We asked some of our sports department colleagues to share this week what their lives have been like without the usual routines of news, practice and games to guide them. This is a six-part series.)
About 19 years ago, I spent a summer without sports. In the process I discovered a passion for two things that stuck with me since — piano playing and songwriting.
As I've spent most of the last few months alone in my apartment, they have been two of my best friends.
When I was 14, I developed a stress fracture in my lower back, so instead of playing baseball that summer, I spent it indoors, wearing a back brace for three months.
Suffice it to say, I was bored and needed something to pass the time. I had always had a deep love of music, more than most 14-year-olds at the time probably did. In a bit of fortuitous timing, my Aunt Paula bought a keyboard, and I played it much more than she ever did.
I was at her house every day, but I never took a lesson. I was just figuring it out on my own. I didn't want to play Beethoven, I wanted to play the songs I loved from my favorite artists, such as Mariah Carey. So I bought the sheet music for Mariah's "Daydream" album and for most of the songs, I wrote in pen — underneath some of the sheet music — what notes they corresponded to on the piano. By the end of that summer, I was able to play the melodies to songs such as "Fantasy," "One Sweet Day" and "Always Be My Baby," on my right hand.
Through helpful music books, I learned about chords and how to play those. They form the bedrock of songs. They set the mood and can help dictate where the melody is going.
Gradually, I started playing the chords with my left hand and I began to notice something: A lot of pop songs had similar chord patterns. You could play different song melodies in your right hand, never changing the chords you were playing with your left.
