Whilst I've been in rural germany, I've been playing with the village wind band. Every village has one, and I've even seen them mentioned in guide books! So, unlike in Guildford where you only really know about the various band/orchestras if you're in the music scene, all I need to say is that I'm playing in the Altstaedten Blaskapelle and everyone knows what I mean (they also normally know someone who also plays in it, or did in the past)
We meet in the fire station (obviously!) squished into a room solely for the band's use. On the walls are loads of certificate and photos from the band's history, which goes back a looong way. In all their concerts they wear traditional bavarian dress (lederhosen for men, dirndl for women) and as I'm allowed to play in the Christmas concert I was starting to wonder where I was going to find a Dirndl. Thankfully I've been told that I can wear the black bottom/white top combo instead. That'll make me stick out like a sore thumb, but everyone knows that I'm the foreigner already so it doesn't really matter!
In the band itself one of the most striking aspects is the wide array of brass instruments. There's the standard trumpet/trombone/french horn/tuba but then there are also loads more inbetween. I sit infront of the Flugelhorn which is a sort of large trumpet with french horn style buttons. The woodwind section is far more restrained consisting of flute/piccolo/clarinet/sax.
Another striking feature is the gender stereotyping being almost perfectly fulfilled. Aside from one female horn player and one male clarinet player, the woodwind section is female and the brass/percussion sections are male.
Another feature of this village institution is the accents. It is by playing in band that I'm learning the Bayerisch way of saying numbers, and I can listen to an entire conversation and not understand a word! I'm getting better and understanding what all the notes are called too. (eg dur = major, b = b flat, as = a flat) Even so, I'm still sometimes left confused during the warm up when they play a well-known nursery rhyme, unfortunately german nursery rhymes differ from english ones!
But all that said and done, music is music and the pieces we play would not sound out of place in SWSCB. We're playing a nice mix, film music, marches, classical and a sandpaper ballet (ok, that last one's a bit wierd) Most of the pieces have english names so I get to advise on how they're pronounced; there was some controversy over the pronunciation of 'Irish Castle'
That's enough about my band, but I have another nugget of interesting linguistics. It is common here for people to say mir (myself) instead of wir (we). I initially thought that M was getting his words mixed up, but then I noticed alot more people doing it too. It's like a reversal of the queen's we!
And now Bonus time:
L was learning a german version of jingle bells by repeatly singing the verses over and over again. At one point he forgot the words, when M chimed in with the correct words to fill the gap. I swear a 3yo is not supposed to have a better memory than a 7yo!
And finally here is a link to a film shown every year on Sylvester (New Year's Eve) in Germany. I have been shown it twice; it is bizarre being educated on English comedy in Germany, but then I suppose I was made to watch Monty Python for the first time in America! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LVCA1rp-gfg
No comments:
Post a Comment