Earlier in the month I wrote a post about re-discovering an old song from my first go-round with the violin back in elementary school – Go Tell Aunt Rhody.  In my lesson earlier this week, Teacher introduced me to a new song – Go Tell Aunt Rhody!  Of course I had some of the details wrong, and the arrangement is different too; there’s a whole wonderful phrase that I’m pretty sure I didn’t play way back when.

But memorizing it was difficult for me because I had the main melody line stuck in my head with one more note than it actually has – my brain did not want to let that B go. I find it ironic, because I picked up the song I learned the week before quite readily, though I had no previous practice with that one at all.  I was able to learn and play more quickly a song that I had not played before than I was a song I remembered only ever so slightly incorrectly.  My memory kept trying to override my present.

I love thinking about the wires in the brain.  It might seem silly, and I don’t have the CAT scan to prove it, but I think this musical endeavor is already activating some new pathways up there.  I know it’s helping my mood, so if nothing else there’s that.  At any rate, I’ll keep working on taking that superfluous B back from Rhody and storing it for another tune.

Thanks for reading.

Ryan