My first taste of Romanian songs came when the “local hire” teacher of Romanian culture and language asked me and my guitar to visit the class to help with the preparation of a Romanian carol presentation for a school assembly. Of course, I jumped at the chance. The rehearsal began with the dear lady simply announcing the carol and unceremoniously commencing. The dozen students to a greater or lesser degree all joined in, each at their own comfort level re the parameters of pitch, rhythm, involvement, amount of giggling, and so forth. After a couple of verses, a somewhat indistinct impression of a melody glimmered through the din, and I presumed to stop the effort, in order to establish some sort of key, or pitch centre, or ground zero in terms of tonality. Years of shouting at her classes had lowered the teacher’s tessitura to baritone level, contrasting alarmingly with the potentially sweet sound of the grade 7 voices, which as yet, had not raised themselves beyond speech-like utterances vaguely semi-coordinated with the syllables of their teacher. But, trusting there was a normal woman’s voice in there somewhere, and that these were basically normal children, (judging by their sparkle, brighter than average), I dared to suggest that we find a key that we could all sing in. As Henry Engbrecht is fond of saying, “there’s room for all of you on that pitch”. To fast-track the class onto a key that would work, I simply dropped into my accustomed falsetto, and ignoring their surprised looks, invited them all with my eyebrows to join me as I sang what I remembered phonetically of the opening syllables of their just-rendered "Steaua sus rasare" (The star appearing on high). It worked! There WAS room for all of us on the same melody. The eastern European lugubriousness of the musical attitude of the song made rhythm a non-issue. But the next one, Mos Craciun (Santa Claus’s white locks), was quite a rhythmic delight, and in addition to all of the above concerns of pitch and specifics of melody, we now had to contend with the exact microsecond at which a song begins. Now, every guitarist who reads this surely has had to endure that one person in a sing-along who invariably begins the next agreed-upon song in the graceless fashion of a leader who sallies forth half-cocked, ostensibly currying favour by breaking trail through the wilderness of musical expectations to show that he (it’s usually a male) can lead the way. Naturally, in this instance, it was our beleaguered Romanian teacher who necessarily played that role, having grown accustomed to survival techniques involving her culturally unruly charges, most notably, the boys. Of course, all the usual appeals for improved behaviour were utilized. Through the Romanian language barrier I was able to discern admonitions that included “blasfemie!” and in deference to my exalted rank and standing, appeals to not waste the valuable time of the “professor”. After a couple of false starts to locate a key that demanded neither shrieking nor groveling for pitches, we worked on refinements of what we in the conducting industry call “prep” signals, and the normal population calls “breathing”. It’s amazing how a preparatory breath before the first phrase of a song, done together, sets you up to begin the song at the same instant! Important, to say the least.
The rehearsing for the third piece began with more cacophony than the others, and I struggled to ascertain some recognition of any possible fragment of melody, or rhythm, or even syllables. Nor could I be certain whether our teacher was shouting instructions or performing with the kids, such a vocal confusion ensued. Ah, I finally realized, there IS no melody, just chanted words! So, musically speaking, all we have left is rhythm, like rap, except without the attitude. And then of course, I had to put my oar in and make demands about exactness of rhythm and proper syllabic emphasis, and likely far more than they would have been happy to settle for, before inviting me into the process. But how delightful it turned out, several rehearsals later, when they brought out what the Mennonites were sure they had the exclusive rights for, a Brommtopp! This is a bucket-shaped drum with a horse tail (real of course) coming out of the drum skin. The kid who played it wet his hands and then tugged at the tail, letting the hairs slide through his wet grasp, and the drum moaned and barked in response to his rhythm and hand pressure.
It was wonderful to see all the ways the kids in the audience at that last assembly reacted to these songs: familiar delight, fascination with the Brommtopp, unabashed sing-along participation, pure joy! And the kid who couldn‘t stop giggling, did exactly that—not stop giggling, while the others sang; the teacher sang in what could be discerned as an actually pretty singing voice, and the kids sang with musically modulated abandon. At the end of it all, this pied piper packed up his guitar along with this experience, and put a big checkmark onto the plus side of the balance sheet of life events.
#2 (Ed) More Fun than Physics
In the holiday, we turned the little yellow Polo north for some Romanian adventure before jetting off to Mexico. First stop, the small city of Sibiu, 200 km from Bucharest, which translated to 8 hours! (That’s a different story, and it includes a mountain rock slide traffic delay.) Sibiu was declared by the European Union Ministries of Culture Council to be the European Capital of Culture in 2007 together with her sister city, Luxembourg. This city is also called Hermannstadt, named by the Saxons of old; indeed, a large percentage of this population still speaks German. We enjoyed a concert by the local Bach choir in the ancient and large Lutheran church, which dominates one of the squares of the city. But earlier in the day, we had the nerve to visit the “Gymnasium”, a German high school for university bound students. We encountered a couple of kids in the hallway with open, youthful faces, and struck up a conversation. They admitted to be skipping class, and thought that giving a couple of English speaking visitors a tour of their school would be MUCH more fun than going to physics. Happy to oblige, they took us to a packed 9th grade music class, in which the teacher matter-of-factly urged these four newcomers to sit down and join the class. They were singing a series of carols, every student as cooperative and compliant as any teacher’s dream come true: full participation, smiling faces, sweet tuneful 2-or-more-part singing, NO talking, excellent recorder playing in 3 parts! Aren’t grade 9s supposed to be a handful in every situation? The sweet lady at the electronic keyboard at the front of the class forged ahead “heedless of the wind and weather”, one song after another, through our interruption, my photography and our subsequent departure, pausing only long enough to wish us a “Frohe Weihnachten”, and a “Craciun fericite”.
#3 (Millie) The “Winter” ConcertMillie meanwhile, managed to maneuver her league of nations through a Winter Concert that incorporated the signs of the season along with the Faith and Variations of her 175 elementary students. Tree decorating, Santa and his elves, Hanukkah, Ramadan, gift-giving, the Nativity –--- they and more were all there, ensconced in a play in which 5 little mice scamper around Bucharest trying to figure out what the December fuss is all about. Among the students who arrived to try out for the Silent Night solo, the fellow with the most incredible voice, the purest of boy sopranos, the one who really wanted to do it ---- Mohammed. Mohammed ended up writing the script for the Ramadan excerpt instead and sang a wonderful Islamic chant, accompanying himself on the drum. He was most content with that. Usman, on the other hand, was not allowed to sing any songs, but he could be a Christmas tree. It was OK for Yahav to play the carols on the recorder, but she couldn’t sing them. All the Christian kids were OK with doing the Hanukkah dance. Those who refrain from faith matters still had lots to do. Take a moment and imagine my lists. The show finished with an all-school extravaganza onstage declaring, “ We can hardly wait to celebrate this year” (take out “for Christmas”, insert “to celebrate”) against a backdrop of sets that had arrived along with each segment of the play. Of course, this is the way it has to be. We are an international school. Having said that, it was also the first time in years that the Nativity scene had been brought to the stage. The warm appreciation of the Romanian population poured in for days, as did that of those positioned otherwise. We talk less about the cold at this time of the year.
#4 (Millie) Vivaldi’s “Winter”
Today’s choice of 5-minute listening clip was Vivaldi’s “Winter” from the Four Seasons. Of course, I never just TELL the students what they are listening to. They have to dig into their vast region of clue-formulating thought and build upon that to try to come even close! The Grade 4s and 5s are pretty good at this, given that they understand the difference among baroque, classical, modern, etc. So they guessed the composer correctly, and one class even speculated that it could be the Four Seasons, although they were doubtful because the first measures of “Winter” sound positively spooky. The short, crisp rhythms morph into a crescendo that had them closing their ears and wishing this was about a monster coming to wreck mayhem and misery upon its victims. Perfect. Once I was able to describe winter as our Manitoba friends know it right now, they learned that their wish had come true! One child wondered how Vivaldi could have got it so “right’, living in Italy. I suggested that one of his friends might have been a famous explorer. This could have opened up a whole kettle of (jack)fish to veer the lesson off course, so we let it go and reflected on what snow was like, as we looked out the windows onto the green grass.
So, if you own this CD, give it a whirl. There’s a marvelous figure in the violins (about one minute in), that we determined sounds exactly like a shiver. So every time we heard it, we imitated said shiver. This was great fun, and will bear out tomorrow when the parents bring their kids to school with stories in tow about having had to listen to the Four Seasons half the night. More than anything, it's a treat to work with children who are no strangers to the theatre, the opera, the ballet. I can play any classical CD for these kids and they will always declare how they love the music. When they hear a segment from an opera, no one giggles or mocks it. In fact, eyes shine and little fists clutch at little chests as some of them announce that this is their FAVOURITE song! (No matter what, it’s always someone’s favourite song.) Not a hockey town.
#5 (Millie) Al Simmons and the Pyjama Song
Friday was pyjama day at school (some things never change), so I schlepped around in PJs and found myself yawning by 2 p.m. Luckily I had brought my favourite Al Simmons CD to Bucharest, so I hauled that out for our Listening Clip of the Day. To my delight (and loss of control), the kids laughed themselves into hysterics. I know it’s funny, but this….?! What are they going to do when I play the Lego House song? Anyhow, this was the BEST song they had EVER heard!! Then, when I told them that I knew Al Simmons, they just about croaked. That was too much. I must certainly be a famous person to know such a funny man!
