Reflections from Italy
Monday, July 25, 2022 by Billy Roberts | Reflection
This blog is a bit different because I was on vacation with my family for most of the first two weeks of this month. Before we left, I drafted a blog that I titled “Practicing When Fatigued,” where I wrote down thoughts about building embouchure strength through discipline, hard work, and not being afraid to sound bad, within reason, by learning how to push yourself without going too far. However, as I read over the draft last week, my mind was still on Italy. That other blog can wait.
We flew to Rome on Saturday, July 2, and enjoyed two and a half days of walking tours before boarding a cruise ship on Tuesday afternoon. This was the first time that I and my children had ever been to Europe, and we had been looking forward to the trip for months. Our eleven-day vacation consisted of two travel days with long airline flights, five days in Italy, two days in France, and two days in Spain.
As our trip neared its end, I had a strong desire to relearn German, which I had studied in high school, and come back to Europe someday after I had mastered those skills. As I sorted through memories over the next few days, I remembered that the reason I studied German in high school was for its culture of music. However, my heart was gripped as I thought about several homeless people that I had met on the streets of Italy but could not understand what they were saying. It did not take me long to decide that I really wanted to learn Italian, even though it is not as widely used as Spanish, French, or German, the languages that I have had some experience with in the past. I’ve also always thought that Italian is an incredibly beautiful language for singing.
Understanding Italian is more important for me right now than pursuing the study of any other language. After we had been in Italy for three or four days, I caught myself trying to put an Italian accent into some of my English phrases. It just seemed so much more natural and easier on the voice. I feel like with my background, it is the best gateway for me to understand European culture, language in songs, and other Romance languages should I someday want to learn more French or Spanish phrases.
Although I’ve sung in numerous languages over the years, I have to admit that I’ve put more work into pronouncing the words correctly than actually understanding what they mean. Sure, I always like to read through the translations a few times, but in order to really know a song you need to know what each word means as you sing it. Ultimately, I’m hoping that my study of Italian will continue to help me shed the bad vocal habits that came naturally with my Texas upbringing, fully get lost in Italian music the same way that I do when singing in English, and gain further appreciation for the culture of art and music that keeps us in touch with the past even as we move forward into a technology-oriented future.
