16 October 2008 (Thursday)

9 Students today, 5 of whom were new -- a good group! But it is perplexing that from the 17 students last week on 4 returned... I wonder why?...

This weekend there is a two-day festival of Turkish culture (Turk Fest - www.turkfest.org) in Seattle and I asked one of my Turkish students, Ozlem, if she knew this event is happening. She already knew about it. I might be in the neighborhood of the festival (it is down by the Space Needle) on Sunday and might stop by.

Ozlem has been in Seattle for 4 months now but she has started complaining about the weather compared to Turkey. I taught them the word "gloomy" (definition), which can apply to both the weather and a person's mood.

I started the music part of the class by mentioning that one of the UK's biggest stars, Duffy (bio) is playing in a club in Seattle Friday night. To give a taste of Duffy's music I played two songs: Mercy (video, lyrics) (which has 22 million views on YouTube!!) and Warwick Avenue (video, lyrics). I noted that Warwick Avenue refers to a London Underground/Tube station (info, Tube map).

The general opinion among the students was that they like the song "Warwick Avenue" better than "Mercy": they said "Mercy" is too "old" in style. But that "retro" style is what is so popular these days.

Indeed, Duffy is the good angel of the current retro music style in contrast to Amy Winehouse (bio), "Rehab" (video, lyrics) (note this song has 30 million views!!).






Keeping with the retro music style I played a song by Eli "Paperboy" Reed (MySpace) who is opening Duffy's concert on Friday. I played a live version of "(Am I Just) Fooling Myself" (video) to show what a good voice he has. It'll be a whole lot of old style soul going on in Seattle Friday evening! But I don't think the music appeals to my students. Plus tickets are a fairly expensive $30. So I am guessing none of my students will be going to the show...

At this point one of the students said she would like to hear each person in the class say "subway" in their native language. So we went around and heard all the variations -- it was interesting! The conversation morphed into talking a little about linguistics (ex. the influence of Chinese on modern Korean and Japanese) and then into the awful lack of public transportation in Seattle (which applies to the US West Coast in general, though Seattle is a particularly poor example of public transportation.)

As we talked about public transportation and travelling Ozlem told the class that there is a website that enables cheap travel: Couchsurfing.com . She explained that the site matches people who offer a couch to sleep on with people who are looking to stay overnight in a city on the cheap. It's a good idea for adventurous travellers, but it definitely requires a strong element of trust!

Time for more music. I asked Taku to pick a song and he chose a song by the Japanese band "Bump Of Chicken" (bio). [SZ note: the name "Bump Of Chicken" makes no sense to me in English...] He chose a song about stargazing (video).




I mentioned that the singer's clothing style reminds me of a Finnish band from the 80's, Hanoi Rocks (bio). Here's an example of how they looked: "Don't You Ever Leave Me" (video, lyrics). My favorite Hanoi song was always "Taxi Driver" (video, lyrics). (Hanoi Rocks was a big influence on Guns N Roses -- GnR bought the rights to all the old Hanoi Rocks albums and re-issued them in the late 80's. I remember seeing Alice In Chains play Taxi Driver once in a club in Seattle, too.)

Now Diego from Colombia chose a song: "Pensando En Ti" (video, lyrics) by Mago de Oz (bio). This song is a re-make of Dust In The Wind (video, lyrics) by 70's band Kansas (bio), but Diego told us that the lyrics in Spanish are about love and missing a person rather than the original lyrics about human insignificance. Mago de Oz must have liked the melody to the song a lot but found the lyrics too depressing. The song clearly inspires them -- it's a good re-make!

The next song chosen was "Open Book" by Tahiti 80 (bio), but it was one of the very few songs we couldn't find on YouTube!







The last song of the day was "I Want It That Way" by the Backstreet Boys (bio). But the student didn't want to hear the orginal version of the song -- she wanted to hear *this* version (lyrics)!

At the end of the song I tried to explain the American concept of "political correctness" ("PC"), but I don't think they got it.

With that everyone went their separate ways for the day. The big question is, how many will show up next week?!?

9 Oct 2008 (Thursday)

Today was the first meeting of The Language Of Music group again since Spring Quarter. I had not organized any concerts or meetings during the summer and I had no idea how many students -- old or new -- would show up for class this time.

17 people showed up, only three of whom were from the previous quarter. I wonder if some of the other old students will show up again in future classes? In any case, the new students seem very outgoing and interested in music. As usual there is a mix of what kind of music people like, but the main theme I heard is that relaxing, soothing music and R&B are popular among this group. I look forward to our discussions!

We started with my usual introduction about myself and the class. Then the students introduced themselves: name, country and what kind of music they like. Most students are from Asian countries, but we have two Turks again, too.

After the introductions we dove into hearing some music. The theme was "Songs that remind you of (this) summer."

The first choice was a Jack Johnson (bio) song. Of course, practically *any* Jack Johnson song is appropriate for summer, so we just chose the one with the most views on YouTube: Upside Down (video, lyrics). I had never seen this video before -- it was funny to see Curious George (info), one of my favorite books as a kid.

The student who picked this song said that Jack Johnson reminds her of Hawaii: she has been there and has friends who live there. This song lifts her spirits.

The next choice was a Chinese artist and song: Jay Chou (bio). The song chosen was "Fragrant Rice" (video).








Next was a Japanese band: Exile (bio) doing "Summer Time Love" (video).









The next choice came from one of the Turkish students: "Cakkidi" (video) by Kenan Dogulu (bio). One of the students from last quarter recognized the song as one we had heard previously, and I vaguely remember seeing something like it before, but I can't find that I wrote about it in the class blog... It's a good song -- it's always interesting to see how similar music around the world can be, even if the songs are sung in different languages. I enjoy seeing the local cultural twist applied to musical styles popular across the world!

The next choice was another Turkish song, this time an instrumental "Why" (video) by Omar Faruk Tekbilek (bio).

The other Turkish student said that the stringed instrument featured in this song reminds her of the Japanese "erhu" (info), a sound that she *loves*! This reminded one of the previous students about a video we had seen from the Twelve Girls Band in a previous class (May 22nd).


The instrument reminded me of the sound of the kora from West Africa. I tried to find an example of Toumani Diabate (bio) playing kora for the class to hear the similarity, but I couldn't find during class. So here are a couple of examples:

• Explanation of how Toumani plays the kora (note how he plays different rhythms with different fingers!)
• A whole song on solo kora.

Diabate will play solo in Seattle on 9 November -- I saw him play with a full band back in February and loved it -- I plan on going to the concert!


The next song chosen was "Yumeji's Theme / In The Mood For Love" (video) from the Chinese film of the same name. by Shigeru Umebayashi (bio). I had never seen the movie nor heard this song before, but really like it! I love melancholic music!



Getting back to the "summer" theme the next song was "Don't Stop" (video) by Jolin (bio).









The last song of the day was "Sweet Impact" (video) by BoA (bio). She originally from South Korea and started releasing records at age 13, but now only releases albums in Japan.






With that the first class of the new quarter was over. I hope the new students enjoyed class and will come back next week!

LOM resumes Thursday, 9 October @ 4.30pm

The Language Of Music conversation group is back for Fall Quarter at BCC!

We will meet every Thursday at 4.30pm in room L100C (the same room we were in for Spring Quarter). First meeting is this Thursday, 9 October!

I look forward to seeing old and new students and hearing about which songs were the soundtrack to your summer.

LOM taking a break for the Summer Quarter

After much thought, I have decided to take a break from meeting every week for the summer.

I will continue to organize events for the group through the summer. Last week some of us we went to both the flamenco show and did the boating on Lake Union, both of which were a lot of fun!!

If you ever have a question about any cultural event(s) in Seattle this summer, do not hesitate to call or write me an email -- I will be happy to advise on activities!

Here's wishing you all a great summer!

Steve Z

Upcoming event: Boating trip Friday, 20 June

I have suggested to the class that we do a fun field trip together: boating on Lake Union in Seattle! We have talked about which day to do this and it seems that Friday, June 20th works for the most people.

In order for me to more easily track who is coming, I am going to send an "Evite" (an electronic invitation) to everyone in the class. Please look for an email from me via "Evite" then go to www.evite.com to confirm if you will participate in this activity. Here is the plan:

Note: if the weather is bad (cold or rainy) we can cancel up to 48 hours in advance of the reservation!

We meet over at Lake Union in Seattle at 5.30pm on Friday, 12 June.

• We will be on the lake for about two hours.
• Each boat holds about 10 people. You can bring your friends who are not in the music discussion class.
• It will cost about $20 each.
• We will bring our own food and drink.
• There will probably be too many people to fit into my small car; you will have to plan on getting to the starting location yourselves (carpool or bus). You will have to get yourself to here: http://www.theelectricboatco.com/location.asp

Upcoming event: Flamenco night, 17 June (Tuesday)

Hong-Bo will return home to Korea soon and I want to take him to see my friends do their flamenco performance before he leaves. We will go on Tuesday, 17 June.

Anyone else who wants to come is welcome to join us; if you want to come write me an email and I will figure out how to pick you up and bring you home. I would pick you up at about 8.30pm and you will get home about 11.30pm. The performance doesn't have an entry fee, but you must be over 21-years old (because it's in a bar) and you are expected to buy two drinks during the evening.

Here's the info about the show:

When: Tuesday, 17 June, show starts 9pm, ends 11pm.
Where: Capitol Club, 414 East Pine (map)

5 June 08 (last class of the quarter!)

12 students today. All wondering, like me, if winter is ever going to end in Seattle this year...

(I have to type my notes from the class.)

29 May 08

8 Students today, including one new student from Shanghai.

First order of business was determining which will be the last day of class for the Quarter. Considering the schedule for final exams, we decided next week (5 June) will be the last class of the quarter! Theme for the last class will be songs about "goodbye." :-(( Fortunately most of my students are staying in Seattle and going to attend BCC during the summer. So we will see each other!

Still no decision on whether we will continue during summer.

I said that I want to take the students out on a field trip boating on Lake Union to celebrate the end of the quarter. We talked about possible dates.

We actually didn't talk much about music today. I asked my students if Hong Kong is a good place to live and work. We talked about that for quite a while. And we talked about style of life and work in Asia versus in Europe.

Finally we talked a bit about music.

The most important musical event of the past week was, of course, the Eurovision contest, won by Dima Bilan (bio) of Russia with the song "Believing" (video, lyrics)! One of our favorite words in class, "cheesy", was used to describe this performance.

We decided to make a theme of "competition winners". The next video/song was "The Time Of My Life" (video of the announcement of the winner) by the recent American Idol winner David Cook (bio).

We watched a "Dancing With The Stars" video but now I can't remember which one... no matter, it was time to end class and we had had fun talking about life today rather than music anyway :-)

Next week, last class! Theme = "Goodbye"

22 May 08

7 students today. Last week Rice didn't show up because his first child was born -- congratulations to Rice, his wife and his little boy!
Someone asked if we are going to continue doing the class during Summer Quarter. I hadn't planned that far ahead! I have to ask BCC if a room is available.

I asked if anyone had any adventures since met last week. Pinar said she had been to Westport on the Pacific Ocean coast. Coincidentally a work friend of mine was at Westport on the weekend with a bunch of surfer friends of hers!

I mentioned that my favorite place on the Washington coast is Rialto Beach (photos). It's very far from Seattle -- about 4 hours by car, but it's so wild and beautiful! Well worth the trip!



The most important musical thing to note for this week was, of course, the upcoming Eurovision contest on Saturday.





I told the class that a Seattle band has the #1 album in the USA this week: The album "Narrow Stairs" by Death Cab For Cutie (bio) is the number one album. I said that I really like the first single from the album "I Will Possess Your Heart" (long video, short video, lyrics + interpretation) and watch the video multiple times each day. (The longer version of the song is better than the short one -- it builds up and allows more time for the song and video to develop.) After I pointed out some of my favorite lines from the lyrics Pinar mentioned that she liked them -- she hadn't really understood the lyrics that way before I explained them.

Since the songs is so clearly about the pursuit of passion I asked the class if they know about the book The Alchemist (info) by Paul Coelho. Most of them knew about this book. It is one of my favorites.

I mentioned that I had gone to a concert by Yoshida Brothers (info) last night. It was a lot of fun. What was also great about the evening was that I heard about the Yoshida Brothers from one of my Language Of Music students almost two years ago and I was able to go see the show in Seattle with her!


The concept that the Yoshida Brother's do of combining traditional music with modern touches inspired one of the students to show a video from China of the Twelve Girls Band (女子十二樂坊) (info) where 12 women play traditional music, but clearly with a very modern presentation (video).

I asked if this kind of music is usually played by men or women in China. The answer was, "It's usually men, that's the selling point of the Twelve Girls Band!" I'll have to keep my eyes open for their next (first?!?) concert in Seattle!

I remembered that I wanted to play a song for Marianna, who likes heavy music. The song is "A Tout Le Monde" (video, lyrics) by Megadeth (bio). I wanted to play it for her because Marianna likes women heavy metal singers and this song the woman singer from Laguna Coil (bio). I don't think Marianna had heard this song before but she said she likes it. It's a very commercial song for Megadeth, but I have to admit to liking the vocal melodies a lot.

As a further example of the singers that Marianna likes she played "Broken" (video, lyrics) featuring Amy Lee from Evanescence (bio) together with the band Seether (bio).

Suddenly we had a theme for the class -- duets between men & women!


Someone chose Mariah Carey (bio) + Boys II Men (bio) "One Sweet Day" (video, lyrics). Pinar, our resident opera singer, said she can't stand Mariah's "breathy" style of singing. I have to agree.





The next duet chosen was Ricky Martin (bio) with Meja (bio) "Private Emotion" (video, lyrics).








Next duet: Dido (bio) (who was unknown when she did this song) and Eminem (bio) "Stan" (video, lyrics). An inspired choice!







From one classic (of one genre) to another classic (of a completely different genre): Andrea Bocelli (bio) and Sarah Brightman (bio) "Time To Say Goodbye" (video, lyrics + story).






The last duet (and song) of the day was "Try Touching" (or is it just called "Touch"?) (video) by Younha (bio) and Wheesung (bio).

15 May 08

Today was Hong-Bo's birthday -- Happy Birthday Hong-Bo!!

Today was a beautifully sunny, warm Spring day! Correspondingly hardly any students showed up to hang out in our room... at first there were only 3 students :-(( .

We decided to forgo the internet connection in the room and go sit outside on the grass and chat.

As the four of us walked out of the room Jorge and EJ walked up, carrying a guitar and a violin respectively. So we all sat on the grass and listened as EJ and Jorge played some songs and others tried their hands at the instruments. It was very fun and idyllic hearing the guitar and violin float on the warm air across the square.

We didn't really talk about songs like we usually do. But we have pictures!

8 May 2008

Only 5 students in class today! I wonder where everyone was?...

With such a small group the conversation was very different from how it usually is with the larger group. It was a nice change!

First of all we found out that Minnie had her birthday the past week -- Happy Birthday!

Then we found out that Hong Bo's birthday is next week!

Today we actually hardly talked about music at all. We talked about:

* "Time" (understanding "time" in a linear way versus thinking of all time and history existing at the same time).

* Deja-vu

* Dreams/dreaming

* UFO's and life on other planets

At some point someone mentioned that they had seen Britney Spears wearing a dress that had Korean writing on it, but which made absolutely no sense in Korean! We looked the picture up online and the Koreans all laughed their heads off.

I can well imagine how silly this must look in their eyes -- I have seen a lot of non-sensical English on many questionable fashion statements in Eastern Europe!

In the end we hardly heard any music today, but we really had great conversation!

1 May 2008

14 Students today. The theme was "love" songs, though I realized that since it is "May Day" we should have made the theme "work" songs.

I started the class by trying to explain this idea. And I played the most "work" song in America: "Take This Job And Shove It" (song, lyrics) by Johnny Paycheck (bio). However, I think I failed in two ways with this song:

1. Most students didn't realize why anyone would dislike their job so much as to write a song about hating it.
2. I couldn't explain the phrase "shove it" very well in class, so I don't think most of the students understood it. Here is a defintion from Dictionary.com: "go to hell: a term of contempt, abuse, disagreement, or the like."

Before we sent into love songs, I asked if anyone had had any musical adventures in the past week. No one had. I asked Jorge if he has improved on his harmonica. He said he hasn't really, but he started learning how to play "Sweet Home Alabama" (song, lyrics) on his guitar. (I noticed there are a lot of videos teaching you how to play this song on YouTube.)

Lyrically there is a lot of commentary in this song, but I found it hard to explain to the class all the references. I think the problem is that most of the references are from the mid-1970's -- about 20 years before most of my students were born! Here's a Wikipedia article which explains the song.

I also mentioned that their song, "Free Bird" (song with lyrics) is considered an American song classic. I tried to explain that it is a joke in America at concerts for people to yell out "Free Bird" at the performers. I'm not sure myself why we all think this is so funny... Mercifully I did not make the class sit through the entire 9-minute song, including the *very long* guitar solos at the end. Here's more information about the song.

I explained, too that the band who wrote this song, Lynyrd Skynyrd, is a typical southern US rock band and that the band suffered a tragedy when it's airplane crashed, killing 3 of the band members, including the singer, but some of the band survived. The story of Lynyrd Skynyrd is an interesting tale of a prototypical American band.

Ok, enough of the Skynyrd, on to love songs.

First choice was "As long as you love me" (video, lyrics) by Backstreet Boys (bio). The student who picked the song says he likes it for the lyrics. Indeed, the lyrics are about true love: loving a person exactly for who they are and whatever they have done in the past.



The next song chosen was "Crucify My Love" (video with lyrics) by X-Japan (bio). The class really liked the lyrics to this song.







The X-Japan song had a melody that reminded me of the song "Calling You" (original song with clips from the movie, lyrics), which is one of my favorites, though it is very sad and melancholic. The song is from the movie "Bagdad Cafe" (info). I love the original version, but I also really like George Michael's version. I think he hits the restrained melancholy perfectly. Apparently Celine Dion also covered it, if you like her (dramatic) style. You can see, it's a very popular song!

As so often, I had never heard of the band (X-Japan) that the class chose, even though the band is extremely popular in Asia. I love finding out about new bands!

In fact, I am going to a concert on May 21st as a direct consequence of this class: I will go see the Yoshida Brothers (bio, a famous song/video) because one of my students once played their music in the class and I thought it was a great mixture of traditional Japanese music with modern music.


The next song chosen was "Friday I'm In Love" (video, lyrics) by The Cure (bio). I said that it's true that the song has the word "love" in it, but how is it is a "love" song? The answer: It's about loving the weekend, not a person. Good interpretation! :-)



Another student picked up on the theme of days of the week and chose "7 days" (video, lyrics) by Craig David (bio). Well, this use of the days of the week is much different than the song by The Cure! I think it's pretty clever ;-) .

We had recently heard another Craig David song and I mentioned in that post how he used the vocoder. I was surprised to hear that this song also uses a vocoder. Does he use a vocoder on *every* song?!? I mentioned the vocoder in class, but the students didn't seem to know what I meant, so I played the song which uses the vocoder effect to the maximum: Cher's "Believe" (video, lyrics). Vocoder overdrive!!


The next song chosen was "The Way You Look Tonight" (video, lyrics) by Rod Stewart (bio). (Note about Rod Stewart's bio: I wonder if the student who chose this song knows about his long history, ranging from rocker to disco quee... er, I mean king.)

At this point I asked the class who has had a "love songs" compilation CD given to them. A couple of people raised their hands. One woman said she had received one, but had thrown it right away because she didn't like the guy who gave it to her. A couple of the guys have made love songs compilations cds for girls. Including me! ;-))


Next song chosen was "Beautiful Disaster" (video, lyrics) by Kelly Clarkson (bio). The student who chose this song like Kelly's voice a lot. But lyrically it's also an interesting twist on the "love" theme; similar to the first song, it's about loving someone just how they are.



The next song was "Everything" (video with translated subtitles) by Misia (bio). I asked the student why she chose this song and her answer is that she likes the voice and the lyrics: she wants to be everything for the guy she is in love with!




I hadn't asked Ira for a song in a while, so asked her which song she wanted to hear. Her brother had actually chosen one for her, so we listened to "Angel" (video, lyrics) by Massive Attack (bio). It is true that this song includes the word "Love", but it build too slowly and the music is rather foreboding, so we took it off rather quickly. That said, I actually like Massive Attack and their "foreboding" music a lot. My favorite song by them is "Teardrop" (video, lyrics), which is another very melancholic song. Like the song "Calling You" earlier, I like the woman's voice floating over the top of the simple, melancholic music.

These songs by Massive Attack reminded me that another British "trip-hop" (definition) band has just brought out a new album: Portishead (bio). Trying to work in the theme of "love" I showed a bit of the song "Sour Times" (video, lyrics), but I don't think the class is into this kind of music; it's rather dark... Their music is like soundtracks to films: in fact, I believe that's how they started -- writing film soundtrack music. I really like Portishead and look forward to hearing their newly released album "3".

The last song of the day was by the Korean grop Jewelry (bio), but I don't remember which song it was, sorry!