Thursday, 14 September 06

Today was the last class for this session and also the last class before Grace and Pei Hsuan return home to Taiwan. It turns out that only Grace had time for the class today -- the other students had too much end-of-session work to take care of.

So Grace and I just chatted a bit in general. At some point she said she would like to hear some songs that are not in English so I played some songs by Manu Chao (bio, website) for her. I played:

* "Clandestino" (video)
* "Me Gustas Tu" (video)
* "Bongo Bong/Je ne t'aime plus" (video)

Grace was impressed how he switches languages randomly in the middle of songs.

She asked me to play her a song in German and the only thing I could think of was to search for a video by a band I know by name in Germany, but who's music I don't really like: Sportfreunde Stiller. I played the song "Ein Kompliment" (video) just because the description says it is their biggest hit.

With that, class was over for the day and for the session. I am planning on changing things up a bit for next session, making the class only once per week instead of twice, but then make it 90 minutes (possibly even 2 hours) rather than just one hour. And since I had so few students from ACE, I want to open the class to international students from Seattle Pacific University, too.

In any case, there will now be a break of a couple weeks before the next session starts, in whichever form it takes.

Tuesday 12 September 06

Only two students again, Grace and Noriko.

We started by looking at Grace's blog, "To Find Where I Belong" again. She had recently posted the lyrics to the song "Irresistible" (lyrics, video) by Jessica Simpson (bio). Grace is not really a fan of Jessica Simpson, Grace had just seen an interview with Jessica on TV and was curious about her and found the lyrics to this song.

Grace asked if I like the song and I said, "Truthfully, not really: it's too generic. There's nothing special about the song."

However, I noted that sometimes a song can be a favorite because it reminds a person of a time or a memory. So an otherwise uninteresting song can have a positive connection to a person if it reminds them of something they enjoyed.


To illustrate this idea I showed Grace the video to the song "Word Up" (video) by Cameo (bio) which is not really a great song, but every time I hear it I think about the student parties at the University of Mainz when I was studying there in 1986/87.

I asked Noriko which song reminds her most of her previous stay in Seattle, when she was here for 11 months. She says it is "Beautiful" (video, lyrics) by Christina Aguilera (bio) because it was so popular at that time.

Another song Noriko identifies with her previous US trip is "Sakura" (video with subtitles) by Naotaro Moriyama (bio, website). It is traditionally a song sung for graduation from school (which happens in March in Japan), but somehow it became the soundtrack to her roadtrip from California to Las Vegas with her friend. So it also reminds her of the American landscape and scenery down in the desert.

Another pick for Grace of a song which is rooted in a time is "Only Time" (video, lyrics) by Enya (bio): it reminds Grace of the air conditioner in her classroom when she was a kid and the English teacher explaining the lyrics to the song. The teacher is/was from Seattle (he still teaches in Taipei).

With that, class ended.

Later in the evening I went to see the Children of the Revolution flamenco show at the Capitol Club; it was a special show and very full because it was the last performance before the two main players go to Spain for 6 weeks to study flamenco more. Pei Hsuan liked it so much last week that she came to this show again, her last chance before she leaves back to Taiwan on Sunday.

Thursday, 7 September 06

Only two students again today, Grace and Pei Hsuan :-( . I taught those two the word "slacker".

But we were dealt a poor hand of cards today: the computer in the room we were in didn't have speakers attached! So we couldn't use the classroom computer. But my laptop, which *does* have speakers, doesn't connect to the Seattle Pacific University network, so I couldn't use their internet access on my laptop. Fortunately I have about 47GB of music on my laptop, so we had a pretty good choice of music to listen to...

We started with listening to a couple of songs by a Seattle singer named Carrie Akre (bio, website). I had been listening to one of her albums the previous evenings so it was loaded up in my mp3 player on my computer. The songs we listened to were "The River" (lyrics) and "Humdrum" (lyrics). Sorry, I can only find links to some samples of her songs on Amazon.

I mentioned that I like the melodies of these songs a lot, but the subjects are very sad. This is typical Seattle, in my view. I can't think of a single light-hearted Seattle band; they do aggression and depression best.

We moved on to a random list of mp3's on my hard drive. One is "Wash" (lyrics), which is one of my favorite Pearl Jam songs and one I had talked previously in the last session.

But I don't think the style of this song appealed to my students much, as they prefer much mellower songs. So I looked for something mellower in my collection and came up with "Andromeda & The Milky Way" (lyrics) by Me'Shell Ndegeocello (bio, website). This is one of my favorite songs, such passion!

Tuesday, 5 September 06

Today's class only had 2 students.

I asked if either of them had been to the Bumbershoot festival on the weekend. Yumi went with her host family to see Steve Miller and the Pacific Northwest Ballet performances. She rated Steve Miller as a little bit of an oldie and I concur completely.

Last week I had suggested that I take the class to the weekly Children of the Revolution flamenco concert at the Capitol Club tonight. All students were non-commital about going and we planned to check in with each other in the evening to see if they could break away from their homework.

At this point Grace asked "What is the difference between flamenco and salsa?" (first we worked through mispronunciation of "flamenco" versus "flamingo"). An excellent question! The basic difference that I can discern is that flamenco is a very structured dance which requires extensive training, even from the beginning whereas salsa is more of "general public" dance, i.e. it has steps, but the form of the dance is more free and can be learned and put into practice more quickly. I found this article about flamenco versus "Latin music" and while it's tone sounds more like an explanation for why flamenco is cooler and superior to other forms of dance, reading between the lines gives insight to the differences.

Here are the Wikipedia entries about the two types of dances: Flamenco | Salsa

I illustrated the differences between the two types of dance using the Children of the Revolution concert at Seattle City Hall from August 22nd since the band features both types of dancing in their show. Unfortunately I can't bookmark straight to the parts of the concert where the dancing takes place, but you can forward to them yourself: flamenco starts at about 25 minutes and 46 minutes; salsa starts at around 1hour, 2minutes.

If that is too much work, naturally YouTube has lots of videos of flamenco and salsa dancing. Knock yourself out!

The only "song" we talked about today was "Hips Don't Lie" (video) by Shakira. Grace said that she likes how Shakira sings. I mentioned that we have talked about Shakira previously in the class, too. Seems she is the most popular artist among my students so far.



In the evening I did go to the flamenco show and it was excellent!! Only one student came with me and she was enamored with it. She and I agreed that the other students really missed out on a great show. Well, there will be more chances for them from November on (the musicians are going to Spain for 6 weeks to study flamenco).

Thursday, 31 August 06

A note to my students: Next week, Tuesday the 5th and Thursday the 7th class will be in Bertona 4. Also, don't forget about the option to come with me to see the flamenco show at the Capitol Club Tuesday evening!


Today I had three students. Kumi was gone, but in her place Maggie, from Taiwan, attended.

As custom, I brought the current week's editions of The Stranger and The Seattle Weekly. Noriko had somehow never seen them before so I gave her a quick introduction to the newspapers.

As we leafed through the concert listings I saw that British band Starsailor (bio, website)will play the tiny Crocodile Cafe (website) on September 25th.

Starsailor have had quite a bit of success in Europe and I am surprised they are playing such a small club in Seattle -- on a Monday no less! I muttered that this would be a good show for "girls to go see" and Noriko asked "Why?" In a muddled fashion I said it's a bunch of cute boys who sing about feelings and that I know a few women who like them. I pulled up the video to "Silence Is Easy" and let it play. But none of my students seemed impressed. Nonetheless I imagine the show will sell out since it's in such a small, intimate venue. I saw the band on their first tour in Paris in a similarly tiny place and while I enjoyed the show, that one time is enough for me...

We moved on to learn more about Grace's taste in music. Grace has her own blog "To Find Where I Belong" where she posts lyrics to her favorite songs. So this was a natural place to talk about the music she likes.

We started at the top, where she had posted the lyrics to the Muse (bio, website) song "Unintended" (video). She likes this song for its melody, but had never really analyzed the lyrics. We analyzed them are came up with the interpretation that the singer has had his heart broken but has just met a new girl who "could be" the one he will always love. But before he can fall in love with the new girl he has to heal his broken heart.

The next song on Grace's blog is "Overprotected" (video, lyrics) by Britney Spears (bio). Grace particularly likes the lyrics and identifies with them because she is young and is going out on her own, making her own decisions about which direction to go in life.

As for the music, even though it is kind of abrupt and nervous, everything will be ok in the end.

Noriko also likes Britney Spears because of the uptempo music, though she doesn't listen closely to the lyrics. Maggie is ambivalent towards Ms. Spears.

The last song we had time for was "Everytime We Touch" by Cascada. Both Grace and Maggie love this song! It is taken from the Final Fantasy 2 video game. It seems that a lot of YouTubers have created their own videos for this song, though the real video is here.

It is quite marketing savvy to place a song in a video game to attract young people and, further, to inspire people to make their own videos to the music!

Tuesday, 29 August 06

Today there were 3 students. No musical adventures from the weekend in the group to report...

I mentioned that this weekend one of the best music and arts festivals in the whole U.S. takes place in Seattle: the Bumbershoot Festival. It's hard to describe what the festival is like to someone who has never been there, but I encouraged my students to plan to go check it out. We will look more closely at the events during Bumbershoot during the Thursday class to find things of interest for them.

I mentioned that one of the bands I especially want to see is Spoon (website, bio). The students asked what kind of music Spoon plays so I played a video of one of my favorite songs of theirs, "I Turn My Camera On" (video). I hadn't seen the video before and I actually found that it detracted from the song -- I have that song with some others playing in my car regularly and it's great for driving, but the video does nothing to enhance the song. I turned it off half way through because clearly the students weren't into it either. I hope I didn't dissuade them from going to Bumbershoot! I still like Spoon a lot and look forward to their show at Bumbershoot, but I don't need to see that video again...

I mentioned that I am going to see a solo concert tonight by Tim Rogers (bio), lead singer for Australian band You Am I (bio), one of my favorite live bands in the world. I didn't listen to my gut feeling and instead played a short clip of Tim performing solo. I only played about 20 seconds of it, but when I turned around my students had blank looks on their faces like "Why would anyone go see *that*?!"

With these two misfires (the Spoon and Tim Rogers clips) I may have destroyed any musical credibility I had with my students... Nonetheless, I am totally psyched to see Tim Rogers tonight -- he's a true rock n roller to the core I expect a great show!

Clearly it was time to move on to something which my students would actually enjoy. Yumi was prepared and wanted to introduce us to one of her favorite singers from Japan, Kumi Koda (her website, bio in English). I asked why Yumi likes Kumi so much. Part of it is because they are the same age, but also because Kumi has a lot of vitality. Additionally, when Yumi was applying for jobs listening to Kumi gave her a lot of heart.

We first watched the video for "Butterfly". Clearly she has a lot of Britney Spears influence in the video, though not the music. The lyrics are about wanting to be a rich girl.

I asked my students if they think this video is "too" sexy, in other words, if being so overtly sexy makes it less romantic. They answered they think the sexiness in this video is fine. But Noriko did mention that Yumi participated in the annual New Year's Eve competition between Japanese bands, which is a family-oriented TV show, and she felt that Yumi was too scantily clad for family viewing on that show.

I was curious to see what that looked like and we tried to find that video on YouTube but couldn't find it. We did find a video of SMAP (see entry for 15 August class) performing at the year-end competition. Noriko said this song was very popular in Japan, across generations, because it came out around the start of the Iraq war and is an appeal for peace. Yumi likes it a lot and Grace (from Taiwan) is also familiar with the song.

To end the class we came back to Kumi Koda again. We watched the video for "Wind" which Yumi says is Kumi's most popular song in Japan. The lyrics are about not giving up, keep on running and not being defeated by a headwind.

Although I wouldn't probably play something like SMAP or Kumi Koda at home myself, I find it really interesting to hear highly polished pop music from other countries. It is fascinating to see the similarities across the different cultures, but how similar themes vary to appeal to the local culture.

It just goes to show that the most important aspect of music is that a person identifies with the song/music in some way, any way. For example, that Kumi's music heartened Yumi when she needed to get through her tests. Victor said something similar about Green Day in an earlier class. For whatever reason music moves a person, whether it's a lyric, a tone, a feeling it evokes or a memory related to a period of time that music reminds a person of, music has a special connection to the soul.

Part of the goal of today's session was for me to learn more about my new students' musical taste so I can suggest some Seattle bands that they might like. Next session we will find out more about Grace's favorites, but from what Yumi showed us today, I can't think of a Seattle band that is like this kind of pop music (Kumi Koda and SMAP). For the most part, Seattle bands are not very "happy" -- they tend to be more introspective and melancholic. Is it because of the cloudy weather? We will explore this more in the coming weeks to see if I can find some Seattle music they like.

In the end we didn't discuss Dixie Chicks today. Perhaps we'll get to them on Thursday. I plan to go see the weekly Children of the Revolution flamenco show at the Capitol Club (map) on Capitol Hill next Tuesday and invited my class to come along. It sounds like we will have a group for dinner and flamenco!

By the way, the Children of the Revolution concert at Seattle City Hall that we saw for the last class of the last session is now online.

Thursday, 24 August 06

Only 2 students today, my two new students. It is too bad the class is so small, but on the other hand they are both very nice and I hope they enjoy practicing English conversation in such a small group. I have encouraged them to bring other students to our class.

As usual on Thursday I distributed The Stranger and Seattle Weekly newspapers. As we leafed through the papers I mentioned something about the Crocodile Cafe and how it is owned by the wife of REM's guitarist. But neither of my students were familiar with REM (bio). I played the video for "Losing My Religion" to see if it sounded familiar. Nope. But they liked the song. Grace asked what the song is about (lyrics) and I said one of the features of REM is that their lyrics are more like impressionist art with splashes and fragments of ideas put together rather than narrative.

The sparked a tangent on the subject of art and we really did not return to music until the very end of the class.

I forgot to play Dixie Chicks for them, so we will do that next session. Grace in particular wants to learn more about bands from Seattle. Neither she nor Yumi knows any Seattle bands, to my surprise not even Nirvana, which is usually the one band *everyone* knows. So I said that the next session they will have to tell me more about which music they like, then I can tell them about Seattle bands which match their taste.

Tuesday, 22 August 06 (First class of the new session)

Today was the start of a new session at ACE. Because this session is a short one between the Summer and Fall sessions the number of students at ACE is low. And for my class, I only had two new students! Inna and Anna came to the class for the last time; they leave Seattle Thursday evening. Noriko is contininuing. The new students are Grace from Taiwan and Yumi from Japan. I think the class is more fun if there are at least 4 or 5 students, so I hope they will bring some other students with them.

I did my introduction of the class to the new students and let the previous students tell a bit about the class. I asked Yumi what kind of music she likes and she mentioned Avril Lavigne (bio). Inna likes Avril, too, so I demonstrated how we typically find music in the class by going to YouTube and watching the video for "Complicated". After the video ended I pulled up the lyrics. I guess sometimes lyrical content isn't as important as phrases to just sing along to ;-).

Grace said one of her favorite musicians is Josh Groban (bio). I have never heard of him so we watched "You Raise Me Up" (video, lyrics).


Somehow the topic of Dixie Chicks came up with Inna and Anna saying how their music is very American and the "soundtrack" to their US trip this year. Neither Yumi nor Grace has heard Dixie Chicks so we will play them in Thursday's session.

Thursday, 17 August 06

Today's class (the last of the current session) was a field trip to see Children Of The Revolution play a free outdoor lunchtime concert at Seattle City Hall. Inna, Anna, Pei Hsuan and Noriko were able to make it.

The plan was to watch COTR's first set from 12 - 12:45, then I would drive them all back to ACE for their 1pm class. COTR played a great set and when it came time to go Inna and Anna said they wanted to skip their next class (which was only watching a movie anyway) and watch COTR's second set. But Noriko and Pei Hsuan had to attend their 1pm classes because they had tests to do.

In the end I took the two back to ACE and returned dowtown to the concert as quickly as possible. This meant that Inna and Anna saw the second set which includes the great salsa dancing in Isla Margarita.

[Added August 29th -- online video of the whole concert!]

Afterwards I introduced Inna and Anna to the band. Vassili, the lead singer, seems to know phrases in every language on Earth and said something to them in Russian that made them blush.
I don't know how much English my students learned today, but they seemed to have a lot of fun. A great end to this session's classes!

Next week a new session starts with a new crop of students. Inna and Anna are going home and Pei Hsuan will leave soon, too. I've had a great group of students in this first session; I hope the next group is as passionate about music and has similarly fun and outgoing personalities.

Tuesday, 15 August 06

Today we only had four students -- the combination of people leaving the school to go home or travelling as well the fact that this is the last week of classes for this session and therefore everyone has finals seems to be taking its toll on attending my "elective" class.

But the true disaster was this: YouTube.com suffered an outage and no videos were accessible! We had to use Google Videos which has a far inferior selection.

As is customary on Tuesday, I asked if anyone had any music related stories from the weekend. Pei Hsuan was the only one, having gone on a dance cruise for international students on Elliot Bay. She wasn't impressed with the music aboard but she did see her first shooting stars ever while out on the water!

Pei Hsuan said she had the song "I can't take my eyes off of you" in her head so we looked on Google Videos for it. Unfortunately, we could only find this. She said this isn't the song or at least version of it that she was thinking of, but we couldn't take our eyes off of the video!


Next up we somehow ended up seeing the whole "Never Let You Go" (video) by Dima Bilan (bio), the Russian Eurovision entry which we hadn't completed last week. Inna was entranced by the screen. I asked what the song was about and she said, "It's sung in English! It's about not letting someone go!"

Since Inna had the floor, we were suddenly back to Shakira. Inna wanted to see the video of "My Hips Don't Lie" from the World Cup opening ceremony.

For some reason we moved on to this video of a little girl dancing to "My Hips Don't Lie". Very cute and funny; a little Shakira in the making!


I wrestled back control of the class by asking Pei Hsuan to play one of Taiwan's top bands for us. I don't know the name of the band nor can I show you a video as she did the whole search using Chinese characters! The theme of the song is "I am a boy, I love you, but if you are happier with someone else you should go."

Our last song was by SMAP (bio), a Japanese boyband. As was the problem with the other band, Noriko used Japanese characters to find the video and I can't reproduce them here. So I can at least show *something* I am putting a link to a random video from them. You get the idea of what they are about. It is funny to see English words thrown into the Japanese at random points.

At the end of the class we made arrangements for a class field trip for our last class on Thursday: We are going to see Children of the Revolution play a free lunchtime concert at the Seattle City Hall.

Thursday, 10 August 06

Today's class was six people.

As I walked in Inna was playing one of her favorite songs, "Never Let You Go" by Dima Bilan, Ukraine's entry to the Eurovision contest. Anna's head was buried in her hands: apparently it's not so much the song but the frequency with which it is played at home that is driving Anna crazy.

We didn't spend time on this Bilan guy and moved on to one of Inna's other favorites (which is also Anna-approved) and we watched the video of "La Tortura". I have to admit to being a fan of the song; I have it on one of my cds in my car. I like the (to my ears) unusual rhythm and the sounds of the voices. I have never cared about the lyrics, concentrating on the sounds and rhythms of the music and voices. But Inna found a video where someone had added their own English translated subtitles to the video. The class found the imagery used in the lyrics interesting and a couple people said they like it more now that they know what the song is about.

Victor said that compared to the video of Nelly Furtado's "Promiscuous" from last session, this video is just too sexy.


Next up was a classical piece that Pei Hsuan brought in. She plays clarinet in a wind band back in Taiwan and though she puts up with this class's emphasis on pop and rock music, her heart is clearly more attuned to classical music.

Sadly, she doesn't know the name of the piece she played for us. The mp3 was titled "Vientosy Tangos". It is a piece she plays with her band at home. She chose this piece to play for the class because the melody is easy to remember; it's not her personal favorite piece. She does like the many layers of instruments atop each other in the song and the lonely, yet passionate feeling in the music. On the subject of lyrics, she said she feels the emotions of the music come through better without lyrics to intrude. I noted that with the Shakira song and other songs where I don't understand the lyrics the voices are just another aural texture.

It was obvious how much Pei Hsuan likes the music, interrupting herself as she talked about it to point out the trumpets "laughing" at one point and other passages she likes. But she was shocked when Victor said it reminds him of Tom & Jerry cartoons! I had to concur with him; my first exposure to many classical pieces was through Warner Brothers cartoons. For example, whenever I hear "The Barber of Seville" I picture Bugs Bunny giving Elmer Fudd a haircut. We talked about whether this is a good or a bad thing, that kids get exposure to classical music through cartoons. Victor and I think it's ok, but Pei Hsuan is clearly sceptical!


Next up was Edgar's pick -- finally we could hear something that *he* likes! He chose "Amazing" (video) by Aerosmith. I am not including a link to the lyrics as he said they are not important in his choice of the song. He then revealed that this isn't even his favorite Aerosmith song: that honor goes to "I don't want to miss a thing" (video). The rest of the class likes this song too. But interestingly it is all tied to the song being used in the movie "Armageddon"; the songs reminds them of the movie that they enjoyed a lot. The whole class recommends I see it.

I couldn't resist: at the end of the class I had to interject that Aerosmith to me is the band of sleazy rockers from the 70's and I played the song "Last Child" which had a photo montage over it. Ah, what a riff! But the class was not impressed and filed out the door.

Tuesday, 8 August 06

The class remained small today at only 5 people. Edgar again didn't bring any of his favorite music, so we had to improvise.

Improvisation is no problem for Inna: she hopped in front of the computer and started searching YouTube.com for her favorite songs. We watched Nelly Furtado "Promiscuous". I actually hadn't heard the song yet. I've never much liked Nelly Furtado, feeling her music and image is too calculated, but this song/video is calculated to be "sexy" which adds up to cheap as far as I am concerned. Sexiness is enhanced by leaving something to the imagination, not making everything obvious. The class agreed that she has changed for the worse and is trying to be like Christina, Britney, et al. There are enough of their ilk!

Nonetheless, I am always interested to see how artists try to make the next leap to stardom by using a big producer like Timbaland (who is *great* with Missy Elliot) and using all the skin-sells tricks. But it usually isn't as cool as what they are trying to emulate and that is true here, too.

Victor said he had been wanting to hear Norah Jones's "Come Away With Me" on the weekend so we punched that in to YouTube. After all the commotion of "Promiscuous" it was definitely a change of pace and both Inna and Edgar yawned.

One thing I like about Victor's taste in music is that it ranges from Green Day to Norah Jones. Props to not being put in a musical box!

However it did inspire an interesting conversation: Victor said he likes listening to Norah Jones when he's on the beach back home in Thailand. I asked which city he and his girlfriend (Sunny, also in the class) are from. They are from Pattaya (info, map), a resort town. I have never been to Thailand so I had to look it up on a map.

Victor and Sunny said they are leaving Seattle this coming Saturday to go to Virginia for a year(!). That's a shame as they are fun to have in the class. But I wish them good luck. (I have to get used to students moving every few weeks...)

Since they are leaving I insisted that we spend the rest of the hour listening to Thai music. Sunny's favorite band from Thailand is called Flure and she played her favorite song by them, "Mai Care" from her mp3 player (sorry, I can't find an online clip of the song). The song is about following your heart and dreams.

We continued with another song, "Rue doo tee chan ngao" (video) which is Flure's most popular song in Thailand. It is about the "season of loneliness" which is especially in the rainy season.

At the end we watched the "Honeymoon" video. It is funny that the videos are all karaoke-ready!

For Thursday Edgar *promises* to bring something he likes. Sounds like it will be Eric Clapton and/or Aerosmith.

Thank God for internet access and YouTube in this class!

Thursday, 3 August 06

The class dwindled to only 5 people today. But it was a fun session nonetheless. As usual for Thursday I brought copies of The Stranger and The Seattle Weekly.

Our first topic was Yoshida Brothers (bio in English) from Japan. Noriko from Japan was our navigator.

The Yoshida Brothers play the traditional 3-stringed instrument the shamisen. Noriko said that young people in Japan are more interested in Western music and culture and not traditional Japanese music. But the Yoshida Brothers have managed to cross over to popular culture on the back of a beer commercial.

Noriko first showed a video of the brothers doing a traditional shamisen performance. I like it, though am not sure I could take more than 3 minutes of it... (By the way, Noriko says the guy with blond hair that the camera keeps cutting to is a famous Japanese singer.)

Next she showed a video which has the brothers playing a more modern version of the traditional music (the video is a generic "tour of japan").

Noriko is glad that a band like the Yoshida Brothers can get young people interested in traditional music, too. She said she herself listens to more Western music and when I asked her why she chose to play this for the class she said she wanted to show Japanese culture.

I asked if she has Yoshida Brothers albums which led to a discussion about how people buy and/or acquire music. She said that most young people in Japan do not buy whole albums anymore: they just download the songs they are interested in. The students from other countries concurred that this is behavior is true in their countries, too.

We moved on to "Missing" (lyrics) by Everything But The Girl. Inna from the Ukraine brought it. We talked about how desperately sad the lyrics are, yet put to an upbeat tempo. This is a device used by a lot of bands, to my mind most often in reggae. A couple of students mentioned liking the imagery of the lyrics, especially the line "I miss you like the deserts miss the rain".



And on the topic of sad songs (it seems this class is mostly about sad songs!) Inna played another of her favorites, "Lonely Day" (lyrics, video) by System of a Down. Naturally I pointed out that the line "the most lonliest day of my life" is incorrect English, but everyone realized that already...

To pick up the mood of the class a bit, for the last song of the day I played a video of one of my favorite live performances of a song: "Black Horse and the Cherry Tree" by KT Tunstall on the French TV show Taratata. It's amazing how she puts all the elements of the songs together using an on-stage recorder. My mind could never keep track of all that! Indeed, on the same show the crowd messed her timing up and she had to re-start the song ("I want you back")

Not sure what we will listen to next week. Edgar from Russia doesn't like any of the stuff we've played so far, so I am trying to get him to bring something in that he likes.

Tuesday, 1 August 06

Today's class was 7 people.

As usual for Tuesday, I asked the class if anyone has a music-related story to tell from the weekend. Apparently not much happened this weekend: no one attended the Capitol Hill Block Party or any concerts.

Actually, on Friday I had gone to see a free in-store concert at Easy Street Records and a few students had come along. The show was by Pete Yorn, an American singer-songwriter who is releasing a new album in August. He is currently doing a little solo acoustic tour to promote the album and his show at the Crocodile Cafe was sold out, so the in-store was the only chance to see him this time around. The set was only 30 minutes long, loose (he abandoned a song halfway through) and laid back. He didn't play any songs that I am familiar with, but it was worth going down and seeing him.


*I* had the next story from the weekend, well, actually Monday night, to tell: I helped a local world music band, Children of the Revolution put on a short concert at Benaroya Hall opening for a political fundraiser for Senator Jim McDermott, with special speaking guest former president Bill Clinton.

I played a video of one of COTR's songs, "Isla Margarita" which features salsa dancing at the end. I asked the class if they would like to see another song and they enthusiastically replied "yes!" So I showed another song. Clearly most of the class liked the band. I mentioned that two of the members play flamenco music every Tuesday night at the Capital Club and suggested we will do a class "field trip" there one week. Unfortunately only those students over 21 years old can go, which is a bitter disappointment to our two Ukranian students...

I also mentioned that while it was a political event where Children of the Revolution played on Monday night, they were censored: they were not allowed to sell their latest CD in the foyer due to its "controversial" title ("Life, Love (and Guantanemo Bay"). And they were asked to not say or sing anything politically sensitive. So much for free speech and open exchange of ideas.

The rest of the class was spent playing and discussing Green Day songs.

First up was "Wake Me When September Ends" (lyrics, video) . Green Day is popular in the class with most of the guys; the women (except Inna) are a little more sceptical. They like the quiet beginning of the song, but then it gets a little loud for their tastes.

When I asked one of the women how she liked the song, she said "It's ok, but I like Children of the Revolution better!"

Next up was "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" (lyrics, video).

Victor mentioned that Green Day videos are very artistically done which I have to admit I was not aware of.

BTW, as I searched for Green Day videos, I came across this interesting mash-up video of Boulevard of Broken Dreams by Green Day, Wonderwall by Oasis, Writing to Reach You by Travis, and Sing for the Moment by Eminem.

On Thursday we plan to talk about “Missing” by Everything But The Girl and... we'll see! I may bring the Schoolhouse Rock DVD.

Thursday, 27 July 06

Today's class was again 8 students. It seems we have a core of about 10 people who regularly come. The conversations are getting more fluid and students are not as inhibited to speak their minds.


Following up the topic of concerts at The Gorge in Eastern Washington, I brought in a DVD of The Dave Matthew's Band shot at that location to show the students what it looks like there. I played the song/video "Grace Is Gone" which includes a lot of footage of the area around the Gorge as well as of the concert venue itself.

The class had never heard of Dave Matthews. He is one of those megastars in the US who is virtually unknown abroad. The class quite liked the song "Grace Is Gone".

I mentioned that the Dave Matthews Band is playing 3 consecutive nights at the Gorge, September 1-3 and asked how many students will still be in Seattle at that time, but out of the eight people in the class today, only a few will still be here then. But for those who will still be here, it would be a great cultural experience to see the DMB at the Gorge. On the other hand, that is the same weekend at the Bumbershoot festival in Seattle, one of the best music and arts festivals in the US. A tough choice to make... but I suppose I would recommend Bumbershoot over Dave Matthews.


Next we finally got to talking about the Sleepless in Seattle soundtrack. Jun played his favorite song from the album, "When I Fall In Love" by Celine Dion and Clive Griffin (lyrics). Jun likes this album for its calming effect. Most of the class likes the song and they are fans of Celine Dion (ex. "My heart will go on" from Titanic is also a favorite).

Many of the students in the class haven't seen the movie "Sleepless in Seattle", which surprised me. When I am abroad and tell people I am from Seattle, the #1 response is "Oh, Sleepless in Seattle! I love that film!" (The #2 response is "Nirvana!"). If you have spent time in Seattle, it's good to see the movie to be reminded of the city. I also enjoy seeing movies set in places I have lived (latest example is "The Devil Wears Prada" which has some scenes shot in Paris, including one just a few streets from my apartment in the 5th Arrondissement). If you like grunge music, another film to that is set in Seattle to see is "Singles". It's not really an accurate depiction of what life was like in the music clubs in Seattle pre-Nevermind, but it's kind of fun to watch anyway if you want to see the Seattle backdrop combined with music.

The next topic was Ukranian pop music. Inna had a cd full of mp3's and played a lot of snippets of songs which are currently popular in the Ukraine. I can't remember any of the names of the bands, but we agreed that pop music is pretty similar in all countries, only the singing language changes.

We found out today that Joan from Andorra will be leaving Seattle with his family Friday to go back home. That's a shame, as Joan is one of the most active participants and clearly enjoys a wide variety of music. To commemorate Joan leaving, we took a picture of the class (unfortunately Anna is not in the picture as she is behind the camera):

Tuesday, 25 July 06

Today's class was only 8 people. But the mood was upbeat and the conversation flowed nicely.

I started by asking if anyone had any "musical" experiences over the weekend. Joan had taken his family over to the Pearl Jam concert on Saturday at the Gorge: in my eyes, a great "Seattle cultural" experience. To the left here is a picture of what the venue looks like (click on the picture for a larger version). It's a great place to see any band, but Pearl Jam usually plays inspired concerts there. And the set list for Saturday sounds excellent as far as I am concerned though I am not sure I could have handled the heat...

Joan made some interesting observations about the show: why are there chairs at the *front* of the stage for a rock show? He thought it was funny that people over 21 who wanted to drink alcohol had to wear a special bracelet. And most absurd was that beer/alcohol was only served until sundown!

Joan's 14-year old son got bored, except when PJ started playing some oldies at the end of the set. All in all Joan deemed it a good experience.

The Seattle newspapers also liked the show, here their reviews: Seattle Times, Seattle P-I.


One of the girls in the class then had a (somewhat) music-related story to tell about her weekend: she and her friends went to a gay bar one night. She isn't sure what part of the city it was in (I am guessing Capitol Hill) the experience appears to have perplexed her: so many "good looking men" but so little clothes and such "dirty dancing". Clearly an impressionable experience for her. I asked if she'd go to a gay bar again. She hesitated and replied "Yes, when I'm a little older, like 25." I asked what difference being older would make and she doesn't really know, but in any case, it may be a while before she ventures out to a gay bar again.


We moved on talking about songs some students had brought in. One guy brought in "In the end" by Linkin Park. We played the song and read the lyrics. We talked about whether this is a good attitude to have to an ex-girlfriend/boyfriend.

The guy who brought the song in says he likes to listen to it when he has to work hard on a task, to get through something. One of the girls in the class also likes this song and it makes her think of some of her friends back home. Others in the class were neutral about it, though even those who are not fans of heavy music found parts of it appealing.



The next song discussed was "You're beautiful" by James Blunt.

The girl who brought it in said that she originally wanted to bring in a song called "You're So Beautiful" which she likes (she doesn't know which artist sings it), but when she read the lyrics to that song they were so bad that she didn't want to talk about it.

We watched the video for "You're Beautiful" and read the lyrics. The girl who brought it in said she likes it particularly for its romanticism. The conversation mostly centered on the video and different theories about why he takes off his clothes, despite the cold weather, and then jumps in the water. Is he cleansing himself? Suicide for a lost love? We didn't reach a conclusion, just theorized.

Today's songs had a common theme of love for someone who a person is not with. I mentioned one of my favorite lyrics about love, from Temple of the Dog:

"But when it's my time to throw the next stone
I'll call you beautiful, if I call at all"

And on the theme of cleansing, my favorite Pearl Jam song -- which they coincidentally started their concert at the Gorge on Saturday with -- is "Wash" with the refrain of "wash my love": I like the idea of "washing" an intangible.

With that today's session was over. Thursday we plan to talk about:
* Sleepless in Seattle soundtrack (song tbd)
* Green day (song tbd)
* Everything but the girl (“Missing”)
* If we have time, Ukrainian music.

Thursday, 20 July 06

The agenda for today's session was:

* Pearl Jam's new album
* Dixie Chicks
* Keane
* Linkin Park
* Sleepless in Seattle soundtrack


I began by asking how many people in the class (there were 14 today) know Pearl Jam's music. My question was met with blank stares. One person (Joan) is familiar with the band. Another person (Victor) has heard of them; to him they are an old band.

I thought, "This can't be right -- one of the biggest bands from the 90's?!?" I played a bit of "Alive" for them. Then "Jeremy". No reaction. No familiarity, no interest. Ok, fair enough, but what a surprise! The grunge phenomenon has officially fallen off the world radar screen.

I had made copies of the latest Pearl Jam album reviews from the Seattle Times and Seattle P-I and passed them around, but I realize now that the students must have received the copies with puzzlement.


We moved on to the Dixie Chicks. The two Ukranian girls who have been travelling through the US for a few months brought in the album "Taking The Long Way". They had never heard of the band before coming to the US and it was their host family who had turned them on to the Dixie Chicks.

In preparation for the class I had printed out part of the DC biography from Wikipedia about the political controversy around them a few years ago and passed the copies to the class.

We played the songs "Long Way Around" and "I Hope". The girls explained how the songs are the soundtrack to their travels around the US, both in terms of the content (theme of travelling while friends are settling down in "Long Way Around") and in terms of style of music, which is very American.

There was some talk about how typically American the band is, in terms of music and lyrical content. One student said they strike him as conservative and that they sing about typical American themes.


Our next song was Keane "Somewhere only we know" (lyrics). The girl who brought it in said she likes the melancholic melody. We discussed whether the singer is singing about the past, present or future.


We ran out of time to listen to a Linkin Park song or to talk about the Sleepless in Seattle soundtrack. Those will be our first two topics for next Tuesday's session.

The songs for next Tuesday are:
* Linkin Park (song to be determined)
* Sleepless in Seattle
* James Blunt "Beautiful"
* Green Day (song to be determined)
* Aerosmith (song to be determined)

Tuesday 18 July 06 (first class)

Today was the first class so it was dedicated to introductions and orientation. I brought in copies of The Stranger and Seattle Weekly newspapers.

There were 10 students, mostly from Asia plus two from Ukraine and one from Andorra. The musical tastes in the class are quite varied, but there is a lot of emphasis on pop music.

For Thursday's class we will talk about and listen to the following:
* Pearl Jam's new album
* Dixie Chicks (song tbd)
* Keane "Somewhere only we know"
* Linkin Park (song tbd)
* Sleepless in Seattle soundtrack

A funny linguistic/cultural thing came up: A student asked where a good cd store is in Seattle. I replied that my favorite store is "Easy Street Records". I explained that it is on the other side of Queen Anne hill. As I was thinking out loud which street it is on the student said, "It's probably on 'Easy Street', no?" I explained that in American English when someone says he "lives on Easy Street" it means he/she has few problems in life.

I have created a page with answers to frequently asked questions on my websites at www.zitkovich.com/thelanguageofmusic .