Songs

When it's quiet here in the evenings and I find myself alone, I often retire to the piano.  I try to play quietly if the kids are sleeping, but it usually doesn't stay very quiet. They're used to the piano anyway.  In fact, they probably sleep better with it playing and me singing along, than if it were quiet. 

So tonight, I sat down to play "Precious Savior, Dear Redeemer."  It seemed to fit the mood I was in.  The arrangement of it is something of my own, I guess, and that was what I was thinking about tonight- these songs I play, these songs I write.  It doesn't feel like I write them.  I've never had the feeling that I was creating anything, even in times of being knee deep in staff music, scribbled with lyrics and melodic ideas. 

What it feels like to me is that I'm unfolding something that has already been created, already been written.  It feels like I am learning a new song, maybe that I'm playing by ear to a tune that I hear in my head. 

So, I wondered tonight if that really is the case.  Maybe I don't write music, or maybe I'm not writing new music.  Maybe these songs were already written in an earlier life, a pre-existence.  Maybe I wrote them.  I wonder.