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!