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.