Bonjour tout le monde and welcome to the second instalment of my On Location French blog!
I have had a very eventful past couple of weeks, culminating in a short hop over the border to northern Spain for my business school’s annual week-end d’intégration, which is a fun-filled “integration weekend” of various activities with the aim that all new students, French or foreign, may become more acquainted with each other.
This week, however, I’d like to tell you about a brilliant experience I had one evening at my business school. I had seen on a noticeboard that the Bureau des Arts (“the Arts Association”) were setting up after-school classes and meetings for different activities, such as hip-hop dancing, painting and singing. The one which grabbed my eye, however, was un bœuf – a jam session. As someone who loves the guitar and has played in rock bands before, I knew that this was definitely the event for me!
Upon arrival, I was first met with the sound of sweet music being made and secondly with the sight of around a dozen French students all crammed into a rather small cupboard-style room, complete with des guitares électriques, des basses, une batterie, un clavier et plusieurs micros (“electric guitars, bass guitars, a drum set, a keyboard and several mics”). Immediately, the ringleader of the group spoke to me:
– Tu sais jouer de la guitare? (“Can you play guitar?”)
– Oui, j’en joue depuis dix ans maintenant! (“Yes, I’ve been playing for ten years now!”)
– Vraiment?! Tiens alors! (“Really?! Here you go then!”)
at which point I was handed an electric guitar and instructed to start off a new jam! I did, and for the remainder of the session I had a great time playing and swapping instruments. I also learned a cool phrase: Je kiffe le son! – “I’m diggin’ the sound!”
I often think that music has the unique ability to act as a unifier of people and furthermore, as was particularly evident in this case, as a common language which is implicitly understood by everyone – my French may not be perfect and their English most certainly wasn’t either, but for a brief moment, we were all fluent in the same language.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this week’s blog and I’ll be back again soon with more On Location French. À très bientôt!
Music like all art is about sharing a feeling, that little bit of common ground between one another. Weather through art or language, we all have a basic primeval need to communicate. lets keep talking.
Really love this blog.
A la prochaine.
Ian.
mrci
merci