"Do re mi" is the same in every language

So I may have mentioned previously that one of my host sisters, Violeta, plays the recorder occasionally.

Apparently it's required for her music class, which is an entire class period, just like science or English, in which they learn music history, music theory, an instrument, and how to read notes and rhythms. (This is a public school she goes to. It is also bilingual in Spanish and English. Every time I talk to any Spanish person about the education system in Spain or Europe in general, I want to throw up my hands and shout really, really loudly at my fellow Americans who bitch about how great things are right now, nobody needs to change anything, I want to keep my money and spend it on gas for my Hummer instead of giving this country's children a chance to learn about music, get your government and its taxes out of my backyard and sure, go ahead and cut out music, art, computer skills, and foreign languages out of our public schools, see if I care.)

Last night she was whining about her music homework. I offered to help her, and she looked at me skeptically but showed me her book. (I did decline her offer to play her recorder.)

She was suitably impressed with my ability to hum melodies, spit out solfege syllables and clap syncopated rhythms, but the entertaining part was when she began quizzing me about the composers she has to know. ("Bach," she would say, and I would respond "Johann Sebastian" and "Baroque," or "Bizet," and "Georges, Romantic.") While I'm sure my own butchering of German or Russian names was hilarious to her (and would make any native speaker's ears bleed), hearing the "Spanish" pronunciation of "Tchaikovsky" or "Beethoven" was ridiculously entertaining and endearing.

I am proud to say I knew every composer she threw at me. After fifteen years, I'm just glad to realize most of it actually sunk in.