Well I'll be . . . I just didn't think I had it in me . . .

I had the pleasure of singing for some of the residents who live at The Atria in Grapevine, Texas.  My schedule permitting, I sing to there on the first Monday of the month.   I usually sing for the folks back in the Memory Care unit.  They are a lively bunch, and they like to sing.

As I have shared before, I take an iPad with me and have it on a short music stand.  My iPad has all the words to all the songs I am comfortable performing (probably over 200+).   I also use an AirTurn Bluetooth pedal, which lets me advance the pages up and down as I sing, should I need the words or chords.

Well, as luck would have it . . . the AirTurn pedal battery was dead (it's recharging here in my office as I type this).  So, I had no choice but to sing from memory for 50 minutes.  The audience was waiting.

I sang and played, and surprised myself in the process.  I never turned the iPad on, and just sang and sang.  We had a good time.  One resident got up and started dancing in place.  People were laughing and enjoying themselves. 

Surprisingly, I was too.  Not being "locked in" to the iPad helped me have better eye contact with the residents, to connect better . . . and the process helped me focus better on singing. 

The experience . . . was a joyful one for me.

I will say again . . . I vary my song sets all the time.  I don't like singing the same songs every month to the older adults I am privileged to sing to.  I have love song sets, and travel song sets, show tune song sets, folk song sets, funny song sets, and gospel song sets.
Variety is the spice of life.

As I have shared before, I only sing about 4-5 times a month because of my current schedule.  Some call my use of an iPad a crutch, and I don't really disagree with that.  If I sang multiple times each week, I am sure my music memorization would be much better.

Well, today my "system" failed me.  But it all worked out. I am happy to report, my memory is better than I thought.

My goal is to sing more and more songs from memory, but it is nice to have the iPad and AirTurn pedal if I feel led to change things up and include a song I didn't have on my set list.

All in all, I didn't think I had 50 minutes of music memory in me.  Turns out I was wrong.

God's grace still amazes me . . . ><>