Essay of My Wonderful Life, Music and Mathematics

Recently, I unexpectedly remind of some old occurrences quite vividly. So was yesterday. I happened to see an old man, who has the brilliant white gray hair, in front of a very dear church near my house. While looking at his white gray hair, I got the time slip and my consciousness was carried out nearly 40 years ago.

I was a prefectural high school student. There was a school teacher, who had exactly same kind of white gray hair as this old man. He was a silent type. His teaching style was strange. As soon as a chime finished sounding, he appeared in a classroom. He began suddenly to write a musical score to a blackboard. Three chalks were inserted into one hand, then he wrote three parallel lines to a corner at a stretch from another corner of a blackboard, and on the way back, he also wrote two parallel lines. He wrote the music score by the quick work which cannot be found to our eyes. After that, he asked us "Is there anyone who can sing this song?" At the first time when I saw this, I thought what happened. Since it should be the mathematical lesson time anyway.

Frankly speaking, I am so-called tone deaf. So I hesitated singing a song. However such student as a good at music could positively behave. They spontaneously raised their hands and they sang very well. The teacher showed us a satisfied face. He gave them a score in accordance with the degree of their skill of singing the song. Then he erased the music score and wrote two problems in mathematics on the blackboard.

All students should take turn answering these problems. However these problems were so difficult to solve. So half of us were at a loss what to do in front of the blackboard. Under such situation, the students, who got this music score, had an exemption to solve this problem. In short, those who couldn't sing a song should study mathematics more hardly. So this was a strange lesson of officially mathematics but privately music.

Since I was tone deaf by birth, I was one of the students to be forced to study mathematics. However, there were such lucky students, who were blessed with enough talent not only singing a song but also studying mathematics. They said the very extravagant thing "Which one can I relax today by singing a song or answering mathematics?" I think how the God is unfair. However this is reality.

One day, a happening occurred, which made all of the students in my class room astonished. As usual the mathematics teacher came in to our classroom and finished writing a music score. We haven't seen such a strange music before. We kept quiet, with looking each other. We thought no one could sing such a strange song. Then a certain girl raised her hand and said "I can!" We were surprised to see her so positively. She was a pretty type girl. However she was so shy to talk with anyone. Can such a shy girl sing a song in front of people? This was our first surprise.

However once she started to sing the song, we were astonished again. With a transparent very beautiful soprano's voice, she started in Latin, "Adeste, fideles, laeti triumphantes....", which made the whole class stirred. She continued "Venite, venite in Bethlehem. Natum videte Regem angelorum. Venite adoremus, venite adoremus, Venite adoremus, Dominum." When she finished singing this song, all students stood up and applause her very much. She sat on her seat, changing her cheek slightly red. This song seemed to be a hymn. The teacher added the language appropriate for Latin to a musical score and asked us to sing it together. The girl led it, and it became a chorus in the class

Very surprisingly, I still remember this song and can sing it precisely, although it was a happening for only 10 minutes of about 40 years ago. In spite of a short experience, this might be one of the most impressed ones in my life. It was 20 years later since I experienced this in my high school, I was traveling around Germany and I happened to visit one church in a rural area near Munich. When I entered into this church, people sung this hymn, I also hummed involuntarily. Surrounding people looked at me.

I was poor in mathematics, therefore I forgot about all of the mathematics problems and theorem in the equation. However I still remember this hymn word by word without any mistakes. Every time when I remind of this hymn, I can renew my wonderful experience of this. It seems that my heart went across the boundaries of time, which is one of the big properties in my life. I think I studied in a really wonderful high school.

(May 26, 2002)