Bravo To Music And Let’s Play Ping Pong Poem by Joe Rosochacki

The language and the customs are different,
The political-sociological are not to get confused,
I found this out personally after I took trips to many lands,
I taught group of young guitar players the E7+9 chord,
That is usually played in funk music, in Sienna, Italy.
I played with Greeks musicians in the Plaka and Corfu.
I played in the UK, Monte Carlo, and Cozumel,
I played in Reykjavik Iceland and the Staro Miasto in Warsaw, Poland.

But when I was in Beijing,
I looked for some Chinese live music,
The hotel, The Palace Hotel,
where we were staying had a quintet in the foyer,
They were playing Vivaldi and Mozart.
I had enough of that through my Bachelors,
And Master of Arts degrees that were conferred upon me at Eastern Michigan University,
In the Michigan city of Ypsilanti.

What wrong with this picture? I knew.
I don’t to travel 13 time zones to hear Baroque music in downtown Beijing.
I found a trio a ladies three floors the main level,
They were playing traditional Chinese music on tradiditional instruments,
the Yang Chin, the Pipa, and the Er-hu.
They sounded great;
they didn’t speak any English,
And I didn’t speak Chinese,
either Mandarin or Cantonese,
I was so impressed that I bought a Pipa from a local music store.
And rode a rickshaw-like tricycle back to the hotel,
through the traffic of bicycles the driver would ignore.

I purchased a book in order to look at Chinese notation,
and pitch classification,
I went back to my room and I composed a brief work to give to the ladies.
I wrote a pentatonical work using the western staff 5 lines and 4 spaces.
However I also wrote the corresponding Chinese pitches,
Which were more or less based on the Solfege,
We know as Do- Re- Mi-Fa- So-La –Ti –Do,
They use Do (1) –Re(2) - Mi (3) - So (5) -La (6) ,
And I gave it to them; they played what I had given them.
They understood what I understood about their music and scales.

So I applaud the New York Philharmonic Orchestra for traveling to North Korea,
Because the ping pong helped open up China,
Music was the key, no pun intended,
Close Encounters of the Third Kind,
Music will be one of the common elements that pull people together,
Or for matters Aliens.
the song Across the Universe by the Beatles was beamed at Polaris.
I don’t think I’ll will play or teach out there the compensation would be astronomical.

(2-26-2008)