Oh boy, I don't remember.

Long story short, I got a message from my former violin teacher, saying that she remembers how well I played Rubinstein's bee. I sort of freaked out, because I seriously did not remember playing anything like that. Rubinstein's what?? Bee? Never heard of it. I desperately started looking for it in youtube, and found "bee" by Schubert. I listened. But I still didn't remember. May be sounded somewhat vaguely familiar? I freaked out a little more. Either she's mistaking me for another student (she did say "brilliant", which is hardly the word I would describe my playing... but then, she complimented students a lot), or, it really was me and I totally forgot about it. I pride myself in thinking that I can recognize every single music that I've played, that I can remember learning them. So it was a big deal that I have a total musical memory wipe!!! I had to find out. I ran upstairs to my former room, looked through the old musics, then voila! There it was! Something written in Russian (I'm guessing it's "bee"), then another russian word, and next to it it was written "Rubinstein" in my teacher's handwriting. Duh!! With my newly developed(??) sight reading skill, I read off the score... and yes, it was that same music that I did not recognize on u-tube. Man, I'm doing case studies on dementia, and now I'm hoping that I'm not having one. How can I forget? I mean, even she remembers me doing a recital with it. It boggles my mind.

Looking back at the music, it does look very easy to play now. (But then again, there's no such thing as "easy" music...) It must be about 10 years ago or so since I've looked at that music. I'm not sure if it's something that I practiced soon after I started playing violin again, after 3 years of not even touching the instrument. I still remember how shocked/embarrassed I was when I started to play again. My hands felt all awkward and I was well aware of how deathly out of tune I was. I think I came pretty far. I'm not anywhere near where I want my skills to be at, but still, came pretty far. Far more than I could even dream of back when I decided to quit, thanks to her and my other teachers, and all their supports. Amazing.