‘The distance from failure to success is 50 cm, what a violin measures’
More than 100 boys and girls from the communities of Mayapán and Tahmek continue their musical training virtually due to the health contingency of COVID-19, and they do so under the baton of maestro Emilio Bueno Salazar, who is in charge of the Symphonic Orchestras Children and Youth of Yucatán.
Only in Mayapán there are 26 boys and 28 girls; and in Tahmek there are 23 girls and 38 boys, two of them deserted at this stage. Until before the contingency they rehearsed in person, they even made a presentation last year in Tahmek, however, now they take classes from Zoom or other platforms. Now the scores are sent by WhatsApp, they only receive a visit from their teachers when they need to tune their instruments or in case of requiring a change of strings or oil in the metals.
“We had to reinvent ourselves, taking into account which platforms we could use, but also so as not to overwhelm the kids and parents by asking them to download and test the platforms. We also take into account the supply of internet in the entity ”mentioned the teacher Bueno Salazar.
Classes are daily, so after taking online classes for their degree, they continue with their music class. There are eight teachers who are in charge of imparting their knowledge and monitoring each apprentice musician.
“Classes are daily. We cannot bring many users together in a network, due to the delay in the signal, the latency and it creates a delay in receiving the information, that is why not many concerts are made online. It has to be that each teacher sees a couple of children or a child per hour, depending on the facilities that the child also has ”.
Percussions, clarinet, horn, saxophone, trumpet, trombone are some of the instruments that each student keeps at home, which were granted by the Segey (Ministry of Education in Yucatán).
From the emotional point of view, the teacher Bueno Salazar externally states that the students “have been affected because they cannot see their classmates, but on the other hand, children always find comfort and beauty. Music always has an incredible force to calm us down, to bring people together and give hope. There are moving videos, such as what happens with Italians singing on balconies. Music cannot heal a body attacked by a virus, but it can heal us from the virus of loneliness that attacks everyone, especially children. The children there have found refuge ”.
Music Education Engine
Maestro Emilio Bueno is recognized as the engine of formal musical education in southeastern Mexico, by achieving the creation of the Yucatan Children’s Symphony Orchestra and the Children’s Musical Initiation Center.
A believer in the positive effects of music on children, Emilio Bueno repeats one of his favorite phrases “the distance from failure to success is 50cm, what a violin measures.”
Since 2001 he belonged to different musical initiation projects in the state. Some of his students have been soloists in symphony orchestras and he always confesses that he prefers children: “I have specialized in children, I had many teachers who said that if everything was not right from the beginning, that is, with the children, nothing would be fine. Adults have emotional charges that they do not let us be, we are always thinking about what to say about me if I fail and we tend to be afraid that people will make fun of us, and not with children ”
Belonging to a musical home, maestro Emilio Bueno began his taste for music at the age of four and was sure of his vocation the first time he saw an orchestra live “what is this? this is what I want ”he remembers.
Edition: Elsa Torres
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