He still has music.

While doing some research for the post I wrote yesterday, I learned that "right side lesions [to the temporal lobe] result in decreased recognition of tonal sequences and many musical abilities."
(http://www.neuroskills.com/brain-injury/temporal-lobes.php)

This is part of Cecil's brain that did have moderate damage, but not severe. I cannot begin to tell you how much of a blessing it is that his musical abilities were not detrimentally affected by his injuries. 

He is still able to play the piano and sing, and he has composed and arranged several pieces of music in the last few months. I know that God spared this part of him for a reason. 

Last night he decided to arrange a piece combining Wagner's "Tannhauser Overture" with Gaither's "The King is Coming." Maybe I will be able to post an audio clip after he has finished it.

Some of the things that have been affected in his music are his abilities to focus as far ahead in his music as he did before. Before his accident he was able to read several measures ahead of what he was playing or singing. He was an amazing sight reader. I don't know how much of that has diminished, but he says it is gone. Also, sometimes while he is playing or singing, his brain "freezes up" like your computer sometimes might. After a second or two, he can keep going in the music, but this is extremely frustrating to him whenever it happens while he's leading worship or accompanying on the piano. He still has the ability to play and sing at the same time, but it is much harder for him to do this and he stumbles over his words at times, no matter how well he knows the piece.

He has not completely lost his love for music, but he does not find as much satisfaction or enjoyment as he did before. This could be because of the injury he sustained in his left frontal lobe. "A person's personality can undergo significant changes after an injury to the frontal lobes...Left frontal damage usually manifests as pseudodepression." http://www.neuroskills.com/brain-injury/frontal-lobes.php

It could also be a result of the injury to his hippocampus. "The hippocampus is the part of the brain that is involved in memory forming, organizing, and storing. It.... is particularly important in forming new memories and connecting emotions and senses, such as smell and sound, to memories."  http://biology.about.com/od/anatomy/p/hippocampus.htm I still have a lot to learn about the brain, but from what I have seen in Cecil and what I can gather about the hippocampus, I wonder if his ability to enjoy music has been affected by the injury to the hippocampus. 

In any event, whether he does it perfectly or not, whether or not he enjoys it to the same degree as before his TBI, Cecil still is a musician in caliber far above the average church musician.