After a year of waiting, administrative details and some challenging life events, I *finally* got to play music at a local children’s hospital. It was FUN! It was crazy! Here are the details.

I pulled off, barely, in 3 or 4 days what I should have done over 3 months; namely, practice with my heavier alto flute everyday in measured doses, find backing tracks, figure out slowly how to write harmony and transpose music for an instrument that is in G etc. But noooo, I worked on this like a maniac for 3 or 4 days solid because I didn’t know what I was getting into until I had jumped off the proverbial cliff.

After arriving at the hospital lobby, I had the choice of a comfy chair, that looked like a propped up blood cell, or a bar stool. I plopped down in the nucleus of the blood cell and started setting up the ueber scary, brand new technology – a bluetooth wireless speaker synched up with my iPhone and a playlist that I was counting on.

Bluetooth didn’t work – used a cord. Playlist shuffled itself (eek). I hadn’t worked on the music enough (double eek). And I’ve performed in a wide variety of places but never with a blender or espresso machine running in the background (hospital lobby snack bar). 🙂  And a sweet man was talking to me, for a short while, and God Blessing me every sentence while I was playing the flute and wrestling with techno/musical ad lib challenges. (But he made my day!!) And my fingers were so clamped onto the flute, because of nerves and the weight of the flute, that I had to manually pry them off so I could mess with my iPhone – mid song!

I put on my best actor/interpreter face, and despite turning into a marshmallow moosh mess on the inside, I had FUN and pulled it off well enough to pass the virtual interview. I will practice MUCH more, especially with the lighter flute, and be better prepared for next time; at which point, I get to play on the hospital floor for the sick kiddos. CAN’T WAIT!!!!

The closest I’ll ever get to having my name “up in lights”