Ever since I was a little girl, my mum had this special song that she would play on the piano, it was fun and upbeat and when you listened to it you couldn’t help but dance along to the rhythm. Her mother taught it to her as a young girl, and now my mother has since taught me. As a child and well into my late teens, I always knew it as “The Boogie” and as children my friends and I would beg my mother every time we had a ‘playdate’ to “play the boogie!” so we could dance our little hearts out in the living room in front of the grand. Since then, I have learned the song is actually called “In the Mood” and it was composed by saxophonist Joe Garland in 1938, however the song became wildly famous and well known through Glenn Miller and his Orchestra.
We’ve never had the sheet music for the song and as I got older and more musically capable my mother would sit down on the piano bench with me and teach me another piece to the song. God bless her as the patience she would have had to have, listening to the same chord or piece of the song over and over and over again! Because of this class and our task to learn or relearn an instrument, I have asked my mother to yet again help me learn the song, and now she is teaching me the last bit of “In the Mood” or as my family knows it “The Boogie!” This has been somewhat special for both my mother and I, as she is a very artistic person (very talented watercolorist!) and I much more the opposite, as unfortunately I did not seem to get her artistic abilities or drive…but the piano has been a creative ground which we both enjoy and in this case, an ‘artistic’ hobby/activity which we can bond over and do together.
I have always found it so wonderful and amazing how music, a particular song or tune, can bring the light back to people. Maybe remind them of a time long ago, or simply transport them in the moment to a place of peace. I have found this with my grandmother, who has severe dementia and cannot really place who I am anymore. When I go to visit her, we always talk about a few of the basics, the weather, our family (she believes I am my mother 30 odd years ago-I guess we share quite the resemblance!) yet we always end up sitting together at the piano in her room or the public one out in the lobby at her care home. This is the time I feel that she thoroughly enjoys herself and it always brings me to tears…happy tears. We take turns playing songs for one another, her playing and humming the tune and I singing. One of my favorite memories of recent is the last time I was able to see her, early last summer. I was playing a song for her on the piano as we usually do, her sitting behind me in her chair. Her eyes were closed and she was humming away to the tune, physically she was there, however it was obvious that her mind was decades in the past, lost in a better time.
