31 January 08

This week I had less students than I have become accustomed to -- only 7 -- but it was a fun class and we decided at the end to go for a trip to see the U2 3D concert movie next week.

At the start of class we talked about names rather than music. I said that a lot of my Asian students choose an American name when they come to the US and in so doing they are able to "create" a new identity for themselves. It' s an interesting concept!

When I travelled to Africa in November I learned that the Americans who stay there for two years with the Peace Corps are also given a local name.

We also talked about childhood nicknames the other kids used to call us when we were young.

One student said she had done research on Josh Groban and George Michael after our last class. I taught the class the verb "to google" which means "to do a web search". It is commonly used in America these days, though we are basically banned from saying it at my employer, Microsoft ;-) .

Finally we got around to talking about music. A student had a flyer about BCC-sponsored student trips to cultural events in Seattle. She had noted the one to Riverdance and asked if it is an interesting show. I said yes, it is very famous and interesting. We watched two videos: Geneva 2001 and... I can't remember which other one, but there are a million of them on YouTube.

Pinar noted that this dancing is very similar to a kind of traditional Turkish dancing. We watched "Sultans of the Dance" from the Eurovision song contest (a very fun evening of tv watching across Europe each year). Indeed, it was surprisingly similar to the Irish dancing of Riverdance!

I asked the class if they have ever heard of Cirque Du Soleil. None of them have heard of it. I have seen amazing clips of Cirque Du Soleil on TV, but during the class couldn't find anything on YouTub as cool as what I have seen on tv. We watched a part of Varekai called "Flying" but I think the part called "Water Meteors" is more interesting.

Cirque Du Soleil is coming to Seattle (actually, to Marymoor Park in Redmond) with a show called "Corteo" from April 24 - May 18. It must be an amazing show, albeit expensive :-( .

A student noted that the music reminded her of the Arizona Dreams soundtrack, but we didn't find a video for it on YouTube.



We had a new student today and I asked him for a musical suggestion. He chose a group called Libera (bio), a boys choir from the UK. I had never heard of this group before. We watched both an introduction to the band and a promo video for the album Visions.

A student mentioned that the Star Wars movies use choirs a lot. I asked what other kinds of music are like this and the class mentioned Enya (info, YouTube search) and Gregorian Chant (info, YouTube search).

As we talked in the class we learned that one of our group is a graduate in opera singing and a music teacher of flute and piano!

There follwed a short discussion and geography lesson about Moldova and Transnistria, but I won't go into those details here.

Next song chosen was George Michael (bio) "First Time I Ever Saw Your Face" (fan-made video, lyrics). Pinar said she likes the jazz album George Michael did "Songs From The Last Century". That album is all cover songs but done in a jazzy style. To contrast how he changed the songs, I showed his version of "Roxanne" (video), followed by the original version of Roxanne (video, lyrics) by The Police (bio). I personally prefer the Police version. And the drummer for The Police, Stewart Copeland, is my favorite rock drummer.

I told the class that my first job in high-tech was to be a researcher/writer for a Sting (bio) multimedia biography. One student said she likes the song "Desert Rose" (video, lyrics) with Cheb Mami (bio).

I told the story about how Sting had planned a special concert for a few lucky fans at his house in Tuscany, Italy in 2001. The plan was to broadcast the concert on the internet. The day for the concert came and everything was ready. It was September 11, 2001 and in the afternoon in Italy-time came word about the terrorist attacks in New York and Wasshington DC. They had to decide whether to go forward with the concert in the face of this tragedy. In the end they decided to play the concert, but the first song Sting did was "Fragile" (video, lyrics) a song about the fragility of life and humanity. The whole concert that day, with a documentary, was released as a DVD called "All This Time."

I said that I think Sting is an excellent lyricist. I started to say that I think Bono is an excellent lyricist, too, then stopped and told the class that I had seen the new U2 live concert film, "U2 3D" on the weekend. We talked a bit and decided that we would make a "class trip" to see the movie the evening of next Tuesday, February 5th!

For the last song of the day we came back to another version -- a true jazz version -- of the song "The First Time I Ever Saw Your Face" (video), this time by Roberta Flack (bio).


With that we called it a night. See some of you on Tuesday!