12 students today plus a special guest: Zorana, from Bosnia!
Zorana was part of a group of high school students traveling in the United States and I had met her at a reception a couple of weeks previously. When she met she told me she is crazy about K-Pop and J-Rock so I invited her to come visit the Language Of Music class so she could talk with my students from Asia about those musical styles and bands. So we spent the first hour of class just talking about K-Pop and J-Rock with Zorana.
We started with Zorana explaining where she is from. I forgot the exact town she is from, but it is in Bosnia (map + info), not Sarajevo, the capitol.
For an example of Bosnian popular music that fans of K-pop might like, we watched "Fejs" (video, lyrics) by Milan Stanković (info).
Next I asked Zorana what the first K-Pop or J-Rock band she ever heard was. She said it was The Gazette (info) and chose the song "Filth In The Beauty" (video, lyrics, song info).
Zorana says the band will soon release a new album and she is very excited about it. She also thinks the singer is very cute.
The Gazette have a much more heavy-metal sound than the most of the music my students choose so it was interesting for me to learn about this other style of music within J-Rock.
Given the example of The Gazette I asked the class to suggest some other bands that Zorana might not know about but that play similar music. One song suggested was "Anata" (video, lyrics, song info) by L'Arc En Ciel (info). The student who suggested this song said he was amazed to see a video of the band playing to such a huge crowd in Paris.
As I write this blog entry, for the next few songs I can't remember whether Zorana was familiar with these bands or whether the class was turning her on to new bands... It's possible she was telling *my
students* about the bands -- she knows about some K-Pop/J-Rock bands that even my
students aren't familiar with!
Because Zorana had played that band with a bit of a heavy metal edge I next played "Rising" (video) by Yoshida Brothers (info). I don't think anyone in the class had heard this song or band before, but I like how they combine traditional Japanese shamisen instruments with modern rock sound.
I think Zorana chose the next song, which I believe none of my students knew about before: "Lacrimosa" (video, lyrics + song info) by Kalafina (info). Again, I can see why the melodies in this song appeal to European ears.
Next we listened to "I Am The Best" (video, lyrics, song info) by 2NE1 (info). I can't remember who chose this video, but I think it was Zorana again, as it's got a harder edge than what my students usually pick.
At this point we had time for one more song before Zorana had to leave the class. I asked the students to give find one more singer that she might not already know. We showed her "Ringo no Uta" (video, lyrics, song info) by Ringo Shiina (info), which is one of the Japanese student's favorite Ringo songs.
With that we said goodbye to Zorana. It was really fun having her visit us and I hope she continues to follow the class -- and even contribute to our discussions via this blog! -- from home in Bosnia.
The next song chosen was "Hey Soul Sister" (video, lyrics, song info) by Train (info). The student chose this song because she was recently gloomy and hearing this song picked her up.
She used the word "gloomy" to describe her mood that day. We talked about other words that can be used to describe that feeling, like "bummed", "bummed out", "blue" and "down". You can say "depressed", too, but in American English "depressed" sounds quite serious -- it is stronger than just a passing mood.
Speaking of the word "gloomy", a student suggested we listen to the song "Gloomy Sunday" (video, lyrics, song info). We listened to the version by Billie Holiday (info). This song has a lot of history to it -- read about it here.
The next song chosen was "Moonlight Sonata" (video, song info) played by Valentina Lisitsa (info).
We continued with another song featuring the piano: "Your Song" (
video,
lyrics,
song info) by Elton John (
info). The student who picked this song said that her brother had turned her on to Elton John and this song relaxes and calms her.
The next song was "What Is Troubling You" (
video with translated lyrics) by Sodagreen (
info). The song is about the cycle of life and how everything will be ok: it gives hope and a positive message.
This song reminded a student of a phrase she recently learned for a homework assignment: "This too shall pass". In looking for the definition of that phrase she came across the song by the same name by OK Go (
info). So we watched "This Too Shall Pass" (
video,
lyrics,
song info). It's a very creative video!
This band is famous for making videos shot in one take. They first became famous by putting their video "Here It Goes Again" (
video,
lyrics,
song info), which was shot in one take with treadmills, on YouTube.
With that our time was up for the day. I told the students that Saturday, May 5th, will be a big day because it is both opening day of boating season in Seattle, which meant a parade of boats under the Montlake bridge, and the annual "Cinco de Mayo" parties around town, which are a celebration of Mexican culture. Or an excuse to drink too much Corona beer and eat too many chips & salsa.
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