Learning to Read; Continuing to Read

I am inspired to write about reading today after reading Fran McVeigh's post yesterday (https://franmcveigh.wordpress.com/2023/03/03/solsc23-reader-ness/comment-page-1/#comment-18605)

I learned to read with Dick and Jane. The "point and say" method.  As a retired teacher who taught quite a few kindergartners to read, point and say doesn't make sense because it doesn't teach decoding. But I did learn and, in spite of never being in the top reading group (whatever bird it was named after) I did become an avid reader. I was very fortunate to have an uncle who gave me a book for every birthday. He was a confirmed bachelor so in retrospect, I think he must have visited a good bookstore and asked for recommendations. Among the books he gave me are the first two Mary Poppins books, the Outsiders, and The Return of the Twelves, a little-known but absolutely wonderful novel about a young boy who finds the set of wooden soldiers that belonged to the Bronte children. That novel sent me to read Charlotte Bronte's novels. 

I still read a lot today. I take a book almost everywhere I go. As an introvert I once caught myself wondering if I should bring a book to a party I was about to go to. (I didn't.) I have an eReader, but mostly read physical books. 

I read to both my children when they were young. My son learned to read in kindergarten. He had a wonderful kindergarten teacher. He also loved me to read to him, but I also wanted to encourage him to read on his own. We were reading one of Jon Scieszka's hilarious short novels, which he wrote with boys in mind. We got to the end of a chapter with a cliff hanger and I said, "Okay, that's it for tonight." He said, "Give me that book!" And that was the start of his reading adventure, though we kept reading together as well.

My daughter learned to read in first grade, though she did not develop a love for reading on her own. In fact, I started to notice that she avoided reading whenever possible, though her teachers kept assuring me that she was reading above grade level. While at a teacher conference at a session on hidden disabilities, I realized the presenter was describing my daughter: reads above grade level but tries to avoid reading, falls asleep while reading, has trouble retaining information from reading. The presenter said there were optometrists who specialized in treating convergence insufficiency. Once we found help, she was able, with a lot of work, to overcome the insufficiency. Today she is an adult and not only reads, but reads very challenging texts. My son, on the other hand, has pretty much stopped reading.

We now have a new grandson and I am so looking forward to reading to him when he is just a little older.

Tha mi ag ionnsachadh Gàidhlig

 Meaning, I am learning Scottish Gaelic. 

Tha beagan Gàidhlig agam. (Is dòcha gur e cus cus a th’ ann.) I speak a little Gaidhlig. (That might be an exaggeration.)

I am very much a beginner, and I would guess there are no Scottish Gaelic speakers in this group! So my post will be bilingual.

Fàilte! Welcome!

I got interested in Scottish Gaelic while reading the Outlander book series by Diana Gabaldon. So I signed up on Duolingo as a lark. It's a difficult language and I don't anticipate a time when I would actually use it (except when reading the Outlander books) but it's interesting. And I think it is a good exercise for my brain as well.

My favorite sentence so far: Tha Niseag ag òl uisge-beatha. The Loch Ness monster is drinking whisky. Well, wouldn't you, if you were living for centuries at the bottom of a loch, only coming up now and then to alarm and fascinate humans? There is an interesting theory about the Niseag proposed in the third Outlander book, Voyager. I won't spoil it for you, but it made sense to me in the context of the story! Also, whisky, uisge-breatha, translates literally to water of life.

Ciamar a tha thu? How are you? Tha mi ceart gu leòr. I'm fine.

What is difficult about learning this language is that: 

1. the word order is different than English or French (my other language, sort of)

2. Nothing sounds the way it looks!

3. Duolingo teaches the way you might learn a language as a child who parents are native speakers, so there is no explanation of tenses, why spelling sometimes changes, and a few other things. Fortunately there are other online sites that teach the Gàidhlig that I consult. 

Is toil leam dùbhlain. I like challenges. 

A' guidhe fortan dhomh. Wish me luck!

Tioraidh!

Musical Challenges

 Last night I went to a rehearsal of a community orchestra that I belong to. I play 3rd (French) horn.* I had missed the last concert because I was out of town, and missed the first rehearsal for the next concert cycle, being slightly sick. So I was the only horn player who hadn't had a chance to look at the music. 

The 2 1/2 hour rehearsal was devoted to the Te Deum by Hector Berlioz, a French composer of the 19th century. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hector_Berlioz) He was a little crazy; his most famous piece is the Symphonie Fantastique, which tells the story of a doomed romance, including references to a real woman and a drug-related fantasy. We're not playing that, sadly. We are playing his Te Deum (translation: God, We Praise You), a less well-known piece.

I had never played the Te Deum or seen the music, though I have heard it, rarely, in concerts. Unlike the other 4 horn players in the orchestra, I hadn't seen the music in advance, being sick the previous week. Now, because of way the horn evolved, we often have to transpose when playing pre-20th century music. That means we look at a note, but play a different note. It's not that hard most of the time once you have learned how, though some keys are harder than others. An example: the part is written in E flat, the horn is pitched in F, so you must play one step lower than written. It's actually a good brain workout. 

Monsieur Berlioz chose to write each section of the Te Deum in a different key for the horns. This is quite a workout for the brain, let me tell you. Especially since several of the keys he picked are very unusual. And five different transpositions. Ugh. I told my colleague playing 2nd horn I was going to write out the most difficult section. He basically told me to buck up, it wasn't that hard. Right, his part didn't have any Horn in B natural - the absolute most difficult transposition.

I know what I'll be practicing this week.

*The International Horn Society (https://www.hornsociety.org) decreed years ago that the name of instrument is the horn, as it is called in European countries (cor in France, horn in German-speaking countries, etc.) But in the U.S. horn is also used to mean almost any kind of wind instrument, so it's still confusing, but the "French horn" is not French.

Post-vacation Woes

 I feel like I have just experienced re-entry. Re-entry into my normal life, that is. 

Two week ago my husband and I were in the midst of our first ever cruise, a Carnival cruise to the Caribbean. Coming home from that, I spent a week with a mysterious ailment that made me very tired. No, it wasn't Covid - I tested four times.

This week was time to reenter my normal life, which includes playing in three community music groups. I went to music school, though I changed careers and became an elementary teacher along the way. But I still play (French) horn seriously. [Horn players and most classical musicians just call it the horn, but since many other things are also called "horn" I like to clarify.] But I didn't play for two weeks while on the cruise and then recovering from whatever it was. 

Just like a sport, if you don't play regularly you get out of shape. Your muscles, in this case the muscles in my face, get weaker and you lose your endurance. On a brass instrument you might also temporarily lose your high range, since that takes more muscle. This is a problem since I have a concert to play on Sunday! I went to band rehearsal last night, two hours long, and was exhausted by the end, both physically and mentally. 

So this evening I have another rehearsal with a different group, a community orchestra. It's the first rehearsal on this music and there will be longer periods when the horns don't play. 

Deep breath. I will get through this.

Mike

 I learned yesterday that an old friend of mine had died. It was not a shock; I knew he had been fighting cancer for a long time. He was not someone I saw very often anymore. But as soon as I read the email, from a mutual friend, I was gripped by sadness.

I met Mike when I moved to Chicago in 1975. We were music students together, both post graduation, both (French) horn players. We played in groups together, studied with the same horn teacher, and socialized, usually with other horn players. Mike and another horn player named Glen always seemed to be palling around together.

We were all members of the horn section of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago, a training orchestra run by the Chicago Symphony. One of the many perks of belonging to Civic was the opportunity to get $1 tickets to Friday afternoon Chicago Symphony concerts. The tickets were usually in the gallery, the highest balcony in Orchestra Hall. For perspective, full price gallery tickets at the time were $6, which was a lot for poor grad students. To get the $1 tickets we had to go to the Civic office, which at that time was on the 4th floor of Orchestra Hall. And there were always a limited number of such tickets.

I had a class on Friday mornings and it was always a rush to get out of class, hop on the El and get to Orchestra Hall in time to get a ticket. On this particular Friday the CSO was playing a very popular piece, the Sinfonietta by Leoš Janàček, a Czech composer from the late 19th-early 20th centuries. It is a spectacular piece. It calls for 12 trumpets plus 2 bass trumpets in addition to all the usual orchestral instruments. It is stunning both auditorily and visually. 

When I got to Orchestra Hall I immediately ran into Mike and Glen who told me all the Civic tickets were gone. And the concert was sold out. But, they said, they were going to try to sneak in and did I want to come with? Why not, I said. So, being very familiar with Orchestra Hall because of being in Civic (we rehearsed on the stage, left our stuff in the musicians' locker room and had sectional rehearsals in the basement) we went up the back stairs to the gallery  on the 7th floor and popped out into the crowd of ticket holders. We avoided the ushers and went to stand at the back of the gallery. There was one empty seat next to us and Glen encouraged me to take it (such a gentleman). After protesting a few times, I sat down. 

Well, Mike and Glen did get tossed out by an usher. I felt bad for getting to stay, illegally as it were. I met them at intermission - they were back, with tickets from a man who left the concert fro some reason. They were cheerful.

RIP, Mike.

Music, Music, Music!

 Much of my time lately has been taken up with musical endeavors. When COVID first arrived all my music groups stopped. Without places to play, there is much less motivation to practice. I did a lot of listening instead of playing. And like any physical activity, if you stop, you get out of shape.

Before COVID I played in a band, an orchestra, and a (French) horn choir. Now everything is starting up again. My three regular groups are all rehearsing. In addition, my son's father-in-law asked if I would fill in in the band he conducts. In the interest of family harmony I said yes to helping out in one concert in November. And, I'm playing in a klezmer band for an upcoming holiday. Then I got asked if I would play in three operas! I turned it down - too much, including too much driving! 

Just recently a horn player friend invited me and a few others over to his house to play quartets. It was fun, both the playing and the interacting with friends. Now this friend has asked if we want to become an ongoing quartet, rehearsing regularly, playing concerts, and having a cool name. This was so tempting. I said yes. The quartet won't get together as often - maybe twice a month. And it looks like we'll have a break for wine and munchies. Who says classical musicians are straight-laced?

I feel both blessed by all these opportunities to play with good musicians and a little overwhelmed after sheltering in place for a long time. I wonder if others feel somewhat overwhelmed now as we all become more social and break out of our isolation.

The Kindness of Jump Ropers

 Jump roping was a popular recess activity with girls when I was in elementary school. However, I didn't learn to jump rope until 5th grade. Thinking back, at the elementary school I attended in a small Wisconsin town from 2nd grade through 4th grade, I didn't play with the girls at recess. I had two friends who were boys. They didn't play with the other boys, who were generally playing football or kickball, or some other semi-organized ball game. The three of us played games of our imagination. I don't remember much at all except for running up and down the heaps of snow the plows left in the winter while making up our own adventures.

In 5th grade a new elementary school opened up and my siblings and I were among the children who were sent there. My two friends were not. We didn't keep in touch. It was the 1960s and we had no other connection except for school.

At my new school the boys still played organized ball games at recess and the girls jumped rope. So I joined the girls. I did not have the hang of it. In case you have never experienced jump rope, two people are the twirlers (of the rope) and everyone else waiting in a line for a turn. When it's your turn, you run into the twirling rope and start to jump over it while the rest of the girls recite a jump rope chant. I don't remember any of the chants, but I googled jump rope chants of the 1960s. I think this is one we did:

Cinderalla Dressed in Yella

Cinderella dressed in yella,
Went downstairs to kiss a fella,
Made a mistake and kissed a snake.
How many doctors did it take
1, 2, 3, . . . .

Cinderella dressed in yellow
Went downstairs to kiss her fellow.
How many kisses did she give?
One, two, three, four, five . . .

Every time it was my turn, I ran in and tripped over the rope and became a twirler. The girls decided that wasn't fair to me and gave me permanent jumper status. Until one day I ran in and started jumping to my and everyone else's surprise. I guess I caught on to the rhythm of the rope. I did miss, after a respectable amount of jumping as well as astonishment! I became an equal and took my turn twirling.

When I remembered that experience today I was struck by the kindness of the girls. It was a collective decision, with no discussion or dissent, that I should get special treatment. Without that, I would probably never have learned to jump rope. I have only vague memories of the individual girls - my family moved out of state after 6th grade - but I do remember their sense of fairness and kindness.