lindseyanne

An email exchange.

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Sun, May 3, 2020 at 11:05 AM \ From: Jeffrey David Hooven \ To: runongirlrunon@gmaildotcom

Dear Lindsey,

Hearing from a person who appreciates the music you wrote years ago is like running into an old friend. Thank you!

I’m attaching some sheet music for you. Of course, the music I’ve written in the past several years is different in many ways from my earlier music, so I will also send you a video of a piece I wrote for my wife, Karen Lorraine. It’s called “My Sweet Lorraine.”

I hope you keep playing and creating! Best wishes, and thanks again for your incredible support.

Peace and love,

Jeffrey David

4 attachments:

• Cambria.pdf 1690K
• Judith.pdf 742K
• Jakes Blues.pdf 777K
• Morning Meditation.pdf 3497K

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Thu, May 7, 2020 at 10:01 PM \ From: runongirlrunon@gmaildotcom \ To: Jeffrey David Hooven

Hello Jeffrey David,

I’ve been meaning to respond all week but this one has been pretty tough. Hence, I cannot express how absolutely joyed I am to receive this email. Let me tell you a bit of the saga I’ve gone through the last few years; I’m sure you’ll appreciate it:

A few years ago, I finally acquired an electric piano. I’d grown up playing an upright my parents bought for me to learn on, but after moving out I never had the space for a keyboard. I asked my mom if she still had all the books I used to have when I was younger, and she said they’d either ended up with a family member or donated somewhere. I didn’t mind because I could always find the books again, or so I thought. There was one I sort of remembered the name of but couldn’t find it for the life of me; it had a song in it called “Cambria” but I couldn’t recall the composer’s name either. I thought the book was called “Keyboard Classics” and had a rainbow on the front, but all the googling of every combination of words I could think of just led me to modern tabs from a band called “Coheed and Cambria.” Not quite right.

So, I tried several times over the last few years to track this book down or the song or anything about it, but nothing ever came up. Then, a couple weeks ago, I tried posting again on Reddit about it and finally SOMEONE FOUND THE BOOK. After finding the title, “The Spectrum Collection of Colorful Keyboard Classics,” I managed to track down someone selling both volumes on Amazon. One of the listings (volume II) had a typed-out list of the songs, some of which were absolutely familiar, but nowhere did I see the name “Cambria.” I wrote to the Amazon seller asking if they could send me photos of the song indexes in both books. While waiting for a response, I kept going back to the listing, trying to see if anything could jog my memory… and finally it clicked. Jeffrey David Hooven! So, I went googling again, found some random archive of Instagram posts that lead me to the video of the woman playing “Morning Meditation.” That song was definitely familiar, and that’s when I figured out that your daughter’s name was Cambria, so I figured I was just mixing up pieces of memories. Hence, I reached out, thinking I had found the song…

Then your email showed up.

I sat down and played “Cambria” tonight twice in a row for the first time in probably 15 years. This was an absolutely special moment to experience after a years-long search for this piece of music. Playing piano has always been so dear to me, as it’s one of the ways my grandmother and I bonded when I was young–she was my first teacher, and I will always cherish the memories of sitting at her baby grand trying to access the talent I inherited from her.

This has been one of the hardest weeks I’ve ever gone through, but this moment changed it for the better in so many ways.

Thank you. So so so much.

All the best,

Lindsey Anne