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.