At last night’s concert by Thomas Yee and Tyler Ramos my ears perked up when I overheard two women, strangers to me, talking to each other before the concert.

“I remember Carl Crosier was the organist here for many years then he retired. He died from cancer but his wife Kathy plays the organ.”

I strained my ears to hear more of the conversation but I think that was the end of any talk about the Crosiers. I felt tempted to tap one of them on the shoulder, “My name is Kathy Crosier. Is there something you wanted to ask me?!” But I remained silent.

If one of these women had really been around since Carl was the organist, that was a long, long time ago — 1972-1974 to be exact. After that he became Director of Music, and always told people that I played the organ better than he did.

That exchange kind of reminded me about a conversation I had with my next-door neighbor, Bonnie Moore, who is an attorney but also has written more than 150 songs of a religious nature. Trouble is, she doesn’t know how to notate them, so what she has done is to sing a song into her phone, emailed me the MP3 file, and then I have transcribed the music (called “music dictation”) into a software program called Finale. I then have created a “lead sheet,” harmonizing her melody, inserting chord symbols above the notes so that a guitarist can easily accompany the song.

Years ago, she had someone create piano arrangements of about 140 of the songs, but now she wants me to convert those arrangements into lead sheets. About 40 of the songs are going to be used in a conference to be held at the Co-Cathedral of St. Theresa’s in April, so I’m now converting and compiling the piano arrangements into lead sheets into a master PDF document. The choir wants to start rehearsing the music right away, so I’m burning the midnight oil trying to get the project finished.

Bonnie met with Bernie Gora, the pianist at the Co-Cathedral and the conversation went something like this:

“How do you know Kathy Crosier? She’s a famous organist!”

“She’s my next-door neighbor!”

You may recall that after Carl retired from the Lutheran Church of Honolulu, he started attending the Co-Cathedral of St. Theresa on Saturday nights, and I occasionally went with him. It’s at that time we heard Bernie play the piano, so that’s how we became acquainted with her. I did substitute on the organ once at St. Theresa’s so that’s maybe when Bernie heard me play the organ.

All this is to let you know that Bonnie wants me to convert all 150 of her songs to lead sheets for a master songbook. And this project will keep me pretty busy … for awhile.

And that bit about being a famous organist?!

You’ve got to be kidding me! I’m only “famous” for this blog!