30 October 2008 (Thursday)

10 students today, 2 of whom were new.

Before I write about the music we watched a note: As part of the idea to get authentic food from the international students' home countries, we decided that we will go together to a Turkish restaurant on Friday, 14 November. We will meet at our regular classroom at BCC at 5pm, then go to Meze (map), a Turkish restaurant in Kirkland. The meal will likely cost about $20 each. We have three confirmed cars going for a total of 13 people (including drivers) that can go. I will send more information about this activity in an email, but please think about whether you would like to participate.


On to this week's music!:

Before class I didn't suggest a theme for today's songs but on the spot decided we would talk about bands whose concerts we have seen. With that as a theme I mentioned that after last Thursday's class I had seen a band called Toubab Krewe (bio). An example of what that concert was like is here with "Lamine's Tune" (video).



I said that some interesting concerts are coming to town. In the next week I will see Secret Machines (bio, "Nowhere Again" [video, lyrics]) who are renowned for their amazing light show. I have seen this band twice already and am looking forward to seeing them again and being dazzled by their light show.



Another band I will see soon is Ozomatli (bio). This band is renowned for their great live shows. I will see them Saturday, 8 November, which is a show only for 21+, but the next night (Sunday, 9 November) the show is open to all ages. If any students can get down to the Showbox Market (map, it is right across the street from the Pike Place Market main entrance) Sunday night, it will be a great show and a unique cultural experience!

I tried to find some songs which are representative of Ozomatli. Here a couple:
* "City Of Angels" (video, lyrics)
* "Saturday Night (live)" (video, lyrics)

We looked at a website (Pollstar) for a list of upcoming concerts in Seattle to see if any of the students recognized a band they would like to go see. (Note, there is a link on this blog called "Big list of national/int'l concerts coming to Seattle" where you can see a current list of upcoming concerts. Next to that link is another link with information about local clubs and DJ shows.)

As we looked at the list of concerts someone asked how big each concert hall is. Here's a list of the main big concert halls and their capacities:

Key Arena (info) - 16,641
Wamu Theater - 7,000
Paramount Theatre (info) - 2,807
Moore Theatre (info) - 1,419
Showbox Sodo (info) - 1,500
Showbox Market (info) - 1,150
Neumo's (info) - 800

Benaroya Hall (info, 2,500 capacity) is where the Seattle Symphony (info, website) plays.

As we looked through the list of concerts I saw that local band Death Cab For Cutie (bio), who have had an extremely successful couple of years, are coming back for a concert in December. I mentioned that they had the #1 album in the US earlier this year. Naturally I had to play my favorite video by them, which is one of my favorite videos of all: "I Will Possess Your Heart" (video, lyrics). Everyone in the class liked this song, too and it was fun identifying all the cities and places shown in the video.


Now, to the concerts students in the class have seen! Hugo saw Eason Chan (bio), though it was not really his intention to see this concert and it was a funny story to hear how the situation came about. As an example of the music we watched this video (I don't know what it is called).




The next concert memory was of No Brain (bio), a band from South Korea. We watched this live clip (again, I don't know the name of the song).




Someone mentioned that this band reminds them of the American punk band Green Day (info), also the whole story about how long they were an underground band before breaking through to the big time. Many of the students don't know who Green Day is, so I played a couple of songs:

* "Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life)" (video, lyrics)
* "American Idiot" (video, lyrics)
* "Boulevard Of Broken Dreams" (video, lyrics) (their biggest hit song -- some people recognized this one!)


The last song of the day was "Agent J" (video) by Jolin Tsai (bio). I don't think it had anything to do with a concert, but it was a fun video to watch.


With that today's discussion was over. More about the trip to eat Turkish soon!

23 October 2008 (Thursday)

(My apologies for taking so long to post the notes from the last class -- sorry!)

12 students today, four of whom were new. But for some reason the energy in today's class never really got rolling...

In an email to the class I had suggested the theme for this week be songs that remind them of Fall/Autumn. Diego had one in mind: "Nubes Negras" (video, lyrics) by a band from his native Colombia, Los de Adentro (MySpace). Diego played this song in a band back home in Colombia.



Next up was a choice from one of the new students. She is from Switzerland and she chose "What's Love Got To Do With It" (video, lyrics) by Tina Turner (bio) (Tina Turner also lives in Switzerland now). I asked the class if they agree with the lyrics: that it's better to keep your heart from falling in love in order to keep from being hurt ("Who needs a heart when a heart can be broken"). But no one wanted to talk about this topic... I mentioned the English phrase "It is better to love and have lost than to have never loved at all."

Tina Turner was a star long before most of the students in the class were even born, so I mentioned to them that she was a big star in the 60's and was in a very bad relationship, the story of which was made into a movie called, coincidentally, "What's Love Got To Do With It" (film info). She continues to look GREAT for her age.

To show how little Tina has aged, I showed a bit of a clip of her from 1971: Come Together (video - this is a Beatles song; lyrics are in the box next to the video).


(Side note about looking great as you age, my goal is to look at good at 60 as David Bowie (bio) does.

They even did a commercial for Vittel water (video) playing on the fact that Bowie looks amazingly young for his age. [Note, all the other "people" in that commercial are the characters/persona's Bowie has been during his long music career.])


Now back to the subject of Autumn songs: Next song was "İstanbul'da Sonbahar" (en = "Fall In Istanbul") (video) by Teoman (bio). An excellent songs and it definitely evokes Fall!






At this point the conversation somehow moved to talking about Halloween. Minnie said she is going to be Dipsy (pictured left) from the Teletubbies (show info).

I am not familiar with the Teletubbies characters and wanted to see how Dipsy acts. When I searched on Dipsy the first thing I found was this video of Dipsy doing some gangster dance (video). Minnie theorizes this is a normal video of Dipsy, just sped up. We all laughed heartily.



Speaking of Hallowen and non-human characters, I mentioned that I have been invited to a party where everyone is to come as a Muppet character. I asked the class which character I should be. Here's the whole cast of the Muppet show:



One suggestion was to be one of the old guys in the balcony.

Another suggestion was Bert. We watched the clip of "You're It" (video) with Bert and Ernie to see what Bert is like.

Hmmmm, am I really like the most conservative muppet characters?!?!


We now went back to music: Halloween songs. A great one is "This is Halloween" (video, lyrics) from the movie "The Nightmare Before Christmas" (info).

(After class Banu sent me a link to another Halloween-related video: "Jump In The Line" (video, lyrics) from the movie Beetlejuice (info) -- good choice!!)

Now we talked about who likes watching horror films. We watched the trailer to the movie "The Saw" (video). When I mentioned that I don't like to see blood someone suggested the movie "The Others" (video).

I don't remember how we got onto the subject, but somehow I asked if my students are familiar with the book "The Alchemist" (info) by Paulo Coelho (bio). Some of them know the book, some do not. It is one of my favorite books!

As I described "The Alchemist" being about pursuing dreams, one student asked if I am have read the book Don Quixote (info). I have started, but not finished, reading that book. Nonetheless, one of my favorite words in the English language comes from the story: quixotic (definition).

Speaking of philosophical authors, we touched on the name Rumi (bio). I have two books of his poetry.

As time was coming to a close, I mentioned to the class an idea that I have had but haven't yet organized: I would like to organize a series of trips restaurants (ex. we go to a Korean restaurant) where students from that country advise me and the others what is the most popular kinds of food to eat in their country and how people go out to eat: I would love to get insight to local food customs!

I also will take the students to the best Mexican restaurant in Seattle: La Carte De Oaxaca (website) in Ballard.

As people left the class I explained the origin of the phrase "trick or treat" that children say when they go from house to house on Halloween. It originally meant "Give me a treat or I'll play a trick on you." Here's thorough information about trick or treating.

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!