Ever learned a "new" tune you already new ?

[peterleyenaar]

I was asked a number of times at jams, hey, do you play Whiskey before Breakfast ?
and some other tunes, I'd say no, but I'll get it for the next time.
So finally I got around to learn it, got the music on my laptop and started playing it, one
time through really slow, thinking, pretty easy, scale based, in about 20 minutes I was
bopping along at 90 bpm.

I am far from an accomplished mandolin player, normally it takes me probably couple
of hundred times playing a new tune to get it nice and up to speed if it is not too difficult or fast

Another tune I was asked about , Cherokee Shuffle, same result.

Now, I was a fiddle player long before I took up mandolin, started fiddle some 40 years
ago , played for a number of years , then quit because of working overseas.
Back in Canada permanently, started playing music again, got a mandolin, thinking it was easier than fiddle (haha , not so) still play a little fiddle.

So I must have learned those tunes long time ago on the fiddle, got the fiddle out
and sure enough , they rolled of the fingers.
Amazing how these tunes are buried deep in one's memory, forgotten, but start to
play them and they come back.

[MikeZito]

Something like that happens to me all the time:

Last week I sat down to play a short mandolin instrumental that I wrote several months ago, and have played at least 100 times before . . . but this time I could barley remember even just a few short passages - and the more I tried to concentrate, to more lost I got. After a few minutes I got totally frustrated and put the mandolin away. A few hours later I picked up the mandolin again, and proceeded to play the song all the way through - first time, no problems.

[Astro]

Well I can say I often wish I knew the songs I know.

[Jess L.]

... So I must have learned those tunes long time ago on the fiddle, got the fiddle out and sure enough, they rolled of the fingers.
Amazing how these tunes are buried deep in one's memory, forgotten, but start to play them and they come back.

Yup. Same here.