9 May 2012 (Wednesday)

Today's class was smaller than last week: only 8 students.

I asked if anyone had had any musical adventures in the past week.  No one had, though one student went camping at Deception Pass (info), which is a very pretty place a couple of hours outside Seattle to visit.

I told the class that I had had a musical adventure on the weekend: I had attended a performance at Teatro Zinzanni (official website).  I showed a promotional clip of what the performances are like. The performances there are really fun to watch, but unfortunately rather expensive.  But if you have the money to attend a performance, I highly recommend it!

One student had heard that a big concert had come through town last week: The Black Keys (info).  She had never heard the band so she asked me to show a song.  I chose "Tighten Up" (video, lyrics, song info) since I think it's has been their biggest hit.  The band is very popular in America right now, but I think they are at the top of their popularity; I can imagine they will stay at this level for a few years, but I don't think they will get even bigger.

The Black Keys are a duo: a guitarist and a drummer.  A few years ago there was another band with the same configuration that was very popular: The White Stripes (info). To show an example of The White Stripes' music I played "Seven Nation Army" (video, lyrics, song info), which I think is their most popular song.  My personal favorite video by them is "The Hardest Button To Button" (video, lyrics, song info).

However, The White Stripes broke up because the drummer didn't want to tour anymore.  The guitar player is named Jack White (info) and he is basically the "coolest" musician in America right now.  He has worked on a lot of different projects in the past few years and he just released his first solo album. I haven't heard his solo album yet. I played "Sixteen Saltines" (video, lyrics, song info) from that album to show the class what kind of music he is making. I like the song, but the video is kind of violent.  

For a different kind of song of his, mellower, check out "Love Interruption" (video, lyrics, song info).

Jack White really is an interesting artist.  I respect him highly, even if I don't personally like *everything* he puts out.  One of my favorite songs from his other side-projects is "Steady As She Goes" (video, lyrics, song info) which he did with the band The Raconteurs (info).

A side note: If you like hearing about how famous guitar players get their sounds, there's a great documentary film called "It Might Get Loud" (info) which features Jack White along with Jimmy Page (info) from Led Zeppelin and The Edge (info) from U2. What is amazing about this is that Jack White, a relatively young guy, is put next to two guys who have established as the best guitarists in the world over decades.

As we were talking about these bands I referred to them as "independent rock" bands.  A student asked me what "independent" in this context means.  That's a very good question!  For me the short definition is independent musicians make music because they just want to make music; they don't do it with the motivation of getting rich or famous. Sometimes they do get rich and famous, but their motivation starts with just making art. Here is how Wikipedia defines independent rock.

One of the students said that Korea also has a band, 10cm (info), which is a duo doing independent music, though the music is much softer than the first bands we listened to. We listened to the song "Tonight I'm Afraid Of The Dark" (video, lyrics) by them.

Speaking of duos and independent music, I told the class about a duo from Mexico who moved to Dublin and played music on the streets for money ("busking") and then they got famous.  The duo is called Rodrigo Y Gabriela (info).  They have a very interesting style of playing and there's one song where Gabriela plays with her knuckles against the guitar: "Diablo Rojo" (video, song info).  I saw them live once and though I wondered how interesting it would be to see just two guitars playing instrumental music, they have a very interesting light show and visuals from cameras attached to their guitars: they are great to see live!

Speaking of "busking", there's a Korean band called Busker Busker (info).  We watched "Makgeolli-na" (video) from their Korean Idol performance. They have an American drummer and this song is about a Korean alcoholic drink (info); at the beginning of the song they ask the drummer if he knows the drink.

The next song chosen was "Google Translation" (video). It wasn't much of a "song" and I was a little confused about it. But one of the students totally understood what the point of it was: it was the melody of the sound of the phonetics of the translation of the text in Google to Chinese.  Very creative!

The next song chosen was "I Gotta Feelin' (live in Chicago 2009)" (video, lyrics, song info) by Black Eyed Peas (info).  What was really interesting in this video was the effect of seeing progressively more and more people in the crowd dancing.

That video made me think of a famous video where a bunch of people did a dance in the middle of a mall: "Praise You" (video, lyrics, song info) by Fatboy Slim (info).

At this point the room we were in was booked for another meeting.  Normally we would go down the hall to another room to continue, but since it was sunny I decided to take the group to one of my favorite places to go on a sunny afternoon: the nearby restaurant, Agua Verde (website) for Happy Hour margaritas!