Lost in transit

Music, the international language

Somehow I thought taking cello lessons would give me a break from everything else. From work, from cultural differences, from tricky points of grammar or noun genders. Music is, after all, the international language. The human response to music is what unites us, right? So I'm taking cello lessons. I've always loved the sound and three or four years ago I enrolled at the local music school. It has been as difficult as I expected, although not in the ways I thought, and far more rewarding.

I've overcome initial difficulties with intonation and bowing and so on. But what I thought would be the simplest part continues to bedevil me: the names of the notes.

I know the names of all the parts of a cello in German, but not in English, having learned them only now. Same thing for various musical terms. How hard can it be to learn the names of the notes in German? They're letters of the alphabet, right?

Much to my surprise, that is not so. The notes are called a-h-c-d-e-f-g in German, to begin with. You'll notice that what we call "b" in English is an "h" in German. It was originally "b" in German as well, but due to a transcription error centuries ago, they started calling it "h". They know this is a mistake, yet continue doing it because that is the way it is done. Even worse, they don't call sharps and flats "sharps" and "flats", as in "c-sharp" or "b-flat". Instead, they give the notes new names. So c-sharp is "Cis" in German, and f-sharp is "fis".

If you don't believe me, look at this.

Moreover, whereas the note "b" is called "h" in German, the key of "b-flat" is called "b-dur". I'm still not sure about the other notes. So now in my third or fourth year of lessons, when my cello instructor tells me, "no, it's a fis, play a fis," I'm still all, like, "play a what? WTF?"

Otherwise, though, I have to say that learning an instrument in Austria totally rocks. There seems to be a deep and broad respect for music and a sense of its importance, not only (as one would expect) among those working at or attending the music school, but in society in general. Although there are plenty of people here who could care less about classical music, the fact that the Vienna Philharmonic won a Grammy this year was widely reported here, even on popular music radio stations.

Perhaps it is just my own background that makes the attitudes here impress me so. Growing up, my mother had a single classical record (Peter and the Wolf) that she played for us on her fold-out record player when she wanted to expose us to culture. Otherwise, I never heard any classical music, ever, except maybe on television, on a comedy, when they wanted to portray a character as snooty or "cultured".

At any rate, I'm enjoying this immensely.

Posted by Mig at February 11, 2004 09:39 AM