Hmmm, that title says it all... not!

The fleetingest of fleeting visits as having mahooooooossive PC issues, but...

The most weird but amazing thing happened to me when I was practising today.

As many folks will know I haven't been too well and so I haven't really practised the flute (though have played it) for about 18 months or more.

The last week or so I have finally been in a position to practise and play more.

This afternoon I had a go at a piece I haven't played for almost 2 years, Ian Clarke's "Sunstreams". I remember working pretty hard at it though never having quite perfected it, and in particular a few sticky passages of ninetuplets, or whatever you call 9 notes in the space of a crotchet. Some of them I never completely got my fingers around, one or two I did just about crack, with much use of "splurts"!

I pretty much expected to be starting from scratch, or nearly, at least with the difficult bits. I was pretty gratified that some good chunks of it still lay under my fingers, thought it was more than I deserved. Then I got to the first 9-note cluster. To my amazement it came out fluently and reasonably smooth. It's a figure that comes back several times during the piece, and even though lots of the faster bits were quite messy, this one figure kept coming out fine!

After I'd reached the end of the piece I played it, over and over, expecting the charm to break. It's far from perfect, but the notes are, amazingly, still in my fingers... I actually didn't get to the stage of messing it up!

Anyway - it was just so nice and so reassurring to find that one thing I had practised so hard really hadn't been wasted at all, and that I wasn't fooling myself that the whole splurting thing would fix it in my brain! There's life in the old dog yet

Anyone else had good things happen unexpectedly??

That's great, well done Sarah-Flute

It is amazing the way that a tricky passage can sort itself out in one's subconscious. I had that with some of the fast runs in Ian Golland's Bossa Nova for descant recorder - when I came back to it earlier this year after more than a year without trying it, it was way better than it had been before I abandoned it.

I'm glad that things are getting a little better for you, sarah - and nice to see you posting again!

I think it's common to get frustrated with certain pieces/passages that just won't come together, and the sense of frustration just makes things worse. Putting it aside and then coming back to it often works wonders by 'unlearning' bad habits, for example, that may have been part of the problem in the first place.

Musically for me, I think my performance nerves are getting a little better

Fiendish and horrible, that's what I call 9 notes in the space of a crotchet

But for it going well

Thats about what I'd call them too.

Well done with your practice Sarah-flute.

Sarah - sounds terrific! I've had similar things when I started piano, then stopped, then re-started .

Tricky bars/measures (to me) seemed strangely easier after I gave them a rest for a period of time. I've read in various places--both online and in hard copy books--that setting aside a piece of music after practising it for a bit, can be beneficial. It seems to me that the subconscious musician keeps trying to solve the piece. Over and over. So, when I returned to something that previously seemed "impossible", suddenly it was achievable.

I've seen the same thing with my young children... they'll try to learn a piece of music, then "give up" trying it for a couple weeks. When I suggest we give it another go and they return to it, they seemed to have 'learned' to play it somewhat better.

My organ teacher calls this phenomenon 'leaving it to cook'.

Very well done Sarah, and doing that with a tricky piece like Sunstreams must make it all the more satisfying