(My apologies for taking so long to post the notes from the last class -- sorry!)
12 students today, four of whom were new. But for some reason the energy in today's class never really got rolling...
In an email to the class I had suggested the theme for this week be songs that remind them of Fall/Autumn. Diego had one in mind: "Nubes Negras" (video, lyrics) by a band from his native Colombia, Los de Adentro (MySpace). Diego played this song in a band back home in Colombia.
Next up was a choice from one of the new students. She is from Switzerland and she chose "What's Love Got To Do With It" (video, lyrics) by Tina Turner (bio) (Tina Turner also lives in Switzerland now). I asked the class if they agree with the lyrics: that it's better to keep your heart from falling in love in order to keep from being hurt ("Who needs a heart when a heart can be broken"). But no one wanted to talk about this topic... I mentioned the English phrase "It is better to love and have lost than to have never loved at all."
Tina Turner was a star long before most of the students in the class were even born, so I mentioned to them that she was a big star in the 60's and was in a very bad relationship, the story of which was made into a movie called, coincidentally, "What's Love Got To Do With It" (film info). She continues to look GREAT for her age.
To show how little Tina has aged, I showed a bit of a clip of her from 1971: Come Together (video - this is a Beatles song; lyrics are in the box next to the video).
(Side note about looking great as you age, my goal is to look at good at 60 as David Bowie (bio) does.
They even did a commercial for Vittel water (video) playing on the fact that Bowie looks amazingly young for his age. [Note, all the other "people" in that commercial are the characters/persona's Bowie has been during his long music career.])
Now back to the subject of Autumn songs: Next song was "İstanbul'da Sonbahar" (en = "Fall In Istanbul") (video) by Teoman (bio). An excellent songs and it definitely evokes Fall!
At this point the conversation somehow moved to talking about Halloween. Minnie said she is going to be Dipsy (pictured left) from the Teletubbies (show info).
I am not familiar with the Teletubbies characters and wanted to see how Dipsy acts. When I searched on Dipsy the first thing I found was this video of Dipsy doing some gangster dance (video). Minnie theorizes this is a normal video of Dipsy, just sped up. We all laughed heartily.
Speaking of Hallowen and non-human characters, I mentioned that I have been invited to a party where everyone is to come as a Muppet character. I asked the class which character I should be. Here's the whole cast of the Muppet show:
One suggestion was to be one of the old guys in the balcony.
Another suggestion was Bert. We watched the clip of "You're It" (video) with Bert and Ernie to see what Bert is like.
Hmmmm, am I really like the most conservative muppet characters?!?!
We now went back to music: Halloween songs. A great one is "This is Halloween" (video, lyrics) from the movie "The Nightmare Before Christmas" (info).
(After class Banu sent me a link to another Halloween-related video: "Jump In The Line" (video, lyrics) from the movie Beetlejuice (info) -- good choice!!)
Now we talked about who likes watching horror films. We watched the trailer to the movie "The Saw" (video). When I mentioned that I don't like to see blood someone suggested the movie "The Others" (video).
I don't remember how we got onto the subject, but somehow I asked if my students are familiar with the book "The Alchemist" (info) by Paulo Coelho (bio). Some of them know the book, some do not. It is one of my favorite books!
As I described "The Alchemist" being about pursuing dreams, one student asked if I am have read the book Don Quixote (info). I have started, but not finished, reading that book. Nonetheless, one of my favorite words in the English language comes from the story: quixotic (definition).
Speaking of philosophical authors, we touched on the name Rumi (bio). I have two books of his poetry.
As time was coming to a close, I mentioned to the class an idea that I have had but haven't yet organized: I would like to organize a series of trips restaurants (ex. we go to a Korean restaurant) where students from that country advise me and the others what is the most popular kinds of food to eat in their country and how people go out to eat: I would love to get insight to local food customs!
I also will take the students to the best Mexican restaurant in Seattle: La Carte De Oaxaca (website) in Ballard.
As people left the class I explained the origin of the phrase "trick or treat" that children say when they go from house to house on Halloween. It originally meant "Give me a treat or I'll play a trick on you." Here's thorough information about trick or treating.
9 Students today, 5 of whom were new -- a good group! But it is perplexing that from the 17 students last week on 4 returned... I wonder why?...
This weekend there is a two-day festival of Turkish culture (Turk Fest - www.turkfest.org) in Seattle and I asked one of my Turkish students, Ozlem, if she knew this event is happening. She already knew about it. I might be in the neighborhood of the festival (it is down by the Space Needle) on Sunday and might stop by.
Ozlem has been in Seattle for 4 months now but she has started complaining about the weather compared to Turkey. I taught them the word "gloomy" (definition), which can apply to both the weather and a person's mood.
I started the music part of the class by mentioning that one of the UK's biggest stars, Duffy (bio) is playing in a club in Seattle Friday night. To give a taste of Duffy's music I played two songs: Mercy (video, lyrics) (which has 22 million views on YouTube!!) and Warwick Avenue (video, lyrics). I noted that Warwick Avenue refers to a London Underground/Tube station (info, Tube map).
The general opinion among the students was that they like the song "Warwick Avenue" better than "Mercy": they said "Mercy" is too "old" in style. But that "retro" style is what is so popular these days.
Indeed, Duffy is the good angel of the current retro music style in contrast to Amy Winehouse (bio), "Rehab" (video, lyrics) (note this song has 30 million views!!).
Keeping with the retro music style I played a song by Eli "Paperboy" Reed (MySpace) who is opening Duffy's concert on Friday. I played a live version of "(Am I Just) Fooling Myself" (video) to show what a good voice he has. It'll be a whole lot of old style soul going on in Seattle Friday evening! But I don't think the music appeals to my students. Plus tickets are a fairly expensive $30. So I am guessing none of my students will be going to the show...
At this point one of the students said she would like to hear each person in the class say "subway" in their native language. So we went around and heard all the variations -- it was interesting! The conversation morphed into talking a little about linguistics (ex. the influence of Chinese on modern Korean and Japanese) and then into the awful lack of public transportation in Seattle (which applies to the US West Coast in general, though Seattle is a particularly poor example of public transportation.)
As we talked about public transportation and travelling Ozlem told the class that there is a website that enables cheap travel: Couchsurfing.com . She explained that the site matches people who offer a couch to sleep on with people who are looking to stay overnight in a city on the cheap. It's a good idea for adventurous travellers, but it definitely requires a strong element of trust!
Time for more music. I asked Taku to pick a song and he chose a song by the Japanese band "Bump Of Chicken" (bio). [SZ note: the name "Bump Of Chicken" makes no sense to me in English...] He chose a song about stargazing (video).
I mentioned that the singer's clothing style reminds me of a Finnish band from the 80's, Hanoi Rocks (bio). Here's an example of how they looked: "Don't You Ever Leave Me" (video, lyrics). My favorite Hanoi song was always "Taxi Driver" (video, lyrics). (Hanoi Rocks was a big influence on Guns N Roses -- GnR bought the rights to all the old Hanoi Rocks albums and re-issued them in the late 80's. I remember seeing Alice In Chains play Taxi Driver once in a club in Seattle, too.)
Now Diego from Colombia chose a song: "Pensando En Ti" (video, lyrics) by Mago de Oz (bio). This song is a re-make of Dust In The Wind (video, lyrics) by 70's band Kansas (bio), but Diego told us that the lyrics in Spanish are about love and missing a person rather than the original lyrics about human insignificance. Mago de Oz must have liked the melody to the song a lot but found the lyrics too depressing. The song clearly inspires them -- it's a good re-make!
The next song chosen was "Open Book" by Tahiti 80 (bio), but it was one of the very few songs we couldn't find on YouTube!
The last song of the day was "I Want It That Way" by the Backstreet Boys (bio). But the student didn't want to hear the orginal version of the song -- she wanted to hear *this* version (lyrics)!
At the end of the song I tried to explain the American concept of "political correctness" ("PC"), but I don't think they got it.
With that everyone went their separate ways for the day. The big question is, how many will show up next week?!?
Today was the first meeting of The Language Of Music group again since Spring Quarter. I had not organized any concerts or meetings during the summer and I had no idea how many students -- old or new -- would show up for class this time.
17 people showed up, only three of whom were from the previous quarter. I wonder if some of the other old students will show up again in future classes? In any case, the new students seem very outgoing and interested in music. As usual there is a mix of what kind of music people like, but the main theme I heard is that relaxing, soothing music and R&B are popular among this group. I look forward to our discussions!
We started with my usual introduction about myself and the class. Then the students introduced themselves: name, country and what kind of music they like. Most students are from Asian countries, but we have two Turks again, too.
After the introductions we dove into hearing some music. The theme was "Songs that remind you of (this) summer."
The first choice was a Jack Johnson (bio) song. Of course, practically *any* Jack Johnson song is appropriate for summer, so we just chose the one with the most views on YouTube: Upside Down (video, lyrics). I had never seen this video before -- it was funny to see Curious George (info), one of my favorite books as a kid.
The student who picked this song said that Jack Johnson reminds her of Hawaii: she has been there and has friends who live there. This song lifts her spirits.
The next choice was a Chinese artist and song: Jay Chou (bio). The song chosen was "Fragrant Rice" (video).
Next was a Japanese band: Exile (bio) doing "Summer Time Love" (video).
The next choice came from one of the Turkish students: "Cakkidi" (video) by Kenan Dogulu (bio). One of the students from last quarter recognized the song as one we had heard previously, and I vaguely remember seeing something like it before, but I can't find that I wrote about it in the class blog... It's a good song -- it's always interesting to see how similar music around the world can be, even if the songs are sung in different languages. I enjoy seeing the local cultural twist applied to musical styles popular across the world!
The next choice was another Turkish song, this time an instrumental "Why" (video) by Omar Faruk Tekbilek (bio).
The other Turkish student said that the stringed instrument featured in this song reminds her of the Japanese "erhu" (info), a sound that she *loves*! This reminded one of the previous students about a video we had seen from the Twelve Girls Band in a previous class (May 22nd).
The instrument reminded me of the sound of the kora from West Africa. I tried to find an example of Toumani Diabate (bio) playing kora for the class to hear the similarity, but I couldn't find during class. So here are a couple of examples:
Diabate will play solo in Seattle on 9 November -- I saw him play with a full band back in February and loved it -- I plan on going to the concert!
The next song chosen was "Yumeji's Theme / In The Mood For Love" (video) from the Chinese film of the same name. by Shigeru Umebayashi (bio). I had never seen the movie nor heard this song before, but really like it! I love melancholic music!
Getting back to the "summer" theme the next song was "Don't Stop" (video) by Jolin (bio).
The last song of the day was "Sweet Impact" (video) by BoA (bio). She originally from South Korea and started releasing records at age 13, but now only releases albums in Japan.
With that the first class of the new quarter was over. I hope the new students enjoyed class and will come back next week!
The Language Of Music conversation group is back for Fall Quarter at BCC!
We will meet every Thursday at 4.30pm in room L100C (the same room we were in for Spring Quarter). First meeting is this Thursday, 9 October!
I look forward to seeing old and new students and hearing about which songs were the soundtrack to your summer.
