17 February 2011 (Thursday)

8 students today, two of whom were new!

As I chatted with the new students at the beginning of class I asked if they have very many interactions with Americans.  Basically they do not: they live with friends from their home country, or alone, and are among the other international students all day at Seattle Central.  It's a shame that they are here in America, but have so little contact with Americans!

I know from my own experience living abroad how hard it can be to integrate with local people.  In the past I have tried to give my Language Of Music students a taste of local culture and I will do the same with this group.  I like the personalities I have in the class and I am sure I will find some fun things for the group to do.

One student wants to learn to dance Salsa.  In the building attached to where our class is The Century Ballroom (website), which has dance classes of all types throughout the week.

The theme for today's discussion was "love songs" in honor of Valentine's Day earlier in the week.  But before we started with love songs I asked the two new students to pick a song from their home country.

Sabine, from Cameroon started and chose Ca La (video) by Lady Ponce.  The style of music is "Bikutsi" (info) which is the most popular musical style in Cameroon.  Lady Ponce is a new singer on the scene and a rising star.

I asked what the song is about.  Sabine said it's Lady Ponce beckoning a man to be with her.  I asked Sabine if the men in Cameroon are good and she replied only about 20% of them are good.  So I guess Lady Ponce has to do a lot of beckoning ;-) .

Next Mohanned, from Saudi Arabia, chose a song.  Fortunately it was also in the theme of "love": "The Wedding" (video) by Qusai and Jeddah Legend (info) which is a Saudi rap song about getting married. It is interesting to hear the mix of English and Arabic and the mix of rap and traditional in the song and video.

At this point I asked the class how long wedding celebrations typically last in their home countries.  It was interesting to hear about the traditions.  Some places celebrate just for one day, other places for three days.

While we were talking about weddings I thought to ask the class if men are "romantic" in their culture.  I was asked to define "romantic";  I said "giving flowers to a woman" is gave an example of a man being romantic.  

We talked about in which ways men are romantic in different cultures for a while and then I asked everyone to say "I love you" in their own language so we could hear it.  Then we talked about whether a person says "I love you" to his/her husband/wife or to his/her parents in their cultures.

I found the whole conversation fascinating, but we weren't actually watching any music videos.  But that was fine: the point of the class is to practice speaking English and everyone was talking :-) .

Now I suggested we listen to a song.  Togtuun, one of the students from Mongolia, wanted to hear the song "Patient" (video, lyrics) by a rapper named Tulgat.  The interesting thing is that this rapper is from Mongolia but moved to the States -- to Seattle! -- as a teenager.  He has quite a story and is a good rapper -- listen to the song!

Haili, the other student from Mongolia, had brought with her a traditional Mongolian stringed instrument, a "morin khuur" (info).  She played two songs for us.  It was great!  How kind of her to bring the instrument and play for us!!  These kinds of experiences are why I love hosting this class!  Here is an example of a morin khuur being played.

I asked if there are any examples of songs where the morin khuur is combined with modern music.  Haili showed us the song "Mongolz" (video) by Jonon.  Very cool mix of traditional and modern!  I am intrigued to learn more about Mongolian music and culture!

This reminded me of when I learned about the Yoshida Brothers (吉田兄弟) (info) from one of my Japanese students when I first started leading this class almost 5 years ago; she had wanted to show me how a traditional Japanese instrument, the shamisen, was being played in a modern context.  I quickly showed the class two Yoshida Brothers videos: "Kodo" (video) and "Rising" (video) (which has a full rock band behind the brothers!). 

I would have never discovered the Yoshida Brothers if not for this class.  And I had the good fortune to see them in a small club in Seattle with my student when they came on tour in the US.  This was a special treat for her, as the Yoshida Brothers normally only play big halls in Japan.

By now we had been talking for more than 90 minutes and I hadn't been able to hear many picks of love songs.  It was time to close the class for this week, but we will continue with the theme of love songs next week.

10 February 2011 (Thursday)

First thing: in honor of Valentine's Day the theme for Thursday's (17 Feb) class is "your favorite love songs".  Students, please think of your favorite love songs (in any language, not just English) and we will listen to them on Thursday.

On 10 February, eleven students showed up!

We did a round of introductions, which included name, country of origin and favorite music. 

For the first time I have students from Mongolia and also Russian students from the Russian Far East.  I was surprised to learn that their city, Khabarovsk (map, info), is only 30km from China! 

I mentioned that I dream of visiting Lake Baikal (map, info) and one of my students said she spent a summer -- 3 months! -- there.  I had to teach the class the word "envious" (it is like "jealous") at this point.  I imagine Lake Baikal to be very beautiful and magical.  One day I must go there!

Back to music: It seems to me that R&B and hip-hop are particularly well liked.  I look forward to learning more about the students' taste in music over the coming weeks.

I asked the class if they know any music or bands from Seattle.  Blank looks.  So I showed them the video to the most famous song from Seattle ever: "Smells Like Teen Spirit" (video, lyrics) by Nirvana (bio).  As soon as the song started half the class nodded in recognition of the song.

Since so many people in the class said they like hip-hop, I mentioned that Seattle has some hip-hop bands that are getting nationwide attention.  The most well known one is Shabazz Palaces (bio).  I don't know their music well myself, so I just picked the song on YouTube with the most views "Belhaven Meridian" (video).

Coincidentally, in the Seattle Times newspaper this week there was an article about a local rapper named Macklemore.  He has sold out three nights at the Showbox (my favorite live music venue in the world) and is going out on a national tour.  Here you can read the article and see some of his videos.

To see what kind of music the students like I asked for someone to pick a song.  First choice was "Who's That Chick" (song, lyrics) by Rihanna (bio).  As we watched the song and read the lyrics I explained what the word "tipsy" means (it means to have feel that you have drunk some alcohol, but you are not yet drunk).

The next song chosen was "Take Your Shirt Off" (video, lyrics) by T-Pain (bio).  After we watched it I asked the student who picked the song why she likes that song.  She answered that when she is sad, it makes her happy.  She doesn't pay attention to the lyrics, she just likes the energy of the song.

But she did mention that she is getting bored of the song.  At this point I explained the different forms of using the word "bored" and "boring".  For example, you can say:

"That song is boring."

"That song bores me."

"That song is boring to me."

But you *cannot* say "I am boring" if you mean to say "That is boring" -- the two sentences have very different meanings!

Speaking of club music like T-Pain, one of the students says he has been to the Seattle club "Trinity" but hasn't yet been to "Venom".  He said Trinity was ok but nothing special.

Another student had an example of a song which she likes to listen to when she feels pressure: "Kurenai" (video) by X-Japan (bio).  It was interesting to me to hear that the lyrics are a mix of English and Japanese.

This video was taken at their last concert, before they broke up.  The band actually got back together for reunion concerts, but the original guitarist had died during the time between, so they had a special place for him on the stage.

I mentioned that a Seattle band, Alice In Chains (bio) has a similar situation: The original singer died a few years ago and when the band plays the song "Black Gives Way To Blue" (video, lyrics), which is dedicated to him, they put a microphone on the stage where he would have stood.

Someone in the class mentioned at this point that Seattle songs seem to be pretty depressing.  I guess there's truth to that observation.  I motioned to the window and said, "With this kind of weather, what do you expect?!?"

I asked one of the students who hadn't been talking very much to choose a song.  He chose "No Promises" (video, lyrics) by Shayne Ward (bio).

Now one of the Russian students introduced us to a Russian rapper, Timati (bio), which features Snoop Dogg (bio), "Groove On" (video, lyrics).

Next song was a switch back to mellow: "I Believe I Can Fly" (video, lyrics) by Ronan Keating (bio).

The last song of the day was a perfect example of why I love doing this class.  It is a video with all the Mongolian music stars -- of every genre -- singing together: "Ugluu shig eh oron" (video). What a great way to learn about Mongolian music in one song/video!  (It's a long song and worth watching all the way through!)

With that everyone went home for the day.  I hope the students enjoyed the music and the conversation and will come back again on Thursday the 17th.

3 February 2011 (Thursday)

Today was the first day of class for the quarter, and the first class I have done in nearly two years(!!).  

I was curious to see how many students would show up, especially since this was the first time I am doing the class at Seattle Central in years; usually once I have established the class at a college, there are at least a few people who continue from one quarter to the next and they bring their friends.

In this case, it was a completely fresh start and I was curious to see how many students would show up.

I arrived at the classroom at 5pm. The clock continued to roll and no one showed up.

As I waited I made the plan to email my contacts at Seattle Central the next day (Friday) and suggest that next week I visit the English classes in person to promote the class.

By 5:10pm, it was clear no one was going to come so I started packing my things.  Suddenly one of the ESL teachers showed up with 6 students!  My face brightened.  

We did some quick introductions, but it was clear that most of the students had not actually planned on staying late after school this evening, so four of the six left shortly after the introductions.  Nonetheless two stayed and we had a great conversation for over an hour. :-)

We started by talking about where they are from.  Deniz is from Turkey and Helga is from Taiwan.

Deniz is especially interested in dance so showed them a clip of my friend, Encarna, doing one of her flamenco performances (video).

We continued talking about theatrical/dance performances.  I told them there is this great cabaret in Seattle called Teatro Zinzanni (website).  It has fantastic performances, but is expensive.  It's worth the money, if you can afford it, though!

I also mentioned that Cirque Du Soleil (website) is coming to Everett (20 minutes drive north of Seattle) March 16 - 20.  They were not familiar with Cirque Du Soleil, so we watched a performance clip (video) so they could see what it's about.  I have long wanted to see Cirque Du Soleil and might finally go.

We started talking about other cultural things to do Seattle besides just music-related ones.  I told them there are some great place up on Capitol Hill, right around Seattle Central:

• Town Hall (website, map) has very interesting presentations and lectures. They usually cost about $5 to attend.
• Elliott Bay Books (events, map) is around the corner from SCCC and is the best bookstore in Seattle and has many interesting presentaions by authors.
• The first Thursday of every month the art galleries in Pioneer Square are open late and lots of people go look at what is on offer (information). 

The return of the Language of Music conversation group!

I never anticipated the break for the Language of Music conversation group would be so long, but the break is over -- starting Thursday, 3 February, I will be hosting the class again every week.  

Since I am working in Seattle (as opposed to Redmond, as previously), the group will meet at Seattle Central Community College.

I look forward to meeting the new group of students and I look forward to learning about the music they like!