Lost in Musical Translation
One of the things I have been wanting to do since freshman year after declaring the CAPS major was joining the student orchestra at Beijing University. A dork, I know, but I think it’s a cool way to meet other Beida students and work on my Chinese. After failing to navigate through the Beida website (trust me, it’s REALLY hard) and with a lot of help from Duan Hong and Cathy Hao at the CAPS office, I successfully made it to the first rehearsal.
As for how the rehearsals have been helping my Chinese, I picked up some words like 指挥 and 谱台. My stand partner’s an American graduate student, which is cool, but somewhat unfortunate because he, like me, can only understand 50% of what the conductor says. This would be fine if I understood the other 50%, but inevitably, what we are able to extrapolate with our non-native Chinese overlaps. This leaves us very confused and constantly talking during the rehearsal to try to figure out his directions, which probably gives a the conductor a terrible impression of us. It also leaves us in the dust when he makes jokes, at which the entire orchestra laughs and we chuckle nervously, not knowing what was happening. Humor’s a very crucial part of rehearsals, even more important than rehearsing itself*, so it’s a shame that we’re missing out of that. So it goes, so it goes.
So far though, playing in an orchestra here is really interesting. There seems to be a different set of orchestra customs between the U.S. and China. The music we use is inside a binder with plastic sleeves. When we applaud, we use our hands instead of tapping our feet. Rehearsals are arranged for every Saturday afternoon, but the time doesn’t seem to be concrete — the conductor announces it after every rehearsal, even though it’s been at the same time the past three weeks. Section leaders are often asked to demonstrate how to play passages during rehearsal in front of the orchestra.
I can’t say that I don’t miss playing in the symphony back at Cornell. I miss everyone, and I miss the comforts of Lincoln Hall.
Honestly though, as whiny as I am right now, I really do enjoy playing in the orchestra here. I can’t understand the conductor half the time, but he’s very expressive and energetic, to the point I find him rather comical. We’ve been playing 红旗颂 and will be starting on Schubert’s Unfinished Symphony next rehearsal. I’ve made some friends with a couple students, and am going to see MIDORI PLAYING SIBELIUS OH MY GOD with a bunch of people next month. Very, very exciting.
*Just kidding Chris Kim!