有り余る時間を有効に使いたい

　誰もが同じ心境でしょうが、先日、誕生日が来て、私もまた年齢が一つ高くなりました。今や人生百年時代と言われても誕生日が来ると複雑な気持ちです。でも、健康ならば何よりでしょう。私の場合、毎日の生活の中でやるべき仕事を見出し、しかし、昔のやり方に拘り過ぎず、進取な気持ちで物事に取り組みたいものです。

　ところで、若き日、吹奏楽をやったことが引き金となり、将来は音楽教師になることを目指したり、また、外国生活を夢見つつ、学生時代に教員免許は音楽と英語に挑戦し、２科目とも取得できました。それが半世紀も経過した今なお、この二つの分野に挑戦する日々であり、自らの興味関心という点で、若き日の進路選択は正しかったと感じてます。

　現在、ピアノは昔習った曲や、比較的簡単な曲を弾く程度です。それでも気持ちを入れることや、腕の力具合や姿勢などを通して音色に拘ってます。音がきれいであってこそ感動に繋がると感じてます。以前はプログラムを組んでホームコンサートを開き知人友人、近所の方に聴いてもらいましたが、最近では、人に聴いてもらうチャンスは来客があった時くらいです。

　
　外国の方が訪れた場合は、最初に彼らの国歌を必ず弾いて歓迎します。これによって距離感がずっと近くなります。以前に中国の女性が訪れたとき、まさか日本の真ん中で自国の国歌が聴けるとは思っていなかったのでしょう。彼女は少し涙ぐんでおられました。

　もう一方の英語については「英作文」中心です。フェイスブックやブログを通して「この日本語を英語でどう表すか」に絞ってます。このため辞書は和英辞典と日米口語辞典を引いてます。それにしても、対象となる題材は無限にあり、終了はないようです。

Dear my friends who are interested in music and English

　I'm sure everyone feels the same way, the other day my birthday came and I also got one year older. Even though we are now in the era where people can live to be 100 years old, I still have mixed feeling when my birthday comes. But being healthy is the best thing. In my case, I want to find work to do in my daily life, but I want to approach things with a proactive and enterprising attitude, without being too attached to old ways.

　By the way, when I was young, playing in a brass band was the trigger for me to aim to become a music teacher in the future, and dreaming of living abroad, so I tried to get teaching licenses in music and English when I was a student of Gumma University, and was able to obtain both subjects of license. Even now, half a century later, I am still challenging myself in these two fields, and I feel that my future course choice in my youth was right in terms of my interests.

　Currently, I only play the piano music I had learned a long time ago and relatively easy music. Even so, I am particular about the tone quality through putting my heart into music, the strength of my arms, and my posture. I feel that only a beautiful sound can lead to emotion. In the past, I would create a program and hold home concert for acquaintances, friends, and neighbors to listen to, but these days the only chance I play for people to listen is when I have guests at my home.

 Particularly when foreign visitors visit, I always start by playing their national anthem to welcome them. This makes the distance feel much closer. Previously, when a Chinese lady came at my home, she never imagined she would hear her national anthem in the middle of Japan. She was a little teary-eyed.

　As for my other subject, English, I focus on "English composition." Through Facebook and other means, I have narrowed it down to "how to express this Japanese phrase in English." For this reason, I use a Japanese-English dictionary and a Japanese-American colloquial dictionary. Even so, the topics to cover are endless, and it seems there is no end to it.

https://ttsreader.com/ja/...