The first day of The Language Of Music at the University of Washington! I had no idea how many participants would come this first time. In the end 10 people showed up -- a good sized group.
I started by introducing myself and how the class works. We then went around the room with a quick introduction of each person: where they are from, what they are studying and what kind of music they like.
There is a lot of diversity of musical tastes in the group and people seem pretty talkative; we will have some good conversations over the next weeks.
To get a sense of how the class works I asked if anyone in the class had a song in mind.
Mustafa, from Turkey, suggested a song about a city in Turkey called Bodrum (Bodrum video, Wikipedia). He said this songs reminds him of summer breaks from school when his family would go to Bodrum for holidays.
This was a perfect example for how the conversations in the class work: students pick a song that they like and then explain what it means to them. And hopefully the other students talk about the video or song or theme, too.
I asked the group if anyone else had a song in mind. "Waka Waka" (Waka Waka video, lyrics) by Shakira (bio) was requested. This was another perfect example for the class because a previous class of mine had discussed the same video and in that previous class was a student from Cameroon who informed us that Shakira had stolen that song from a traditional Cameroonian army song. See the previous class post for all the details, including link to a video where Shakira blatantly lies about "writing" that song.
I used the word "cheeky" to describe Shakira's behavior in taking credit for a song she didn't write. It turns out it's not that easy to define "cheeky". Here's the dictionary definition: cheeky.
I asked the class if anyone knows Seattle bands. "Smells Like Teen Spirit" (video, lyrics) by Nirvana (bio) was picked. While I played the video I didn't put the lyrics on the screen because they just don't make sense and I knew it would be more confusing for the students to try and understand the non-sensical lyrics than to just not even show them.
It seems that most of the class is not familiar with the other big "grunge" (definition) bands from the same time as Nirvana (Alice In Chains, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam). Plus there are many other excellent non-grunge bands from Seattle, both in the past and in the present. I am sure that over the course of our conversations we will talk about other Seattle bands. And hopefully go to some concerts!
Someone mentioned that when people think of Seattle they think of the movie "Sleepless In Seattle". I said that there's a romantic comedy movie called "Singles" (info) which was shot in Seattle in the early 90's and it's kind of like how Seattle was when I was in my early 20's. It's certainly not *exactly* how things were back then, but it gives a sense. Though it's not a great movie, it's fun to see scenes of Seattle -- it's worth watching one rainy evening!
Someone asked if there are any good songs *about* Seattle. I had a song in mind, but just couldn't come up with the title in class. Now I know what it is: "The Bluest Skies You've Ever Seen Are In Seattle" (video, lyrics).
But that's an old song! One of the students had a couple of much more contemporary examples by local Seattle hip hop artists. Both are excellent choices to represent Seattle music!!
"The Town" (video, lyrics) by Macklemore (bio). Macklemore played a concert in Red Square at the UW for Dog Days this year.
At this point another group had to use the room so we had to suddenly end our conversation. From now on we will have the room until 6pm for sure. I look forward to learning more about the students and the music they like over the course of this quarter!
