Thank you to all my students at BCC for coming to the Language Of Music English conversation group each week; I have enjoyed very much learning about you and the music you like.
Unfortunately I have started a new job which will not allow me to regularly come to BCC Thursday afternoons. Until I find a new solution (ex. a new time/day of the week to meet or if someone else will host the conversation on Thursday afternoons), there will be no more meetings.
I will stay in touch! And feel free to contact me any time if you have questions about musical or cultural events in Seattle.
03 February 2009
28 January 2009
22 January 2009 (Thursday)
After last week's small turnout I was curious to see how many showed up for the next class... Eight students came, four of whom were new. This quarter is starting off so differently from other quarters! But of course I am enjoying the class, as always!
I asked one of the new students to pick a song. He choose "Take Me To Your Heart" (video, lyrics) by Michael Learns To Rock (bio).
Another new student chose the next song: Celine Dion (bio) "A New Day Has Come" (video, lyrics).
Somehow we started talking about the theme music to the old TV comedy "Friends" (info). We listened to the theme song "I'll Be There For You" (video, lyrics) and I explained what "DOA" means in the lyrics (it's short for "dead on arrival", i.e. the lyric "your love life's DOA" means "you love life is totally dead.")
Speaking of tv comedies, I mentioned that my favorite comedy is "My Name Is Earl" (info) which is one at 8pm on Thursdays. But it is so full of references to American culture that I doubt my students would think it's actually very funny...
I also told the class about another US cultural phenomenon: The late night talk shows that start at 11.30pm after the news. On Channel 5 is "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno" (info) and on Channel 7 is "Late Night With David Letterman" (info). For millions of Americans every evening ends watching the news, then falling asleep watching Leno or Letterman.
Another Celine Dion song was chosen and I had to tell the class that the late night comedians often make jokes about how over-dramatic Ms. Dion can be. But there's no denying she is extremely popular!
We watched Celine Dion duet with Il Divo (bio) on "I Believe In You" (video, lyrics). Actually, we were looking for the song she duets where the guy sings in Italian, but now I've forgotten which song we found...
At this point we all agreed we needed something non-Celine Dion, something heavier. "Crawling" (video, lyrics) by Linkin Park (bio) was suggested and watched.
Um, that was a bit *too* heavy for most of the class!...
We settled on something in the middle of Linkin Park and Celine Dion: Rihanna (bio) "Umbrella" (video, lyrics).
Rihanna is friends with Chris Brown (bio), so we watched his song "With You" (video, lyrics).
One of the new students, Vu, likes the dancing in Chris's song "Say Goodbye" (video, lyrics), so we watched that as the last song of the day.
I noted that the lyrics of "Say Goodbye" are almost exactly opposite of those of "With You" -- girls, beware of that guy! ;-)
I asked one of the new students to pick a song. He choose "Take Me To Your Heart" (video, lyrics) by Michael Learns To Rock (bio).Another new student chose the next song: Celine Dion (bio) "A New Day Has Come" (video, lyrics).
Somehow we started talking about the theme music to the old TV comedy "Friends" (info). We listened to the theme song "I'll Be There For You" (video, lyrics) and I explained what "DOA" means in the lyrics (it's short for "dead on arrival", i.e. the lyric "your love life's DOA" means "you love life is totally dead.")Speaking of tv comedies, I mentioned that my favorite comedy is "My Name Is Earl" (info) which is one at 8pm on Thursdays. But it is so full of references to American culture that I doubt my students would think it's actually very funny...I also told the class about another US cultural phenomenon: The late night talk shows that start at 11.30pm after the news. On Channel 5 is "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno" (info) and on Channel 7 is "Late Night With David Letterman" (info). For millions of Americans every evening ends watching the news, then falling asleep watching Leno or Letterman.
Another Celine Dion song was chosen and I had to tell the class that the late night comedians often make jokes about how over-dramatic Ms. Dion can be. But there's no denying she is extremely popular!
We watched Celine Dion duet with Il Divo (bio) on "I Believe In You" (video, lyrics). Actually, we were looking for the song she duets where the guy sings in Italian, but now I've forgotten which song we found...At this point we all agreed we needed something non-Celine Dion, something heavier. "Crawling" (video, lyrics) by Linkin Park (bio) was suggested and watched.
Um, that was a bit *too* heavy for most of the class!...
We settled on something in the middle of Linkin Park and Celine Dion: Rihanna (bio) "Umbrella" (video, lyrics).Rihanna is friends with Chris Brown (bio), so we watched his song "With You" (video, lyrics).
One of the new students, Vu, likes the dancing in Chris's song "Say Goodbye" (video, lyrics), so we watched that as the last song of the day.
I noted that the lyrics of "Say Goodbye" are almost exactly opposite of those of "With You" -- girls, beware of that guy! ;-)
15 January 2009 (Thursday)
The Language Of Music conversation class is back! After December holidays and snowstorms the first class of the 2009 Winter Quarter! Normally the first class of a quarter is overflowing with new students who show up to check out what the class is about. I was surprised that this time only five students showed up! Not only that, but four of the five were students from last quarter; the only new student was a Colombian friend of Diego's.
While such a low turnout was surprising, it was also just fine as it let me catch up with my old students about how their holidays were. For most of the class time we just caught up with each other, telling what we did through December rather than particularly talking about music! Aoi was back in Japan for the holidays and told us about the tradition of watching "Kohaku" (紅白歌合戦) (info). She told us how two teams, one which is women in red and one which is men in white, do a competition. We didn't find any clips from this year's Kohaku on YouTube, but watched this one as an example of the program.
Later, when we did talk about music a bit, Hyeijin mentioned that she is not a big fan of Jason Mraz (bio), an artist she discovered in this class! Her favorite song by him is "If It Kills Me" (video, lyrics).
I don't remember exactly how the next song came up but we watched "So Sick" (video, lyrics) by Ne-Yo (bio). The winter theme of the video fits Winter Quarter!
There is a "female perspective/answer" to Ne-Yo's song (song with lyrics).
It was great to see the familiar faces again, but that's all the music we talked about today. :-)
While such a low turnout was surprising, it was also just fine as it let me catch up with my old students about how their holidays were. For most of the class time we just caught up with each other, telling what we did through December rather than particularly talking about music! Aoi was back in Japan for the holidays and told us about the tradition of watching "Kohaku" (紅白歌合戦) (info). She told us how two teams, one which is women in red and one which is men in white, do a competition. We didn't find any clips from this year's Kohaku on YouTube, but watched this one as an example of the program.
Later, when we did talk about music a bit, Hyeijin mentioned that she is not a big fan of Jason Mraz (bio), an artist she discovered in this class! Her favorite song by him is "If It Kills Me" (video, lyrics).I don't remember exactly how the next song came up but we watched "So Sick" (video, lyrics) by Ne-Yo (bio). The winter theme of the video fits Winter Quarter!There is a "female perspective/answer" to Ne-Yo's song (song with lyrics).
It was great to see the familiar faces again, but that's all the music we talked about today. :-)
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