18 April 2012 (Wednesday)

9 students this week.  We started in our usual big room, then had to move halfway through to the smaller room.  But it was a fun session; I am enjoying the students and the conversations very much this quarter!

First a note: A Korean band, Dynamic Duo (info), who I had never heard of before students introduced me to them in the class, played a concert in Seattle on Friday, 13 April at my favorite club, The Showbox (info).  I don't think any of my students attended the concert.  I would have liked to go just to see the scene, but at $40 per ticket, it was a bit expensive since I'm not that into the band.  Here's a review of the concert.

I started class as usual by asking if anyone had had any musical adventures in the past week.  No one had any stories to tell (which is also why I knew no one had attended the Dynamic Duo concert).

Today's theme was Friday or Saturday night songs, or Sunday morning songs.  

The first song chosen was "The Lazy Song" (video, lyrics, song info) by Bruno Mars (info).

The next song was "Friday I'm In Love" (video, lyrics, song info) by The Cure (info).

At this point I asked a new student (from Japan) to pick a song so we could hear what kind of music he likes.  He chose "Tell Your World" (video, lyrics) by Livetune (info) featuring Miku (info).

The next song chosen was a totally different style: it was "Croatian Rhapsody" (video) by Maksim Mrvica (info).  Apparently this song is very famous in Korea as it has been used in a credit card commercial (for Hyundai credit cards).

Since my last name is Croatian I told the class how Americans are often a mix of parents and grandparents from many countries. I explained that though my last name (Zitkovich) is Croatian, one grandmother was Swedish and the other Norwegian.  And one grandfather Scottish. So I am a typical American mix of ethnicities; it is common for Americans to ask each other what their ethnic mix is. 

Side note: Speaking of former Yugoslavia, the next day after class (Thursday) I attended a networking event for international students at the University of Washington. At this event I met a 15-year old Bosnian girl who is visiting Seattle for a couple of weeks and she is *crazy* about K-pop and J-Rock -- who would have thought someone from Bosnia (info) would even know about Asian music, let alone these very specific genres!  She will still be in town for the next week and I invited her to come to the class and get some inside information on K-Pop (info) and J-Pop (info) from my students. I hope she can make it!

The next song got us back to Friday/Saturday songs: "Someday I'll Be Saturday Night" (video, lyrics, song info) by Bon Jovi (info).

There is a line in this song "I ain't got nothin' " and I spent some time trying to explain the use of the word "ain't" (besides the fact that that sentence is a double-negative, which doesn't officially exist in English grammar).  Here's the definition of "ain't". I told my students it is a useful term to understand, but they don't need to practice using it in conversation; it's very much a slang term and if you don't use it right, it will sound strange.

The next song was "Marry Me" (video, lyrics, song info) by Ellegarden (info).  The student who chose this song mentioned that she thinks the English pronunciation by this Japanese singer is very good.  It's true, the pronunciation is very good! However, the grammatical construction of the lyrics is kind of odd.  It's not exactly wrong ("won't you... if I could be...") but it's... different.  Perhaps the singer just constructed the lyrics in a way that fit the melody of the song well. And that is a cool thing about when non-native English speakers make English lyrics -- sometimes they create things which a native speaker wouldn't even think of. 

After the Ellegarden song a student suggested a song which she said has a similar musical "feeling".  Unfortunately for me the band is Taiwanese (旺福 -- I think it might be "Wonfu" in English?) and I can't find information about them in English, so here's the link to the video (with lyrics).


Because the singer's hair is bleached blonde I asked the students about the significance of having colored hair in Asia societies; to what extent it is rebellion, whether a person can have a regular job with colored hair, etc.

My students *love* the tv show Glee (info)!  The next song chosen was the Glee version of "Whatever Happened To Saturday Night?" (song, lyrics, song info).  

This song is originally from the musical movie from the 1970's called "The Rocky Horror Picture Show". Here's more information about The Rocky Horror Picture Show. 


My favorite song from the movie is "Time Warp" (video, lyrics, song info).
  
This movie has fans who like to dress like the characters and act out the scenes in front of the screen while the movie is showing.  The last Saturday of every month the movie is shown in West Seattle: I want to take the students to see it one time -- it will be an American experience like they won't see any other place!

The next song was "Sunshine" (video, lyrics) by Matt Costa (info).

I contrasted this happy sunshine-y song with a Seattle band's version of a song on the subject: Sunshine (video with lyrics) by Alice In Chains (info).  This is actually one of my personal favorite AIC songs: I like the chorus where he sings "Sunshine... I don't care no more".


One student observed that the Seattle-band version of a "sunshine" song sounds pretty sad.  That's true -- that's what Seattle bands specialize in!

Somehow we were now on the topic of songs about sunshine: the next song chosen was "You Are My Sunshine" (video) sung in Korean from a famous Korean movie. 

The last song of the day was by Tokyo Jihen (info). My notes say the song was called "After The Rain" or "Sunshine" or "Blue Sky", but I can't find the video we watched now... can anyone help?




With that our meeting for the day was over. I hope the high school student from Bosnia attends our next class so she can learn about K-pop and J-pop from the class.