William Tell Overture

14 September 2008

I went to church again today- but this time they were doing some construction on the building, and the entire room was full of smoke and the sounds of construction. Still, church is church. The really amazing thing came afterwards. The piano player and his wife (I assume) gave a miniature concert. They played some very nice Spanish dances (I forgot the composer.) And then, in that smoke filled room, on a very out-of-tune piano they played four parts from the opera “William Tell.” It was awesome! For those of you who don’t know-that is one of my favorite pieces of music ever. I have loved it ever since I was a little girl-and they played that at the Wyoming Symphony- I “rode my horse” apparently the whole time to the great amusement of the other people listening. There are still people that know me by that incident… J But I digress. The point is that it was really neat- plus the pianist told more of the story of ‘William Tell” than I had previously known. It made me want to come home and practice my viola-so I did. I have my first lesson tomorrow! So I made a list of (hopefully) useful musical terms;
Viola: Альт
Bow: Смычок
In tune: В Тон
NOT in Tune: НЕ в тон, Фальшивый
Sharp: Диез
Flat: Бемоль
Rhythm: Ритм
Intonation: Интонация
Tempo: Темп
Measure: Мера
String: Стурна
Note: Нота
Sheet Music: Ноты
Rosin: Канифоль
Repeat: Повторение
Stand: Пюпитр

I think that the musical terms like “forte” “piano,” “Accelerando” “Ritardando” “crescendo” and “decrescendo” are the same. I hope so- they weren’t in my dictionary. Also, Russians do NOT use the same system of musical notes that we do in the Western sphere of music- because they don’t have the same letters as we do. So they use the “Do Re Mi” system. I think they also used a “fixed Do system” which means that “C” is always “Do”-no matter what key the piece is in. But I am not sure about that. I guess I will find out tomorrow! Hooray!

Have I only been here a week?