16 January 2013 (Wednesday)

14 students today, 8 of them new to the class.

The first song we listened to was "I Got You" (video, lyrics, song info) by Leona Lewis (info).  The student who picked it said he heard the song for the first time in a club and it reminds him of that time. 

The next song was "Set Fire To The Rain" (video, lyrics, song info) by Adele (info).  The student who chose it said he likes the melody of the song a lot.

Next was "We Belong Together" (video, lyrics, song info) by Mariah Carey (info).

I mentioned that last week we had been introduced to a traditional Egyptian singer, Om Kalthoum (info). One of the students said that a current singer who sings in Arabic that he likes is Nancy Ajram (info). We listened to the song "Enta Eih" (video, song info) as an example of one of her songs.

Her style of singing reminds me of an Israeli singer I heard back in the 1980's, Ofra Haza (info). I became aware of her song "Im Nin'alu" (video, song info) because part of it was used in a rap song, "Paid In Full" (video, lyrics, song info).

The next song chosen was "Somebody I Used To Know" (video, lyrics, song info) by Gotye (info).  This song was a huge hit around the world this past year. The student who chose it said she discovered it when she saw Gotye play at the Bumbershoot music festival (info) at the end of summer. 

[Bumbershoot is one of my favorite events in the world -- I go all three days whenever I am in Seattle. I was there this year, too. But instead of going to see Gotye I watched the local rock guitar player Ayron Jones (website) at that time. Here's an example of his music live -- he's the best rock guitarist in Seattle right now!]

The next song chosen was "Starships" (video, lyrics, song info) by Nicki Minaj (info).  The student who chose this song said he likes the beat and to dance to the song -- but at home, not in a club!

The next song was "Unfaithful" (video, lyrics, song info) by Rihanna (info). 

The next song was a big change: "French Navy" (video, lyrics, song info) by Camera Obscura (info).  The student who chose this song is learning to play the ukelele (info) and plays this song on the ukelele.

I mentioned that a musician from Seattle, Eddie Vedder (info) made a whole album of songs played on ukelele called (surprise, surprise!) "Ukelele Songs" (info). An example of one of those songs is "Can't Keep" (video, lyrics).

The next song chosen was "Falling Slowly" (video, lyrics, song info) by The Swell Season (info) from the film Once (info). I realized as we listened to this song that almost all the songs we had listened to so far today had been women singers: this was finally a duet. 

With that class had to break for the day. 

By the way, last week on of the students asked about which Seattle bands/musicans are good. Here's the list of top selling Northwest albums for last week:

1. Macklemore & Ryan Lewis - The Heist

2. Soundgarden - King Animal

3. Brandi Carlile - Bear Creek

4. Sera Cahoone - Deer Creek Canyon

5. Caspar Babypants - I Found You!

6. Helio Sequence - Negotiations 

7. The Head and the Heart - The Head and the Heart

8. Allen Stone - Allen Stone

9. Pickwick - Myths

10. Ben Gibbard - Former Lives