Howling in Hewler

Greetings from Hewler/Hawler/Erbil!

Thanks for the sympathetic response to my medical kvetching. Today was a good day, although I no longer take for granted that it's a sign of recovery. Treatment continues and we'll hope for the best. In the meantime, we got started on the next phase of the academy here in Erbil.

There are many things that will make this a very different experience. One interesting change is that there are many more Arabs coming from points south. We have a contingent from Basra, some from Mosul and even a few from Baghdad. I'm excited to have some true diversity and unifying going on, although translation is now even more difficult-- we either need bilingual translators or two at the same time.

I taught my wind class this morning. The level is considerably lower than in Suleimani. I knew I was in trouble when one of my flute players bounced to the front and came out with Minuet in G with B-flats and F-naturals. She couldn't hear that it was wrong and she also didn't know the fingerings for the correct notes! A woodwind specialist I'm not so it's going to be quite something to manage this class. I broke out the beginning band books that we're going to be donating and I think I'm going to start everyone in the class close to the beginning.

I do have a young trumpet player from Baghdad with some potential. His older sister plays in the National Symphony in Baghdad so there's some decent music at home. He speaks some English so we were able to have a private lesson.

When word got around that I was teaching a conducting class, I was mobbed by students who all envisioned themselves becoming the first great Kurdish conductor. I'm afraid of creating monsters (nowhere is it more true than in conducting that "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing"), so anyone taking the conducting class is going to be strictly required to take my musicianship class as well. That is going to be be basic reading of rhythms, sight-singing and rudimentary ear-training. How I will accomplish this with no classroom experience and no materials will be an exercise in patience in creativity, but since it turns out I'll be teaching three of these courses every day I'll have a lot of practice.

Although I'll have no band here and probably won't give any performances it seems that I will be even busier. We teachers are bemoaning the huge number of students and generally low level here. It's somewhat frustrating because there's no criteria for admission and some people have no instrument and hardly any music experience at all. (James reports that one cellist reported that he had played once "for nearly an hour"). So all of us are going to be doing a lot of basics teaching which can be interesting but is hardly what we're trained or equipped to do.

One does realize the difficulties that students from some of the other cities have. Many students in my class showed up today with no sheet music to play. Although some of them had no excuse, I was told that in Mosul, it's dangerous to carry around sheet music because the roaming fundamentalist gangs will beat you or even slit your throat for posessing such subversive materials. Makes the problem of disturbing neighbors when practicing at home seem quite small in comparison...

A bright spot in Erbil is that the facility is generally much better. Although finding enough classroom space is still a bit of a struggle, there won't be nearly so many rehearsals in hallways and lobbies as there were in Sule. I'll have an actual piano on which to teach my musicianship class (although it will be dreadfully out of tune, making consonance/dissonance recognition difficult). Also the cafeteria serves large and hearty meals which will be most welcome after all the hours of teaching. Combine that with a hotel that has actual windows that admit daylight in the mornings and I feel like I'm in the lap of luxury here!

Any inspirations on teaching basic ear-training with no materials will be most welcome-- either specific ideas or websites that have resources. I will be winging it and voices of experience would be very useful!