After taking the summer off, today was the first day of class of the Fall Quarter. I never know how many students will show up the first day of class -- sometimes it is many, sometimes it is few... this time five students came to talk music.
I started by introducing myself and the class. Then I asked each student to introduce what kind of music they like to the class by choosing a song.
The first song chosen was "A Love Before Time" (video, lyrics) by Coco Lee (info). Ms. Lee is the most famous Chinese singer and was the first Chinese performer to ever be invited to sing at the Oscars. Here is that Oscars performance.
Speaking of famous female Chinese singers we next watched a song by Peng Liyuan (info), who is the wife of Chinese president Xi Jinping!
While we watched the song by Ms. Peng one student noted that the melody sounds similar to the Japanese "enka" (info) style. He said enka is like the Japanese version of blues.
To hear an example of enka music we listened to "Shinjuku No Onna" (video) by Keiko Fuji (info).
Ms. Keiko is the mother of J-pop singer Utada Hikaru (info). To compare mother and daughter we listened to "Sakura" (video, song info) by Utada.
The next song we listened to was "Plum Blossom" (video, song info) by Teresa Teng (info).
Next up was "Scuttle Buttin'" (video, song info) by Stevie Ray Vaughan (info). I love guitar-driven music and am a fan of SRV, too. SRV is famous for his cover of Jimi Hendrix songs, especially "Voodoo Child" (video, lyrics, song info).
Speaking of six-string pyrotechnics, I showed a video of my friend Geoffrey Castle (website) playing "Voodoo Child" on electric violin (video -- go to 10minutes to see Voodoo Child).
Coincidentally, Geoffrey is in China this week playing with Lucy Wu, who was trained at the Beijing Opera but now lives in Seattle. They have created an East-Meets-West collaboration where they combine the musical styles of both cultures. Here's a video introduction of that collaboration.
And for comparison, here's Jimi Hendrix's (info) own version of "Voodoo Child" (at Woodstock) (video, song info). (Jimi Hendrix grew up in Seattle; I went to same high school, Garfield, as he did.)
Speaking of blues/rock guitarists, there's a local Seattle guy, Ayron Jones (website) who is really fun to see live. Here's "Baptized In Muddy Waters" (video), but the video doesn't capture the energy of his live concerts. Ok, I have to admit it, he also covers "Voodoo Child" (video). Maybe the class can go see him and/or Geoffrey play some time!
Now we got back to students choosing song they like. One student chose "Marry You" by Bruno Mars (info); he said the song makes him feel calm. But instead of watching the usual video for that song I played the famous "wedding proposal version" (video, lyrics, song info) that was very popular last year. Only one of the students in the class today had seen the "proposal" version previously.
The last song of the day was "Yellow" (video, lyrics, song info) by Coldplay (info).
"Yellow" is a "classic" song, as opposed to a "classical" song -- people learning English often use the word "classic" to describe "classical" music. But in English the two adjectives have very different meanings. "Classic" means a song that everyone likes, for example The Beatles. "Classical" means orchestra music, like Beethoven.
With that class for the week was over. I hope the students who came this week enjoyed and come back next week. And bring friends!
I hope everyone had a good summer -- with a good soundtrack!
I've missed talking about music with my international friends and am looking forward to resuming the Language Of Music conversation class every week. First class of Fall Quarter will be Wednesday, 25 September at 4:30pm in HUB 337. If you are in Seattle I hope to hear your stories and favorite songs from the summer!
Steve Z
