IN A NUTSHELL: Melf Participates!
A Non-Sweating Day I am COMFORTABLE in the classrooms therefore I now
declare it official: Fall has started. No more sweating whining.
No more air conditioning whining. I even have a blanket covering me when I sleep. No more babbling
about weather
for three whole months, probably. Enjoy while it lasts!
A New Instrument! I am a little bit shy about
intruding upon lessons and conversations, but I have been curious about the koto harp ever since I heard the students practicing the
other day. Since they were practicing in the hall, I kind of lingered there on my way back from the toilet (where
I have
given the gift of soap, and hope it is appreciated; actually, I don't care if it is appreciated as long
as no one takes it away) and
watched the 3rd years play for a little while until two of them noticed me. Since they were smiling, I came
over and asked them about the strange music sheet. They told me that the funny black dot meant 'rest.'
Then I talked to the teacher a little while. When she
went to help a student, I mingled back into the staff room and asked Nosohara-sensei about koto.
She told me that the music teacher had taught my predecessor (who was not keen on it, actually)
and offered to introduce me to her. I told her I had already met her, but we walked out into the hall
anyway and after the three of us had talked a little while,
the music teacher said she would give me a lesson today after school.
Yay! I kept trying to confirm exactly
what time that meant, but then decided to just wait in the staff room until she was ready. She came in
at about 3:30 and gestured me over while speaking to Nosohara-sensei. It made me very happy when
Nosohara-sensei told
her that using Japanese with me was fine because I was rather fluent ("nihongo-de ii, pera-pera").
This is so not true. I think I only get away with compliments like this
because I talk fast in Japanese. Not
correctly, but fast. Anyway, me and the music teacher went into this tatami room right off the hall
across from Melissa's Corner.
I have walked by the door every day but never knew there was a big room in there (I thought it was a closet).
She had two koto harps already set up.
A koto.
It is about six feet long,
has thirteen thick strings, and lays on the floor, one side propped up about six inches.
The frame is wood and slightly rounded. The sound the string makes when plucked is a little stronger and
louder than
a traditional Western harp. The music is basically kanji numbers with a few little extra symbols for repeat,
rest, double note, sharp/flat, etc
Extra Fingernails I sat down as directed on the little cushion beside one
end of the harp. She asked if I could sit on my feet - the traditional and proper way of sitting
when playing the harp. I was like yeah, right. I said "for about two minutes." She said that was fine.
She then scattered several strange looking triangular things with numbers on them on the floor. As she tried to
match them to my fingers, I realized that these were the koto picks. One puts the triangle over the finger and
a square, white pick sticks out from the end. She put one on my index finger, one on my middle finger, and
one on my thumb. She calls them "tsume" which I looked up later. It means "fingernail." I suppose they
do kind of look like fingernails. Now I am ready to begin! She taught me how to pluck correctly (which was not intuitive)
then showed me sheet music. Every string has a number and the music is basically a line of
numbers. The catch is that the numbers are KANJI numbers and are read up to down, right to left.
There were a few other tricky
things like timing and half notes, but that is the basic. Before I learned Japanese, the page would have looked
like lots of meaningless symbols in squares. I used the sheet music to play the song "Sakura, Sakura"
which is the first song everyone (EVERYONE, even my eighty-eight-year old neighbor who did koto in elementary school)
learns to play. Oddly, I knew the song. I do not know why. I suspect it was a demo song on one of the
synthesizers I had as a child... or maybe music during an old computer game. Anyhow, for whatever
inexplicable reason, I knew the tune, which
made it a bit easier to pick up. By the end of an hour, I was playing a song on the koto! Yay! The teacher
offered to teach me once a week, which I think is way neat. I haven't learned a new instrument in over 10 years.
Table Tennis ("Takkyuu") I really thought I had done my participating deed of the
day, but I found myself asking Moriguchi-san (who I had seen playing ping-pong yesterday, but I was
so not in the mood to do anything yesterday) when she played. She said once in awhile, but maybe today.
I said if she went, I would go with her (I felt silly, having gone once already and being
totally unsuccessful due
to lack of paddle, so did not want to go by myself again). I told her about my paddle problem and Tomomi-sensei
disappeared, went somewhere mysterious, and later returned with a paddle for me to use. Woo hoo!
So, she asked if I had exercise clothes. Um, no. No indoor tennis shoes either, so I walked into
the gym in my dress clothes (at least I was wearing pants) and socks. There was one student without
a partner. Moriguchi-san let me team up with her first and that is when we discovered that the paddle
that Tomomi-sensei found for me is made to be held back-handed, not front-handed like I played.
Moriguchi-san lent me hers and I played! Woah, natsukashii! I don't remember the last time I played ping pong.
I think I was in high school when we moved our ping-pong table into storage (and later gave it to a neighbor).
Long time. And lots of fun, though I kept hitting the ball too hard (maybe I was used to hitting the ball as a kid
with less arm strength?). Anyway, so I let Moriguchi-san play and in the meantime, marveled at how many
yellow balls they had. Every table had a basket full of balls and they would use those (even though the
missed
balls were on the floor all over their side of the gym). When the plastic basket emptied, they
would collect the balls efficiently
with a nifty blue net. I was having fun twirling the net like a flag in my old high-school flagline days.
Hey, maybe I'll teach flag-twirling! How international! Um. Anyway, two of the students were really practicing
hard. One (the guy)
was counting to five and letting the girl practice her slams. She was good! Anyway, I realized that
partner switching was really not happening. There did not seem to be any point to coming in the future unless
a partner was needed. Hmm. Afterward, I asked where Tomomi-sensei had gotten the paddle, so I could
get one if needed. He smiled and said, "the men's locker room."
