Cinco Segundos

With reference to the guest conductor who is currently present at the Orquestra, one of the trombonistas summarizes the relationship between conductor and orquestra así: beginning the moment that the conductor steps onto the podium, tiene cinco segundos, nada más, to win over the orquestra or to lose them forever. Five seconds in which to seal your fate, and then it’s over. Para siempre.

And so, not 24 hours after I had been asked to do so, having turned down invitations to do cool Friday night things like ir al bar or asistir karaoke night at a local restaurant in favor of sitting alone in my room staring apprehensively at the baton and 82 pages of score that had just been placed in my hands and listening a thousand times to a hundred versions of Mozart’s Serenata Notturna that were not enough to make me feel prepared for the upcoming occasion, unsettled by a sleepless night and an emotionally draining morning (during which each person upon whom I had depended to drive me suddenly became indisposed, taunting me with the simultaneously relieving and immensely frustrating posibilidad that I would not even have to do it), and además an hour late, I stepped in front of the orquestra de cámara, ready for the moment (or five, as it were), of truth.

Though I look forward each morning to the Orquestra’s rehearsal, where I can forget about the effort that it takes simply to exist in my nonnative language, where I do not have to try in order to understand the music, the demonstrative singing, and cualquier otra non-lingual communication, my own first rehearsal no fue un relief así. No less frustrating than mis tentativas inútiles to communicate through singing was each attempt to speak to the orquestra, thwarted time and again by my utter lack of Spanish musical vocabulary.

Referring to most basic and necessary things suddenly became a huge ordeal—knowing how to say “eighth” and how to say “note” does not get you very far when what they call them, corcheas, actually means quaver. QUAVER. Why would I know how to say quaver? Or even that that is what I am supposed to say?

But at least maybe once you know how to say one note value, you can refer to all of the other ones in terms of their metrical relationship to that one—dream on, Maestra. Because while that is the case for semicorcheas (sixteenth notes), not so for negras (black)—quarter notes, blancas (white)—half notes, y redondas (round)—whole notes. ROUND! Alright, note, it is not too difficult to be ROUND when you are a CIRCLE.

And then try to name the notes when you are used to using the alphabet, but it turns out that they prefer to use fixed solfège (where C is always Do). So aside from the fact that oh, hello, I don’t read viola clef—alto clef? I mean C clef. Except not actually, because THEY DON’T SAY C, okay yeah, la clave de do in tercera línea, that’s the one—that problemita notwithstanding, I cannot look at a score and, without thinking, tell the orquestra that they need to enfatizar la línea “fa mi re.” Drop of golden sun, anyone?

Those were the struggles that I confronted in the part of musical nomenclature that I had not even realized was metaphoric (I learned that you cannot discuss music at all but through a complex system of metaphors—however you refer to the notes on the page, in the end they are themselves only symbols); the metaphors that we use consciously to describe the manner in which something is played (heavy, light, give it body, presencia, cosas así), are here completely distinct from those to which I am accustomed. Por ejemplo, to tell los músicos not to ‘rush’ you say instead ‘correr’ (run)—this needs to happen frequently as the nine million second violins are always in a hurry (they are second for a reason and Dios mío there are so many of them).

There were other things too—I felt stupid knowing only one way to say ‘again,’ and God only knows what improper tenses I used conjugando commands and trying to tell people that they were supposed to be doing something (subjuntivo, you kill me).

And while in English we just atrociously pronounce all of the words as they are written in Italian (or occasionally German or French), here instead they prefer to translate everything into Spanish, so that if you tell them to play more forte they will pretend that they don’t know what you are talking about until you ask them to do it ‘fuerte.’ Or when you tell them that you play the piano they will ask you to play “Para Elisa” and you will be extremely confused since you do not recall having met anyone named Elisa, until finally you realize that they are talking about Für Elise.

But in the end, lo más importante is that you get up and do it. And you start to realize that their expectant looks maybe do not indicate that they are expecting you to suck, but instead that they think it is their job to look expectantly a la directora, awaiting her instructions (Band, take note). And that maybe, even though you know that you are young and inexperienced and that no one has ever taken you this seriously before, you should just believe them when they trust that you can do it—and then when they treat you like an actual musician, who has earned their respect and their high expectations, you will not be afraid—Because you can.

Even if it takes six seconds.