I guess that a tight line is a line being pulled by a big fish.. Could a fisherman ask for more?
When said between fishermen, it means "good luck".
Tight lines means you are hooked up with a fish, i.e. the line being tight between you and the fish. When you say that to a fishing friend, it means that you wish him/her good luck and
"tight lines" - i.e. catching fish.
http://www.profisherman.com/fishsayings.html
The terms
subconscious learning
or
subliminal learning
are essentially the phrases for what you mean - I don't know if there's a better single-word.
(Simply google for literally 10,000s of both Real Scientific mentions of this, and Crass Commercial mentions, trademarks, etc, eg .. http://www.realsubliminal.com/how-subliminal-learning-works http://effortlessenglishclub.com/subconscious-vs-conscious-learning
Finally: I believe there's a lot of research in to issues like "How many hours per day should concert pianists practice?" where the answer is along the lines "surprisingly the hours when you stop practicing and do something else are where you Actually Learn", etc. So perhaps you could pursue that type of field and find some neat terms being used.
Also Chris as I mention in a comment, it's common that (whether today or historically) some famous musicians have taken the point of view that they "never had to learn", were simply "learning something they already new", or "already knew everything as soon as they were about to be taught it." (This can indeed veer to a sort of mystic re-incarnation vibe.)
An example of this from an extremely popular bestseller of the "new-age" era is the actress and musician Leslie Parrish's explanation of her musicality in her boyfriend Richard Bach's bestseller "Bridge across Forever"...
"But there is one funny thing. Music that's no later than Beethoven,
than the early 1800s, it's as if I'm relearning, it's easy, I seem to
know it at first sight. Beethoven, Schubert, Mozart-like meeting old
friends. But not Chopin, not Liszt . . . that's new music to me."
It could be your feeling leans to this? Rather than "scientific" "subconscious learning, let's say.
So, I'm pointing out there's kind of TWO phenomenon along the lines you ask, Chris,
(A) "scientific" for want of a better word, subliminal learning, which you can find studies about and so on
(B) particularly since you mention music, the phenomenon where certain musicians have reported they "already knew it" - which can be a little "new age", if you will.
So, I don't have exact terms for those two, A/B, but I'm just adding that as a kind of clarifier!
For another more specific suggestion (example, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep-learning ) you could possibly use the term
hypnopedia
in a related way. You could say something like:
"It's so weird, I worked with the desk once, months ago, and never
thought about it again. Then today - I'm a master of it with no
further effort. It's like hypnopedia or something!"
(BTW, as always with wiki, I don't know if some idiot just made up "hypnopedia" out of fresh air to make that page look good, or, if it is really used widely.)
Hope it helps!
Best Answer
A person acting against their perceived tendency is behaving uncharacteristically. When the person's behavior is undesirable we may say they are not themselves. But the given examples are of behavior desirable to the speaker, and a phrase that might be used is what a pleasant surprise! But this phrase has other uses; it's not only for when a person behaves uncharacteristically.
Another phrase that focuses more on the person: If the speaker desires an explanation for the unexpected but desirable behavior, they may get their answer by (humorously and informally) asking the other person Are you feeling ok? The speaker may also humorously refer to the emotions the desired behavior promoted in them with I'm shocked or I'm touched. Some speakers jokingly challenge their senses with Do my eyes [ears, for the phone call] deceive me? or reality with Can it be (true)? Others joke about the identity of the other person with Who are you, and what have you done with Mr. X?
If the person has changed from undesirable behavior to desirable, the speaker might ask Why the change of heart? The speaker may further remark that the change is welcome.
As shown we have many expressions for unexpected behavior in a person, but I can think of no one-word interjection used strictly in this context.