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by Peter Berryman

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January 2005

Mir, Nostradamus, and Klagenfurt

Many generous, enchanting people write to me, commenting on various Whither Zithers. Time for a sampling:

In the last issue, I translated some of my own Xmas lyrics into other languages then back into English using web translators. I was surprised to have the word "world" translated into Russian, then back into English, appear as "peace." I tried the word in a different translator, and it came back as "world." I assumed that someone on the first translator's staff had left an editorial quirk.

Then I received an email from my long time correspondent and friend Bill Lagerroos who had sent a link of this column to Susanne Österlund-Pötzsch, a folklorist friend of his in Finland, who wrote:

...The Russian word "mir" does indeed mean both "peace" and "earth". The phrase "miry mir!", therefore, means "Peace to the world" -- pretty nice, isn't it...

So I asked Bill if he'd ask his friend if I could quote her. He asked her, and she wrote him back:

No worries at all!... The truth is that I'm not entirely sure that the "y" in the phrase "miry mir" is a correct latinization of the cyrillic letter "y" -- the more I think of it I think it should be "Miro Mir".

I suppose I should have paid more attention when the Mir space station went up. I have since Googled for it, and found many references to the delightful double meaning of the craft's name.

Meanwhile author, songwriter, and pal Rob Lopresti of Bellingham Washington, whose emails I treasure, observed that the translation of our song Big Dead Bird reminded him of this writing:

The great fish will come to complain and weep
for having chosen, deceived concerning his age:
he will hardly want to remain with them,
he will be deceived by those (speaking) his own tongue.

Rob says, Yes, it is clear that you have been channeling Nostradamus! Or perhaps he was writing comic folk songs...

Longtime WZ reader and contributor Phyllis Noble forwarded the November Dolceola column to her friend Tomás Kalmar, "...a great intellect, mathematician, educator, linguist, yodeler and musician, with a finely tuned sense of humor." He lives in Vermont, was born in Mexico, moved to Australia at age 6, been in US for last 40 years. He wrote back to her and I wrote to him to ask permission to use his story. Not only did he say yes but in following emails helped me more fully understand the playing of the fretted zither. His charming zither story, edited by Phyllis, and again really chopped by me for length, and used with permission, follows.

When I was seventeen I was in Vienna with my mother. It was 1959... Edith and I are crossing the Alps from Ravenna to Klagenfurt, reentering Austria... I'm standing on a hill near Klagenfurt, and my mother is encouraging me to let it out, to really yodel. I've been learning how to do it from a book bought in Klagenfurt!... She's persuading me it's time to do it... Been doin it ever since. We're in Vienna for six weeks. I want to learn how to play the zither. So I can yodel while playing the zither, like the yokels do. We buy a beautiful zither in a dignified old store. The folks at the store find me a teacher. A young slender woman, I'm 17, she must have been much older, perhaps 21...

Second lesson: the young lady keeps asking me what we did yesterday... How can she have forgotten all my questions, everything we went through to reach the point where I understood about the pinky and the fourth finger and the index finger... and the thumb and all the rest of it? Somehow I finally understand. This is not the same maiden. They are identical twins... Between them they have a boring job. They switch day by day and nobody notices. On their days off they get to teach the zither! ...

...I'm back in Sydney. A year's gone by...I take the zither out of its case. Alas, all the strings are out of tune. I know they have to be in a cycle of fifths, but I... need to know which of the strings is A... Eventually I go into town to Palings, the (one and only) music store in Sydney. I explain to one of [the salespeople] that I have a zither and want to learn how to tune it....

The man gets excited. "You have a zither, sir?"...Palings has just sold a zither to a youth ...[who] is looking for a zither tutor, and would I PLEASE offer my services to Palings in that capacity? So there I am getting paid... to teach an Aussie a few years younger than me how to play the Zither! We agree that we will have just four half hour sessions and then decide whether to proceed. I figure that if I haven't learned how to play it myself by the fourth session, I can call it quits without major loss of face. First lesson. He wants to play the Harry Lime Theme from the Third Man. Good, it's high on the list of tunes I've worked on. The melody line will not be a problem. His zither is in tune. "I have to tune mine to yours," I say, "see if you can find which of your strings is A. Here, listen, this is an A. See if you can find which of those bass strings is A." This takes a little time, and the youth learns a lot in the process of hunting for it. In due course, he finds it. I tune my corresponding string to A, and suggest that he and I both mark that string with a little mark, to always remember it. I explain it will take a while for me to tune my zither to his, but that's OK because we're not getting to the bass strings and the accompaniment till next week, this lesson is about playing tunes on the fretted melody strings, and that's a lot to start with...

By the time we get to the fourth lesson, both of us can play the melody with the the thumb, OR the accompaniment with our three fingers properly spaced. I explain that from here on it should be plain sailing, all he has to learn now is how to do both those things at the same time. We shake hands, mutually satisfied with the business deal.

Maybe as the years went by, he eventually learned how to play BOTH the tune with the thumb AND the chords with the other three fingers at the same time.

I never did.

All quotes used with permission, except for Nostradamus. My most sincere thanks to Bill Lagerroos, Susanne Österlund-Pötzsch, Rob Lopresti, Nostradamus, Phyllis Noble, and extra thanks to Tomás Kalmar for writing this mondo zitherography. My appreciation to all for giving me the go-ahead to reproduce their wise words.

NEWSFLASH: Here's an update regarding Matt Watroba's Michigan folk music radio show, Folks Like Us, which was booted off the WDET Detroit airwaves as discussed in October 2004's Whither Zither. Matt and his show have found a NEW HOME at station WEMU-FM in Ypsilanti. More details on the Folks Like Us website at www.folkslikeus.org. Also, you can listen to WEMU and Folks Like Us live on the Web! Go to http://www.wemu.org/listen.html.