<<  -- 4 --  Jennifer Paull    REMINISCENT RETROSPECTIVES

It doesn't matter where I teach, I have converted to Do, Re, Mi mixed with the American note values. It is my own personal cocktail of what appears most logical and least confusing to beginner students. Of course, with fluency, they can chop and change systems and should and do learn the other names of notes and values. Starting to do so as soon as possible is as important as learning the meaning of the Italian terms for musical direction. Maybe the music of the future will have even more additional inventions of its own?

Over the years, I have played in countries where I have not spoken the language very well (if at all), outside the concert hall. The wonderful thing is that for musicians the world over, music is their native language. Communication has never presented a problem even as an orchestral musician in the Netherlands, and my Dutch is sketchy at best.

My greatest challenge as far as communications were concerned was once in Iran. I had been invited to give a recital at the University of Shiraz. A purely medical university, they were just starting to work on Music Therapy as a brand new science at the time.

I wanted to carry out an experiment, and they agreed. We chose several regional players of various local flutes and percussion instruments whom I had never met prior to the actual recital. We couldn't communicate in any way apart from music. Obviously, a rehearsal would have spoiled the exercise. I felt a thrill that those musicians were hearing an oboe for the first time, and it just happened to be my oboe d'amore, not the much more familiar soprano oboe.

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