When I was growing up, we’d spend the summers poolside in the mornings. My mom would take us to the community pool and we’d swim a while, then we’d come home and there would usually be afternoon thunderstorms. During those storms, we’d curl up and take naps. My mom would put on some old 50′s music and those old songs became the soundtrack of my life — Johnny Mathis, Percy Faith.

When I was a teenager, my mom got me the sheet music for “Misty,” and I mastered it. It was the perfect music to relax to and forget whatever was on my mind. About a dozen years ago, I packed up all my sheet music and we moved to Georgia. For whatever reason, I never resurrected those two boxes of sheet music. Life was too hectic with business and raising 6 children to take to the piano much.

But lately, I’ve been back on my piano, trying to rebuild an old talent. It’s been fun, but frustrating at times because my skill just isn’t where it used to be. Then a couple weeks ago I was cleaning out a closet and found two boxes of sheet music. Inside was my copy of “Misty” with Johnny Mathis on the cover.

I immediately went to the piano with the music in front of me. I was amazed at how well I could play it. I made very few mistakes on the first try and within a week of practice, I could play it like I used to. It’s amazing how some things stay with you. I’ve picked up other pieces of old music and not had the same experience. I wonder if there’s something about Emotion + Memorization that puts things into Permanent Storage in our minds.

What do you think? Have you had a similar experience with old skills coming back to you when you least expected it? Where they tied to an emotion?

This video is a combination of me playing Misty along with photos I took at Seacrest Beach, Florida this summer.

I mentioned in an earlier post that I’m learning how to compose my own music by learning chords and rhythmic patterns.  In the Play Piano Today course, he shows you how to play the piano to accompany vocals — meaning the piano is accompaniment and the vocalist carries the melody.

Since I’m interested in playing different arrangements of hymns for prelude music in church, I’m taking what I’ve learned from the course and adapting it a bit. I created my own arrangement of one of my favorite hymns.

First, I went through the piece and identified all the chords, then I used some of the patterns and my own creativity to write my own arrangement. My version of “Know This That Every Soul Is Free” still carries the melody.

Since it would probably take a year to memorize all the patterns, I’ve used them to create my own sheet music, which I can then read and play. Can you tell I’ve never been incredibly patient?

Here’s my version of the sheet music — I don’t imagine it’s perfectly written or timed, but it should be close.

And here’s me playing it a couple times through on my old upright (circa 1910):