9 January 2013 (Wednesday)

Today was the first class of the Winter Quarter. Five students came, four of them new to the class.

One student is from Saudi Arabia. He said his favorite music is from Egypt. In fact, he said all Arabic people like Egyptian music. As an example he chose a song by Om Kalthoum (info). The song was Lesa Faker (video).  I asked the student if it is common that young people in Saudi Arabia like such "old" music. He said it depends on the person, but many young people do like this kind of traditional music.

As one of the other students introduced herself and what kind of music she likes at the beginning of the class she mentioned that her current favorite song is "Valjean's Death" (video, lyrics), the last song from Les Miserables (info).

A student chose "One Fine Day" (video) by the band My Aunt Mary. She said this isn't actually her favorite kind of music (I think she prefers more rock music, like Nirvana), but she wanted to show it as an example of music from Korea. This song is from a drama soundtrack.

The next student chose a song by the Chinese singer Hebe (info). I recall that the song was somehow connected to the Little Mermaid story, but now I can't remember exactly which song we listened to. Maybe this one? Whichever one it was, the student from Saudi Arabia really liked the song.

He mentioned that he doesn't like most American songs because so many of them have profane language in them.  Nonetheless, he does like Rihanna (info).  As an example of a ong by her that he likes he chose "Where Have You Been" (video, lyrics, song info).

I can't remember exactly how we got to this subject, but I mentioned that I am friends with a band who has an Iraqi member.  The band is Children Of The Revolution (website). I showed a little bit of their song "Eleftheria" (video) to show how the Iraqi guy plays percussion.

One of the students asked me which are some other good bands from Seattle. The first one to come to mind was Death Cab For Cutie (info) who have one of my favorite songs (and one which has a video which is especially good for people who travel the world) "I Will Possess Your Heart" (video, lyrics, song info).

Death Cab is just one example of a band from Seattle which is currently popular.  There are many others!! Here is a list of the top selling Northwest bands from my favorite cd store, Easy Street Records (website) (note: the list of NW bands is the left column).

There are many bands playing all kinds of styles of music in Seattle. One of my current favorite Seattle Artists is Brandi Carlile (info). An example of one of her songs is "The Story" (video, lyrics, song info). But she has a lot of other great songs!

Also, there is a radio show (which can be listened to any time online) which plays local Seattle rock music called Audioasis (website).  Over the course of the quarter I will tell students about local Seattle bands they might like, as I get to know their musical tastes better.  

I hope to see everyone again next Wednesday!