Through junior high and high school, I continued to perform in a variety of situations. I would sing with my cousin Sammy, play organ for beauty pageants, and accompany myself on piano at church and occasional talent shows at school. I rarely played anything that challenged me to expand my skills. I was mainly getting more comfortable with performing. I continued to play almost everything in the key of F. If they just needed me to play without singing, I needed to play on an organ so I could play a melody. My piano skills didn’t include being able to play the melody, only provide accompaniment and usually that was only good for me to sing. Then my cousin Glenda asked me to play at her wedding.
The songs she wanted for her wedding were all familiar not that difficult, but I would be playing piano and I wouldn’t be singing. I would have to learn to play these songs with the melody. A wedding is also a special event, and I wanted my playing to be as good as it could be for Glenda. I spent several weeks learning new songs and getting as comfortable as I could with a different style of playing. Everything was progressing well. The day before the wedding was the rehearsal and it went well until they asked Glenda what music she wanted for the processional and recessional. She hadn’t thought about it very much and I think she expected us to use one of the songs in her list that I had prepared. Someone suggested Wagner’s Bridal Chorus and she said she would like that. She also liked the suggestion of Mendelssohn’s Wedding March. I had not prepared either of these but that was ok. When I got home from the rehearsal, I started working on both these songs, playing an improvised version from memory without the assistance of any sheet music. I’m not sure if it would have helped. The arrangements that I came up with were not note for note recreations of the originals but were faithful enough to the tone and style of them that they were well accepted at the wedding. They also served me well for many weddings to come. My cousin Glenda doesn’t realize how much her wedding was the first nudge to help me to expand my music abilities.