Conflicting languages

I had a fun experience tonight.

(By the way, I'm all better from that cold. Probably one of the shortest lived colds I've ever had. 2 days. Cayenne pepper in chicken soup may or may not have done the trick, but either way, it tasted great.)

My husband is in film school and recently wrote a script for a short movie that was made into a film. The film includes a crucial scene with a woman playing a flute.

Now, my mom has a music background. As such, I learned piano at a learn age (have totally forgotten it now) and then took up flute in 6th grade and played it diligently for about 6 years. Even though I worked very hard at it and took private lessons, I abandoned it when I became disillusioned after school budget cuts sent our band director to a competing district. As time went on I have missed it very much but knew I could not take on more "arts" and simply would never have time to practice.

So, goodbye flute...

But now with this film, I was called in to be technical advisor to show the actress how to pick up and hold a flute. (She had it backwards until I corrected her.) She also used MY flute. And then a few days ago I was asked to actually be recorded playing it for the film.

I panicked a little. On one hand I got very elitist about how the score wasn't written with appropriate phrasing etc., and on the other hand became very anxious listening to just how much I had forgotten, and ashamed to have to print out a finger chart from online.

But when I actually went in, I had a great time. There are other instruments in the background of the movie, so I got to feel like I was in an ensemble again. And though my playing was choppy, the experience was beautiful.

(They're going to edit together my good moments and chuck the bad ones. But also, the character in the film hasn't played in a long time either, so it doesn't have to sound perfect.)

But this entry is titled "conflicting languages." Here's why:

I was a little nervous working with these two tech guys who were recording me. They knew all kinds of stuff about their equipment and machinery that I just wouldn't get. And here they would be listening to how bad I was. But then it kind of hit me that we were all amateurs -- they're new at what they're doing, and I'm old and behind and what I was doing -- and neither of us was really in a place to judge the other.

Because they would say things like, "How are the levels?" and "I'm making a new track for you." And "Sorry, I just accidentally blijewlijslrh,b the sliclvjoleirw,ej into the slidfjlsdopiwrl." In short, I only sort of understood what they were talking about.

I, in turn, had to say things like, "I think this is in the wrong key," or " do you want me to tongue these notes?" and "I'm not sure how you want this phrasing to sound." Sometimes I felt I had to translate. Sometimes we just stared at each other to say, "What?"

Now we just have to wait and see how it turns out. It should be okay. We did quite a few "takes" and they think they can "sync it up" and "adjust the levels" appropriately.

So we will lskmiojh how it alksjflsi out.