Today at church a girl was singing a solo and at the beginning of one of the verses she started singing the words to the chorus (at least I think that is what happened, she sang the right words at the wrong time... that much I gathered) and she grinned at her mistake and kept going. The grin was perhaps a little sheepish but very genuine. It reminded me of times when I am reciting something from memory but I mess it up and my audience just smiles. And it doesn't feel like they are laughing at me, it's more like commiseration or something...
So what is it about mistakes, especially in formal, predictable situations that makes us smile?
I saw a video once of a baby, just old enough to laugh, who was shown a ball rolling down a ramp. The ball was sent rolling twice in the exact same way and then the third time something different happened. It rolled off the end or got knocked off course or something and the baby laughed. It was the unexpected that made the baby laugh. That's probably a rule of some sort among comedians.
One thing that I think is nice about making mistakes in songs or memorized words is that it makes me think more about the words I'm saying.... because when everything is going fine its easy to forget what the words actually mean.
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