Assembly Performance
Arnav
I was sitting at my desk when my dad came into the room and told me I had to perform a song at the assembly with my sister.
“I signed you up for an assembly recital this week,” my dad said.
“What!?” I exclaimed. The last time I performed at assembly I had done horribly.
“Can you cancel it? I don’t want to perform,” I asked.
“You have to perform, there is no canceling,” he replied. I hadn’t played the song in a while, and I only had a week’s notice; on top of that, I was going on a trip with my friends for the long weekend, so I had to start practicing. I comforted myself with the fact that I had performed in a concert before and I would be fine performing in this one. The entire song was five minutes long, and each slot in the recital only allowed three. My guitar teacher and I then decided to cut out a few major parts. Slowly, the days trickled away and the stress began to build.
The day of the performance arrived. I had spent the previous day practicing the song, “Zombie” by The Cranberries, making sure everything worked. I played the electric guitar and my sister played the acoustic guitar while singing. I had gone over the whole song with my sister. While doing so I noticed that I occasionally messed up my mini-solo part.
I arrived at school while carrying my amplifier separately since it was too big to fit in my bag. After morning PE I went to the B2 playspace to drop off my amp to find no one. I was a little scared because I wasn’t sure where I was supposed to put the amp so I decided to look around. I went upstairs to find Natalie.
“Hey, I was just wondering where I should leave my guitar amplifier,” I asked.
“Oh, is it for the assembly performance?” she replied.
“Yeah.”
“You can just leave it on the stage,” she instructed.
“Ok, thanks,” I said as I went back downstairs. I left the amplifier at the corner of the stage and left for class. I came in again during lunch for a sound check. So many things went wrong, thank gosh there was a sound check. First, all the cables that were provided were wrong. Second, when I connected the guitar to the distortion pedal, then to the amp, no sound came out. I tried to connect each cable to the amplifier individually, and they worked! Then I switched the cables around and the whole setup worked just fine. We went through the whole song bit by bit and Natalie kept giving us tips on how to perform it correctly. Unfortunately, I still messed up my mini-solo part but when I practiced it individually I did it flawlessly. I then proceeded to go plan for another assembly that was coming up.
After lunch I made my way to advisory. I was agitated because I was told to come to the assembly early to help with the setup. I left advisory at around 1:20, which was way too early because when I got there, there wasn’t anyone around. I decided to go back to advisory for the next 15 minutes, which I spent pacing around and checking the time. At around 1:30 I decided to go to Building 2, where I found a few people setting up the cameras and speakers. Natalie let us, the performers, know what order we could be presenting in. A little bit later everyone entered, and after everyone had seated all the performing arts specialists led the introduction song, the performances came.
As I listened to other performers’ songs, I noticed a few mess ups especially in this one performance, in which the performer was playing “Believer”. He paused for a moment, the reason that pausing is not a good idea is that the whole audience was clapping along with him. When he paused, the entire audience kept clapping but it was off beat and that messed him up even further.
After all the other performances were over, it was our turn. My heart immediately started pounding out of my chest and my hands started to sweat. My sister and I went and got set up. My sister then introduced us but due to technical difficulties, we had to redo it, that didn’t help a lot with my confidence. We started playing, and my sister’s guitar was way too loud, so Natalie came and turned the volume down. This then caused my sister to get a little off beat so the song started sounding a little shaky. The reverb effect on my guitar sounded just like the original song and I was able to strum all the right notes. I then got to the part where I activated the distortion using my pedal, but it didn’t work. I assumed that it was because I was sitting behind the amplifier versus in the practices I had always sat in front of it, but I still was a little confused. I didn’t even dare to look up from my guitar; I was scared that I would see something distracting and I would mess up.
The song went smoothly from there until the first mini solo, which I was so stressed about. But note after note, I nailed it! I didn’t miss a single string or mess up at all. I was especially happy when I started hearing the croud clapping and even singing along. We then approached the second mini solo. To make it worse, this was the part that finished the song. This meant that it was the most memorable. I started the mini solo. In the beginning I didn’t mess up at all but at the very end of the mini solo I messed up. I fumbled the last 3 notes. I was so close to a flawless run, but no, I had to mess up the last three notes.
After the song ended, we got up to take a bow and then I exited the stage. Afterwards, I got a lot of compliments from everyone, and I really enjoyed the overall experience. I was really disappointed that I messed up at the end and I cringe every time I rewatch the clip. Overall, I had a great time performing. Although I messed up, I think this experience really helped me grow as a performer and overcome my stage fright. For a while I have been really shy and it is hard for me to talk to people who I do not know very well. Recently, I have been taking a lot of risks around public speaking and performing and I think this is helping me become more confident.
