Today I did something I have not done in, quite literally, years and played my keyboard. It got put out of the way of the first flood for safekeeping and never had a home again. I'm planning to get it shipped to the Netherlands as I'd like to play again. It was never an instrument I excelled in - it asks for unnatural coordination if you ask me! That said, I was surprised to find that, playing with just the right hand, I was able to play a few folky tunes through by ear almost instantly. That's got to say something about how my ear's improved as well as how muscles really do remember.
Unsurprisingly, playing with my left hand was diabolical.
Pretty sure it's worth bringing out to the Netherlands though, especially as my late night music practice urges will be assisted by an instrument with an earphone jack!
But it's not all that which inspired my writing of this post, rather the fact that it was really quite magical to feel my fingers, quite naturally, playing notes that, if I thought about it, I would not be able to find. It was easy stuff. Exceptionally easy. But, by all logic, I shouldn't have been able to play that. How do your fingers manage to find the notes for a piece which you have never played before regardless of the fact that your sight reading has really not improved at all but, undoubtedly, worsened? How does your body remember how to do something more than five years on when your mind has long since forgotten?
It's pretty amazing if you ask me.
Almost makes me believe I could start dancing again ;-)
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