I think I started piano lessons when I was six years old. I remember the graded piano books that lived in our piano bench. I remember being taught how to hold my fingers on the keys, how to identify middle C, and how to read the notes on the staff. At about the same age, we had flutophone lessons in school. The plastic recorders are considered to be a pre-band instrument for teaching reading of music. I think we paid $1 each for the instrument and a book of tunes. When I was in the fourth grade, I began to learn the trumpet in a school band. Our school had band for 4th and 5th graders. I think we must have sounded awful, but we learned to play scales and a few songs. By the time I reached sixth grade, I was allowed to focus on the trumpet as my instrument and I stopped taking piano lessons. I had, however, by that time learned to read both bass and treble clefs.

The topic of music clefs came up yesterday in our bell choir rehearsal. We have a very small bell choir at our church and we play pretty basic music. Most of our pieces are arranged for just eight bells. With four ringers, each of us is responsible for only two bells. That’s just two notes - the lower one in my left hand, the higher one in my right - the same direction for the arrangement of bells as the notes on a piano keyboard. So far we are only ringing notes int he treble clef. I am on the recruit for new ringers for our ensemble. I’d love to have enough people that we could ring the entire five octaves of bells that our church owns. I love the sounds of the larger, deeper bells.

In our discussion of clefs, I commented that I am a trumpet player, which means that I can read treble clef, and I am a tenor, which means that I can read bass clef. The reality is quiet a bit more complex, because music for tenors is written in different clefs. There is music for tenors in the treble clef, and there is even a tenor clef, which is neither the bass nor the treble clef. Identifying notes in written music is not that complex, but it does require a bit of practice.

I was thinking of my ability to read music, because being able to identify the notes is not the same as being able to accurately play them. Music notation describes both pitch and rhythm and playing any instrument accurately requires practice. The piano requires one to read multiple lines of music and play multiple notes simultaneously. Quite a bit of band music displays only one line of music, though it is common for brass quartet and quintet music to show multiple instruments in a single score. Bell choir music shows all of the notes in the piece and a ringer needs to identify which notes they are playing an distinguish them from notes other ringers are playing. That process is pretty much automatic for me. Some ringers mark their music, using colored highlight pens to mark the notes they ring. I know some who use different colors to indicate which hand is ringing. I find those marks to be a bit confusing and prefer to have the music unmarked.

I suppose that knowing how to read music is a bit like knowing a second language. Although I know a few words in several different languages, I am not fluent in any language other than English. Despite studying Hebrew for one year, Latin for two and French for four, my ability to read those languages is limited. I know a smattering of Spanish and Lakota words from having friends who are native speakers of those languages, but I’m pretty limited.

I do, however, think of myself as having a degree of fluency in three different languages and three different types of language. I read and write English. I read and write music. And I read and write mathematics. There are limits to my understanding of all three languages, but I have a basic understanding and a level of fluency in each one.

There are connections between the languages. Music follows mathematical patterns. This is true of both pitch and rhythm. Vocal music is generally sung in a spoken language. English and Latin are the most common languages for western church music, though there are hymns set in most spoken languages. I can generally keep up with singing from the Dakota Odowan, a hymnal used in Dakota, Lakota and Nakota congregations.

Within the English language, there are several distinct forms. In addition to regional accents and vocabularies, we generally use different word patterns when speaking than when writing. Spoken English has much more repetition, additional run-on sentences, and often includes sentence fragments as well as complete sentences. There is a huge difference between listening to a practiced storyteller and someone who is reading from an academic manuscript.

I worked hard at mastering the differences between spoken and written language throughout my career, in which I spoke regularly and also wrote. Now, as a retired preacher, I find myself to be a bit critical of other speakers who seem to exhibit less mastery in the distinctions between the written and spoken word. It is a challenge for me to listen to a speaker who shows little precision in pitch and rhythm without becoming critical. Inappropriate pauses, changes in volume and pitch distract from the message.

I am grateful for opportunities to engage in amateur music, whether it be ringing handbells, singing choral music, or playing my trumpet. I think that those experiences help me hone my skills as a speaker. Public speaking, like playing an instrument, requires practice. Practicing music helps hone skills as a speaker.

Now, I need to practice my skills as a listener. A bit less criticism and a bit more tolerance for mistakes is in order. After all, they let me ring handbells in worship. I should understand that some preachers just need a bit more practice.