Mail Magazine vol.05
Hello, this is Kumiko.
How are you?
I feel the spring blooming little by little every day.
Although I suffer from hay fever, I love the particular change of this season !
Thinking of the encounters and the parting I have experienced since last spring, I went to see the cherry blossoms along the riverside this evening.
■Kumiko’s “ In Search of the Transparent Sound” vol.5
Since I started taking Prof.Sasaki’s lesson, I have experienced a lot in listening.
Today, I’ll tell you about my company whom I got acquainted through his lesson.
Prof.Sasaki gave a lot of lectures and published a book on his original method “ the separate sing; to open an ear” when he was young. Moved by his lecture, a musical teacher of a boys’ high-school in Yamagata prefecture began to adopt Sasaki’s method in his class.
However, his colleagues of the high-school couldn’t understand what he was trying to do. They doubted his way of teaching;
“ Apart from the teaching guidance, what is he trying to do?”
One day, almost 40 boys of that high-school were in a bus heading for some historical sight as a part of extracurricular activities. The teacher leading them had prepared various games for them so that they would not make a fuss in the bus.
Contrary to his worry, those students began to sing voluntarily instead of making a fuss. They kept on singing many songs one after another. And what’s more, all of the songs which they sang were quartets! Imagine that young and fresh boys kept on singing in quartet. How powerful and nice!
The leading teacher was so surprised that he told other teachers of the high-school what he experienced in the bus, the attitude of the boys and their sound. Since then, the teachers of the school had become to look up to that musical teacher.
The musical teacher continued to teach the class using Prof.Sasaki’s method “ the separate sing; to open an ear” until he retired.
Afterwards, some of the high-school students who experienced the sound through Sasaki’s method made their way to Tokyo to enter college. They joined a glee club of course, because they wanted to enjoy that sound again.
However the sound of the glee club was totally different from the one which they enjoyed in their high-school days. They were at a loss. After much consideration, one of them asked directly the musical teacher of their high-school;
“ Under whom did you learn the unique method of “ the separate sing?”
Finally, they reached the name of Prof. Sasaki! They visited Prof. Sasaki.
As for me, I made it a rule to take his lesson every week those days. The college students from Yamagata , Prof.Sasaki and me encountered like that..
In the meantime, Prof.Sasaki proposed to hold a workshop to sing hymns. It started at 7 p.m. every Friday at his house. All of us were absorbed in listening thoroughly to each other because it gave us joy to feel the sound space expanding eternally. I used to look forward to Friday and enjoyed listening and singing the hymns a cappella with my company.
This is one of the most precious memories of my adolescence. Whenever the workshop finished, I kept singing all the way home, even when descending the steps at the subway station!
This is the original scene of my experience of “ to fit other’s sound”.
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