Brain is weird sometimes
My dad really enjoys Indian Classical Flute music. He always wanted to learn it.
So naturally, my parents made me join classes to learn the Flute in the style of Carnatic (South Indian) Classical music when I was about 8 or 9 years old.
This continued for about 6 years, and I was pretty good at it though I didn’t really want to be doing it.
Once I was about 15, I got some agency, so I stopped going to classes.
As an adult in my late-twenties, about 8 years ago, I wanted pick up a hobby. Men need hobbies.
I took the easy way out and decided to give the Flute another try. I did enjoy Carnatic music, and also isn't it nice to re-start something which you are already good at instead of struggling and learning something new from scratch?
So I found a teacher nearby and started going to classes again. Since it had been like fifteen years since I last picked up the instrument, I started from scratch and re-did every lesson. But because of my familiarity with it, I moved pretty fast and was doing advanced compositions in a few months.
This brings me to this one specific composition.
A week after the teacher introduced me to this composition, I practiced it a little and went back. When I played it before him, I did OK, but there was one particular musical phrase which would kept tripping me up. My fingers kept playing something else at that position.
And to my surprise, my teacher said, "That phrase is not wrong! But I just prefer the phrase I taught you".
I was unconsciously playing valid variation!
You have to understand that Carnatic music is a highly improvisational school of music. On-the-fly variations on a musical phrase are common, and even encouraged, as long they fit inside the "raga" - the rules and the spirit of the composition.
But coming up with variations is hard, needs a lot of knowledge, skill and practice.
This made me think: was I actually a musical genius?
Do I have such intuitive grasp of the ragas that I accidentally can play good variations?
I had to check one thing before I confirm my hypothesis. I went back to my old notes from 15 years ago to see if I had learnt that composition.
And guess what, I had learnt it - and my old teacher had taught me the alternate phrase I was playing.
As I got over the disappointment of not being the Carnatic Mozart, this incident made me think of the weirdness of our brains.
I did not remember that I had learnt this composition. I could not even remember the main melodies of this composition.
But for some reason my brain had remembered the pattern in this particular, and to be honest - fairly unremakable - part of this composition.
Why? I don’t know.
Thank you brain, for remembering random things and keeping life interesting.