Dona Nobis Flautistem

Sorry for the delay once more-- the teaching here is intense and I don't have a lot of focus left at the end of the day.

As in Sule, I have gotten used to the rhythm of the teaching and am having fun with the students, even though I am in some ways even more out of my element than I was there.

My musicianship classes are going just fine. They are getting sick of clapping rhythms back at me, but since they still aren't really good at reading them, they'll have to suffer. I did take a break from the rhythms today and went over basic musical terms. Everything was fine until I got to "legato". They are taught that the term is symonymous with "slur" and for me it definitely is not. I almost came to blows with my third class which is mostly older Arab teachers from Mosul. I kind of stuck to my guns though, because it seems to affect the way they play. Since for them a "legato" is only when you slur, they don't seem able to play a legato bow change (most are string players). I discussed this with James and he agreed so I'm redefining legato in Iraq, at least for this week.

Conducting is also fine. We did 3/4 today and discussed some rehearsal technique. Tomorrow I'm going to try to create a mini lab-orchestra. Should be interesting (but chaotic).

My wind players are ok. The level is so low and it's frustrating for me that I don't know ANYTHING about woodwind fingerings. Since the problems are often basic fingering problems, it takes a while to figure things out sometimes. But I do a lot of breathing and scale exercises with them and I haven't had any attrition the way I did in Sule. The flutes, who several days ago were claiming that the music was to easy, now have requested to have class at the end of the day so that they can have an hour and a half instead of just one hour! The whole class did badger me today about being the final performance. I hadn't expected to be in the performance-- the crew is simply too motley to be able to create a band-- but they clearly have their hearts set on it, so I'm getting creative.

The clarinets are the honking-est bunch I've ever heard. We continue to refine "Old Joe Clark" and I think I may put it on the concert. When they pound out the accents at the end of the phrase, I start channeling the fiddling I used to hear in Poughkeepsie. There's one poor guy in the class who is having an exceptionally difficult time. He is trained as a "turkish-style" player. He's always wailing and noodling in the lobbies (to me it sounds a lot like klezmer) but in class he can't read two notes in a row to save his life. I'm trying to keep him encouraged and he always comes in on the accents!

The trumpets are a tough case. One is a 14-year-old from Baghdad. We would consider him decently talented for his age in the US-- which means that he is probably one of the top players in Iraq. The other is a determined fellow from Basra who again, can barely read notes and doesn't really know fingerings. I'm trying to find a duet that they can perform together but it will be hard to get something appropriate.

The flutes are a LOT of work. One or two okay players but the rest are also struggling with note-reading and fingerings. I found a nice little arrangement of "Dona Nobis Pacem" for flute trio and I thought it might be a pice for the group. Not too difficult and certainly a propos for Iraq. But I overestimated my flutes-- 70 minutes of intense rehearsal and they could barely get through the first 8 bars without falling apart. But I had a bit of an inspiration. I asked them to sing their parts (to work on rhythmic issues without their instruments and they actually sounded quite lovely. So now I'm thinking of having a small group play the arrangement and then have the whole band sing the tune in traditional canon. I think it might be quite effective.

I went shopping with James and Rick (one of the dance teachers) and dropped the idea to James. I asked if he thought I might be biting off more than I could chew trying to be a chorus director. He pointed out that I was already teaching 8 things that weren't really my specialty-- what could one more hurt?

Amazingly, we have less than a week left here so I'm starting to make plans beyond Iraq. I will travel in central Europe for ten days on my way back to the US-- I will be in Vienna and Budapest and perhaps somewhere in Croatia-- Zagreb or Dubrovnik. If anyone reading this lives in Europe or will be traveling around then, let me know!