Letter from the Kingdom of Tune #17. Cloud Mouse: do you know, who was teaching me to read music?
Hello,
Cloud Mouse here! I live in the clouds and can fly because I have wings. Each computer mouse is my shell. Click - and you can get where you want, wherever your imagination takes you!
And I came from the clouds to help you develop your imagination to the very clouds with the help of the magic Soft Mozart program. Imagination is the most important thing to develop. Life is boring without creativity and imagination.
You may have read about me in the book The Kingdom of Tune 2. There I turned a piano doctor into a Tuning Fork, and a regular piano music stand into a computer screen.
Do you remember?
Open the book to page 13 and you’ll see everything that was written about me. And if you carefully review all the illustrations in the story, you will see me more than once in the middle of a wide variety of adventures.
By the way: here's your first mindfulness task. Count how many times an artist has painted me in the book. Be sure to write this number in your Progress Diary. Let's see how correct your number is.
Our guest is Queen Tonic's Guard. He thinks that I am the enemy of his land and that I stole the Princess's notes. He’s such a difficult guest! Hopefully, he will change his mind about me, even though it's not easy to do. For centuries, we (the mice) have been portrayed as everyone else’s enemies.
One story about the Nutcracker is worth mentioning! Everyone thinks that in life I am the enemy of the Nutcracker, Masha and all the good characters of the fairy tale. Nevertheless, this is just a role I am playing. You cannot take literally what is happening on stage.
In this photo, you can see Alexandra, a student of the Soft Mozart Academy and me. We are rehearsing a scene. Alexandra plays the role of Masha, and I have not yet managed to enter the image of the "evil" King of Mice. Do you like this shot? I really like it too! Here I am for real, not pretending to be a bad guy.
I am a huge music lover. I not only love music, but also can read it. Do you know who I learned to sight-read music from?
My first teacher was the great Guido of Arezzo! He himself developed musical notation. Can you imagine?
That was 1000 years ago.
It’s true. For Cloud Mice, the time flies. .
Guido was very fond of reading.
“Memory is limited. It is always useful to learn something new and develop,” he often said.
He worked all his life to ensure that music could be read and written, just like a book is.
“When you read, you don't depend on anyone! You yourself choose what you are interested in and what you are not. And you find your way all by yourself! " he often told me.
I am so sorry that I did not listen to his words then and underestimated his teachings.
If I had been more careful, I would never have gotten into trouble. But more on that later.
Painting by Pieter Bruegel The Blind
“In life, finding your way and not getting lost is the most important thing! You should always watch where you are going. You can't blindly follow someone, no matter how sweet the voice may seem to you. Who knows where others will take you. Study the road yourself," he said.
“Guido, using your fingers, aren’t you showing your students how to sing? Isn't that enough?!" I asked.
“The fact of the matter is that these are MY fingers. My students must learn to use only their own,” he answered me. “What's the use if one knows where to go and the others don't? We need everyone to be able to understand the way that music takes you!”
But 1000 years ago, solving the problem was not so easy!
“We need paper and ink. But if you draw wide stripes, then no ink is enough to write down even a simple musical idea,” Guido told me bitterly..
Then I advised him to draw thin stripes on the paper instead of wide ones. We mice know how to be thrifty and not waste money, and even more so, we know how to position ourselves on the stems and between them, even if they are very thin. Thin strips don't need much ink!
So Guido followed my advice. And thin lines appeared on the paper, and on them and between them - rhombuses and squares. This is how the first notes looked on the lines and between them.
At first Guido drew no more than 4 lines. After all, it was important for him that even the eyes of a simple mouse could not get lost in the "stalks" (the musical tracks).
Guido also taught me that every musical note - every diamond or square - has a precise pitch that can be easily calculated with a string if you press it in different places.
He told me that we mice have such a thin voice because we are short. The shorter the segment, the more it vibrates and the higher it sounds!
I often watched Guido work with an instrument that had only one string. This instrument is called "Monochord." "Mono" in Latin is one, and "Chord" is a string.
Guido was pinching the string in different places, listening to the vibrations and singing something under his breath. He often went out into nature. I saw real miracles: Guido worked with one string. But in the sky, I already saw the piano keys and the Music Grand Staff.
Even I, a simple gray mouse, understood how the vibrations of sound are related to notes ON thin lines and BETWEEN them! Guido was a real Wizard and knew how to foresee the future because it was from his monochord that the piano keys were later created.
Find me on this picture!
Guido often said that notes and sounds are like flowers. They come from the clouds in the form of buds, bloom as long as they have time span, and . . .
- “And then they die like people and mice?” I asked
- “Their wings grow, they turn into butterflies and fly away into the clouds!” Guido answered.
- “And I, too, will someday have wings?” I asked.
- “Definitely!” Guido said. “When your duration ends, you will transform into Cloud Mouse.”
And when you return from the clouds, you will bring people all my knowledge, all the information that I’m sharing with you now.
- “Guido, but why can't you just describe all this in your book?” I asked cautiously. “What if I forget something or mix it up?”
Guido sighed and said, “I can describe everything in words, but I cannot convey how a sound is born, develops, and ends, I cannot do that. It is necessary that the students themselves be able to communicate with the notes, feeling the duration of each time span.”
“Is there no other way? For example, if the teacher sings . . .” I tried to bend my line.
“You can't follow someone blindly,” Guido repeated. “You need to develop within yourself, not relying on anyone else!”
This is where I must end this letter, my friend! Queen Tonic's Guard is waiting for me. I need to prepare well for our meeting.
Sincerely yours,
Cloud Mouse
PS
Do you know that we have a room for you in our Kingdom? Come and claim it! Choose your school year and click New Topic. It will be your place! Here is the link!
Lesson plans with more Royal activities are for:
Make sure that you don't miss our recitals in progress! You can join any time and shine. Be our star! Keep your eye on our recitals here