Wednesday, May 16, 2007

The big news: Students showed up again today! In fact, there were 6 total, which is a very good size as everyone gets to speak a lot. There was one new person, Coleen, from Korea.

Kanako was in the class and I mentioned that she had gone to the concert with me Friday evening. We started talking a bit about Seattle the music scene. I said the most famous song from Seattle is "Smells Like Teen Spirit" (video, lyrics) by Nirvana (bio). Only Coleen recognized the song by its name, but once I played the song most of the other students recognized it. But didn't really like it... so we moved on to another song.



I said that there is another all-ages concert at the Crocodile Cafe this coming Monday (May 21) and that I would take any students who were interested. The band playing was Everclear (bio, video for the song "Wonderful", lyrics to "Wonderful") and a few of the students said it sounded like fun. I think they were encouraged by Kanako's report from last Friday. But I don't think they particularly liked the music.


Since we didn't really have class last week, when the students were to bring songs that mean "Seattle" to them, Hyunjin asked to play "Besame Mucho" (video, lyrics) by Sanjaya Malakar (bio) from American Idol (show description). She said this song means "Seattle" to her because the singer is from the area and it was popular when she came here.


Coleen is clearly a big music fan and wanted to play "Hotel California" (video, lyrics) by The Eagles (bio). She said that an interesting thing about this song is that the bass is based on a Purcell classical piece. I can't remember which Purcell piece, however... I said that the song sounds like it describes a nightmare to me, but Coleen pointed out that things like "you can check out but you can never leave" can also be interpreted to mean that something from the experience stays with you and that can be a positive thing.

As usual, Kerry wanted to hear an upbeat song: Sweat (video, lyrics) by Inner Circle (bio). She likes the singer's voice and sense of style.







I had to leave class right at 5pm today so we only had time for one more song: "They" (video, lyrics) by Jem (bio). Coleen noted that the bass line is based again on a classical piece, that it sounds like something from Bach.

With that class ended. It was a short one this week.