more.) The catch is that you have to pay for the materials, about $20, but I figure that I got my money’s worth the first day I used it, going through all the tenor choral parts twice and also using the slowed-down versions of the difficult sections.  It’s amazingly helpful.

What on earth does all this have to do with Luke chapter 7?  Just this:  I was feeling pretty proud of myself.  Boy, was I going to nail this music!  And how smart was I in the first place to even find this stuff online?  I should be singled out for my all-encompassing dedication.  And then the thought occurred to me, ‘Debi, you’re just doing your job.  You’re supposed to learn your part, whatever it takes and however you do it. Just get to work.’  A bit of a facer, as the British would say.  I don’t deserve any particular credit for doing what I’m supposed to do in the first place, do I?  All very humbling.

Here it is, Friday afternoon, and there’s a ton of work for me to do.  I’ve allowed myself to get totally distracted by trying to figure out what accounts I want to use for audiobooks, my new great love.  And, oh yes, fiddling with my new phone, the replacement for the one that got wet.  I guess it’s pretty ironic that the first book I’ve checked out from one of the services I’m trying out is about how successful women manage their time!  You know what?  No one’s going to pat me on the head and say, “Hey, you got the living room vacuumed!  And your shopping list made up for that Sunday lunch you’ve invited people over for!  And you met your goal of re-doing three recipes today!”  Nope.  Won’t happen.  I just need to do what I need to do.  So I guess I’d better quit maundering on here and just get on with things.

How about you?  Are you a gold star junkie, like I tend to be, and like Gretchen Rubin talks about? Well, I guess we’d better just get over it.