15 April 2015 (Wednesday)

Today only 4 students came to talk music. Maybe it was because people decided to stay outside and enjoy the sunny spring weather?

I had read an album review about a jazz piano album ("Trilogy" (music, info) by Chick Corea (info) that said it was wonderful so I started class by asking one of the students, who is learning piano, if he also likes jazz piano music, in addition to the classical piano he plays. He said he much prefers classical.

By the way, my favorite instrument in jazz is the drums.

Speaking of jazz, Sunday, 19 April, I saw a GREAT concert by a local "jazz" band called Tuatara (info). But calling their music "jazz" gets into the whole question of "what is jazz?" because what they play is very different from Miles Davis, Chick Corea or bohemianvoodoo, all of which are considered jazz. 

By the way, while the group is led by Barrett Martin, who was the drummer for Seattle grunge bands Screaming Trees and Mad Season, and Mike McCready from Pearl Jam is a guest artists on the album, it's definitely NOT rock. But it *is* very groovy and very creative. It's not rock music, but it rocks! Here's an example of what Tuatara's music is like (video).

Before we started talking about specific songs I asked the Japanese student in the class whether I should go see a performance of traditional Japanese "Gagaku". But once we watched a little clip of Gagaku I realized it's probably a bit too slow for me.

But it did remind me of how one of my very first Language Of Music students played Yoshida Brothers (info) "Rising" (video) for the class as an example of traditional + modern Japanese music. This song is really cool. And a few months later Yoshida Brothers played a concert in a small theater in Seattle and I went with the student to see the show. It was great -- I got to see a band I had never heard of before and she got to see a band that only plays big venues in Japan in a small Seattle theater!

[As I was writing this blog and looking for the Yoshida Brothers video YouTube presented me with an advertisement for a band that is doing the next progression of this modern + traditional concept: a band of all hot chicks and boys playing a whole host of traditional instruments overlaying frantic heavy metal (video). I'm kind of fascinated by this mix but I can't exactly say I like it.]

At this point in the class I started talking about some business ideas I have. I described the concepts to the class and asked them if they like the ideas. Let's just say I better hope I have a different target audience than my students.

The next song we played was "Ready Ready" (video, lyrics) by Los Dynamite (info). Unusually for Mexico, this band sings mostly in English.

We talked a bit about bands singing in English rather their mother tongue. This led to watching the video for "Real Thing Shakes" (video, lyrics, song info) by B'z (info). Apparently this band was very popular in Japan in the 1980's -- how have I never even heard of them?!?

In the 1980's the Japanese band all my friends liked was Loudness (info). Their most famous song in the US was "Crazy Nights" (video, lyrics, song info). But no one in the class liked this song.

The last song we listened to was by the band Perfume (info) from their performance at SXSW (video). Perfume is the most successful Japanese electronic bands currently. The presentation of the band isn't exactly musical, but it is creative and visually fascinating. I would file this more under "visual performance with music background" than "music". But it's all entertainment, right?

With that our time for the week was over. I'm still trying to decide what the theme for next week's class will be...