11 January 2012 (Wednesday)

Today was the second meeting of the quarter.  One person from last week came back plus 3 new people!

I did a quick introduction of the class format for the new students and we dove in to learning about what kind of music they like.

I asked YaYa who her favorite band/musician from her native Taiwan is: Mayday (info).  She chose the song "And I Know" (video with lyrics translated into English).  I asked what she likes about this song and she said she like the simple poetry of the lyrics.  She said generally she likes songs that touch her heart and are easy to remember. She likes to sing karaoke with friends.

I asked what songs she has on her iPod. She said she doesn't have very many songs on her iPod -- she prefers to listen to the radio for the variety of songs.  She also likes to use Windows Media Player to listen to internet radio stations.

Speaking of online radio, the students are familiar with Pandora (website), which is a service I like because its feature of creating playlists of songs that sound similar allows me to discover new artists/songs that I wouldn't otherwise hear.  They hadn't heard about Spotify (website), which has been a really big hit in Europe and just launched in the US in late 2010.

I asked YaYa what her favorite non-Taiwanese band is and she said it is Guns N' Roses (info).  Her favorite song by them is "Sweet Child O' Mine" (video, lyrics).

Sung-Hyun, another student, likes Guns N Roses, too.  His favorite song by the band is "Don't Cry" (video, lyrics).  He said that the song makes his heart beat.  He likes the rhythm guitar and how the dynamic of how the song starts mellow and gets louder.  Similar to what YaYa said previously, he likes that the lyrics are repetitive and easy to understand -- he can sing along with it.

I told the students that the original bass player for GnR, Duff McKagan (bio), is from Seattle.  He moved from Seattle to Los Angeles after high school to make a career in music -- and he succeeded in getting all the way to the top!

I asked if the students have been to very many concerts.  YaYa saw Guns N' Roses in Taiwan.  As I get to know what kind of music the students like I will suggest a concert in Seattle for us to go see; it's always an interesting experience to see a concert in a foreign country!

Speaking of concerts, in the navigation on the right side of this blog are links to lists of concerts coming to Seattle.  If any of my students see a band is coming and they want to go, let me know!

Since it seems like the students this quarter like rock music, and since Seattle has a lot of "rock" bands, I tried a couple of songs by Seattle bands on them:

 

I started with Pearl Jam (info) "Alive" (video, lyrics).  This is a very famous song, but the students hadn't ever heard it. I also played a little bit of "Even Flow" (video, lyrics). They seemed to think the songs were ok, but neither song seemed to make an immediate impression.Next I tried something a bit heavier: "Them Bones" (video, lyrics) by Alice In Chains (info).  But I think that song was a bit too heavy for them...

Seattle has a long history of being the birth place of great rock bands. Jimi Hendrix (info) was originally from Seattle.  In the 1970's the band Heart (info) was one of the first bands to have women rocking as hard as men. 20 years ago, in the 1990's, it was "grunge" (info) (bands like Pearl Jam, Alice In Chains, Nirvana, Soundgarden).  Currently there are melodic rock bands like Death Cab For Cutie (info) and Fleet Foxes (info) which are popular worldwide.  I am not such a big fan of these current bands, but I am proud of the quality music that continues to come from my hometown. I will try to find the time to make a page with links to Seattle bands from the past decades to share with the class.

Back to the favorite music of the current class. I asked one of the new students what his current favorite song is and he said it is "Teenage Dream" (video, lyrics) by Katy Perry (info).  He likes this song because it just makes him feel good. I asked when he listens to music: he said when he is studying, when he is on the bus or just relaxing.

I can't remember exactly how the conversation led watching the song "Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)" (video, lyrics) by Katy Perry, but we watched that song, too.

Speaking of Katy Perry and Friday's, we ended today's session with the song "Friday" (video, lyrics) by Rebecca Black (info).  I had actually never heard this song before and I understand a lot of people have a love/hate feeling about it (they either love it or hate it), but a lot of people must like it since the video has been watch more than 186 million times!  It was the Number 1 video on YouTube in 2011.  How did I miss it?!? (As I was writing this blog I watched her interview on Jay Leno; again, how did I miss this whole phenomenon???)

At this point we had end class to give up the room for a different meeting.  I look forward to seeing how many people show up next week -- I hope the class continues to grow.