For a while now, I’ve been wanting to make a return to music – in particular, music composition, and writing scores for orchestras, and pianos, and more. Factoring this in with the enormous amount of other creative work I want to do – writing the fourth book in “The Redemption of Erâth” series and continuing work on young adult novels – means it was unlikely I was going to really make a move on this in the near future, but the dream was always there.

And – foolishly – I assumed I would remember what to do when the time came.

It’s funny – it’s been more than ten years since I last focused my energies on creating music, and whilst I’ve certainly not forgotten the basic principles of playing music, there is a surprising amount that I have forgotten – and it makes me sad.

I (obviously) devour music as a listener; whether it be classical, rock or symphonic metal, I am always, always listening to music. And in my past, I was a somewhat accomplished pianist, played bass moderately well, and knew my music theory like the back of my hand.

And while I can still pick up a bass and pluck away, or tickle the ivories in a half-assed manner, there’s a huge amount that I no longer remember. It’s funny – it’s almost like the old, “I’ve forgotten more about making music than …”.

I recently set up a kind of office in my loft, with a nice, large desktop computer screen, electric keyboard to one side, and plenty of great music-writing software. And once the setup was complete, I fired up Logic Pro, downloaded some beautiful piano samples, and tried to play.

I couldn’t remember a single song.

Isn’t that weird? I know the keyboard, I know the layout, and can play in any key – but I can’t remember how to actually play anything. A few measures at most, and the rest is just gone.

Oh well, I thought – playing was never my main gig. So I opened up my music notation software that I haven’t used in a decade, and suddenly I couldn’t remember how to use it. As in, almost every single feature and capability of the application is a mystery to me. I’m going to need to relearn it.

They say playing an instrument is like riding a bike – you never forget how to do it. And whilst to an extent that isn’t entirely wrong, it certainly isn’t entirely true. I’ve just discovered that there is a huge knowledge gap in my mind when it comes to music, and it’s bothering me greatly; I used to know my arpeggios from my appogiaturas, and now I can barely remember what an ossia is. There’s literally terminology for musical notation that I’ve completely forgotten.

I’m confident I can relearn it, and it will eventually come back to me, but it’s disturbing to see what a lack of practice can do to something you once thought of as a part of your very being.

Is there anything you used to know well, that you feel like you’ve since forgotten?