Slow down, you move too fast...

This past four days I've been listening to this one album. Simon and Garfunkel's work really is timeless. Very conducive for a lot of deep thinking.

The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy)

Slow down, you move too fast.
You got to make the morning last.
Just kicking down the cobble stones.
Looking for fun and feelin' groovy.

Ba da, Ba da, Ba da, Ba da...Feelin' Groovy.

Hello lamp-post,
What cha knowin'?
I've come to watch your flowers growin'.
Ain't cha got no rhymes for me?
Doot-in' doo-doo,
Feelin' groovy.

I've got no deeds to do,
No promises to keep.
I'm dappled and drowsy and ready to sleep.
Let the morning time drop all its petals on me.
Life, I love you,
All is groovy.


Yes, I'm feeling groovy!

Also on another note, a fond farewell to the late tenor Luciano Pavarotti. You will be sorely missed.

An early birthday present!

Oh, I'm so excited!!!

I know my birthday is not until next month, but I've decided on an early birthday present for myself. Yep!
I signed myself up for a guitar class!

So... I picked up the beloved instrument back late last month. Since then, whenever I'm home, I rarely find myself without Mister Antonio Sanchez in my hands. Got myself some music books, equipped with the tablatures. As an ambitious objective, I set myself up to master "Cavatina" for a small gig scheduled in September.

A month has passed and I have gone as far as 2 pages in Cavatina (the entire music is about 7 pages), and I'm nowhere near smooth in playing the parts. Looking around Youtube, the darned Xuefei Yang and Ana Vidovic sure made it look so simple and easy. I wonder how many years of training they went through to be able to spread 4 fingers across 5 frets, with different emphasis, on all different strings, too!

Again I came into the realization that I am not much of a self-teaching kind of pupil. I never was one. And doubtful I will ever be one.

So, off I went to Niibori Music School last night to see what they need me do to be able to start my education (other than money, of course).

I walked into the small classroom with 3 advanced students looking at me in their utmost bemused expression. Yeah, picture this: after finally locating their classroom in Yoyogi, I decided to rush over to the class that very evening.
I had shot them an e-mail on Monday afternoon, but they have not got back to me with a visitation schedule. I had only two nights free this week to investigate this further, one was Monday night, and the other was Tuesday night. I figured, why don't I just poke my nose in, worst case scenario would be when they turn me down until a visitation schedule is set. With that in mind, I decided to just go with the best intention to get there before 8 PM.
I cycled over with my giant gym bag in tow, unshowered, all sweaty and my hair was in complete disarray. The elevator was stuck in one of the floor and with 10 minutes to spare, I made a split second decision to run upstairs to the 5th floor where the class is located. While huff-n-puff-ing, I found the class and walked right into a class of 3 advanced guitarists. I mean, literally, right into the MIDDLE of it all. I bet they never had such a comical interruption.
Heck, how was I supposed to know if the classroom is also the reception area.

Putting that aside, and pausing the class for the 10 minutes I was there, Ogiwara-sensei went through the curriculum and explained how I could just easily ease into the system. And to my pleasant surprise: all classes will be one-on-one basis, unless I request otherwise. Heck! This is GREAT. Much better than my group class with YAMAHA years ago.

So, my trial class will be on Saturday and if I like it, I can start as early as next week.

I'm sooooooo excited!!! Can you tell?

Watch List

OK, this list is only important to me, obviously, but I have to write this down somewhere so I won't forget to look into them at any latter date:

Maurice Steger (blockflöten)

Tríona Marshall (harp). I kid you not, it's really difficult to find online reference on Marshall anywhere. She is quoted a lot in The Chieftains' work, but no website to call your own yet? Come on Triona!

Jon Pilatzke and also here.

Collaboration between Tríona Marshall and the Pilatzke Brothers

Liadan

Zakir Hussain, here and here.

Tamango

The Barra McNeils The keyboard McNeil is really animated, fun to watch, as if he's bouncing in his seat.

Xuefei Yang

Ana Vidovic

Michael Bublé - Everything

I never knew of Michael Bublé's name until I saw this clip played several times on Fox. This is one of the simplest tune I've ever laid my ears upon. The song is about a man in love, who believes that their strong love can simply be the power to overcome anything that may come their way. Here's the fun part: the vocal works that Bublé displayed in this song is absolutely outstanding. It is like he's talking throughout the song, but the melody is actually going to all high and low pitches. It is very easy to overdo the song in different parts, but Bublé kept it level at all times. His vocal control is impeccable. Do watch the clip, it's very charming. Good stuff on Bono and Whoopi Goldberg!

Another musical week

Much to my enjoyment, this week turned out to be rather musical. One for Carlos' concert, followed with an extensive drumming session the following day, wrapped with a jazz evening in Kichijoji.

The "Melodies from Gedo Senki" concert by Carlos Nunez presented itself to be a very nice event. It is the first one that Carlos had done in his series of promotion for the particular album. The concert was advertised to be including two very distinguished guests, one is Aoi Teshima, a raising young singer who was the voice talent for the Therru/Tehanu caracter in the movie as well as Akiko Yano, a prominent jazz and pop musician who's known for her exquisite piano talent and unusual singing voice.
Along these outstanding collaborators, two that I felt very privileged of getting to know for the first time is Marie Nishiyama, the harpist (amazing harpsicord she plays!) and also Aska Kaneko, leader of the Aska Strings. Meeting them all backstage was a wonderful perk, they are such highly accomplished musicians, wonderfully talented, but they are very down-to-earth and above all... NORMAL.

The concert was held in the beautiful NHK Hall. I was lucky for scoring a very good seat, which is practically in front of the stage (7th row from the front).
Having been to so many of Carlos' performances, I have always told myself that one of these days I will no longer be impressed by it. Boy, was I wrong! One thing that you can always count on Carlos, is his extreme unpredictability. The man is a genius and one of the few people who is always pulling something completely out of the blue and making it work.
The concert started with a beautiful tune from Cinema Do Mar, I can't remember whether it was "Women of Ireland" or "Tristan and Isolde", it was smooth and soothing. And then after a short speech in Japanese (nice try!) and gaining a few loud chuckles from the audience, the concert progressed with songs after songs from the new album. It was equipped with a very nice slide show, snippets from the movie, as well as other images, interesting lightworks and closed with a little interesting entourage by the Tokyo Bagpipe Society. That was the first half of the concert.
The second half, we were lulled into the concert again with songs from different movies and collaborations by other musicians and finally closed with some Irish dancing by some hundred people in the audience.

Ah... good times!

Taiko drumming the following day was good too. Sensei was teaching us how to do what we call the nidan uchi. It is when you're doing a piece of music using two taikos on both sides. Usually two drummers will be playing an identical piece simultaneously, in front of each other, and then swap position. This can be complicated and highly dangerous when we're not used to do it. Oh, dear, I think I got hit by one of the drumming partner like 4 times. Also I hit my thumb several times myself, too... OUCH!

Friday night, my comrades Odaiko Div and Annie Bananie came up with an idea that we should all go out for a bit of music. The choice fell on Tokyo's renown underground jazz spot "Sometime Piano Hall" in Kichijoji. This is a live house with Blue Note quality, but with only a speck of the cover charge. Everyday this place will have different performers, with 2 or 3 stages per day.
The evening that we went, we had a jazz quartet performing. One funky all white-haired-drummer, very cool middle aged gentleman as the bassist (double base) and beanie-headed pianist, and lastly the singer (interesting hair style, she carried the hair of Jon Bon Jovi at his worst; but if you're willing to look beyond her hairstyle...) with a very cool air to add to her husky voice and for always getting completely absorbed in her songs.
The night was fine, the chat was true and the joy was fulfilling.

Ah, life... it can be bizarre and challenging at times, but it is nothing that a little bit of music can't solve.
I thank you, all esteemed musicians, for the music.

Muchas gracias!

Yo-Yo Ma

A long time admirer of Yo-Yo Ma's work, I was a little skeptical when my sister gave me an album of his work, "The Cello Suites Inspired by Bach". My reason being is simply listening to unaccompanied cello suites can give you funny effects, and usually on the darker side.
Which is why it took me 5 months until I finally get to this CD.

This morning, waking up with a resfreshed mind, I was thirsty for a new music. And having seen "Memoirs of a Geisha" kept on being replayed on my cable TV these past few weeks, I began to think of the Yo-Yo Ma CD.



I put it on. And it was... magic.

My favorite piece will always be The Cello Suite #1 in G BWV 1007 - Prelude. It has a very positive energy. The first few notes started and you will be magically transported to a land where time stands still and you can reflect, think and be at ease.

Moving right along, the suite progressed into the escalated tempo Allemande, Courante, Sarabande, Menuetto and finally Gigue. It was a wholesome piece.

In my opinion, Ma is an exceptionally accomplished musician. He's got the flair in introducing the positivity of any tune he plays, regardless how dark the piece is meant to be. What I'm trying to say here is, he plays from the heart that even though the tune is sad, he excells in helping you understand the emotion in the piece, without leaving you depressed afterwards.

Yo-Yo Ma, I salute you!

The Monthly Fix

Nothing beats the happiness I'm feeling since this morning when I woke up. The ghastly 13 days project marathon period is finally over and I have a week of life in slow motion.
Today I cleared out my agenda and see what fun things I am going to see and experience in the coming days.

March 30
I'm going to the circus! Circus circus circus!!! No animal (yeah!!) but many many many boneless people.
Thanks to dearest MirPir, I am going to see the cirque!! Cirque du Soleil's Dralion, here I come!!!!! MirPir has kindly setup a very good seat for me in front of the stage. I'm soooo excited!!!

April 12

Taiko drumming performance in Roppongi, right by my office. This time it is a drummer called "Juraku Chikushi".
This would be interesting. They claim to be bringing together East and West, where wadaiko (Japanese taiko drum), piano, djembe and sakuhachi blend into a piece of music.
I have never heard of Chikushi Juraku nor his team Kinjishitaiko before, but I am very much looking forward to see their stage.

May 9
I'm going to see an old friend. Carlos Nuñez (Galician bagpipe/ gaita) is going to be in town performing with his band and performed with Japanese acomplished musician and composer Ryuichi Sakamoto actually earlier in April, but on May 9 he will be performing at NHK Hall again showcasing his works with Studio Ghibli production "Tales from Earthsea". This will definitely be exquisite! Haven't seen him in about a year, it's about time to catch up indeed.

and finally....

June 10
The Chieftains are gonna be here! Got the tix, paid the fees, scored the seats lassies and lads!!! Paddy Moloney, Matt Molloy, Sean Keane and Kevin Conneff are going to be here in flesh. I am bursting with joy just thinking about this concert.

All in all, I'm feeling content to think that I'm all set 'till June for my monthly music fix.

Fun!

Let's take 5!

In the continuum of splurging on CDs, I added a few more titles to this shopping list.

And, O!, am I ever glad that I did!

I've always loved this song "Take Five". It was the ring tone on my phone for 2 years. Looking it up online, the name Dave Brubeck came up as the original performer for this song.

Thinking to give one of his collection a shot and after reading many rave reviews, the choice fell on "The Essential Dave Brubeck". This collection feature 2 CDs, 31 songs altogether.

"Take Five" was awesome, there are so many versions of this song available circulated, but this particular number in this collection featured Paul Desmond's spellbinding alto saxophone solo. Such an uplifting masterpiece, lived up to the song title.

Another winning piece is an adaptation of West side story's "Maria". Very engaging and serene - looked like the band has not only understood the song well, but they also understood the Maria character down to the very last dot: beautiful, charming - yet a little complicated.

I discovered that my money was well spent when I listened to Disc 1's "Blue Rondo A La Turk": WHOA!

Let me repeat...

WHOA!

As much as I love John Coltrane...

WHOA!

The saxophone solo (Paul Desmond) in this piece is absolutely captivating, paired with flawless piano arrangement (of course, this is Dave Brubeck).
In 10 days, I think I've listened to this song alone about 3,000 times (exaggerated, but literally about 50 times - according to my iTunes hit meter).

I guess what I'm trying to say is: get it. Get this CD, even if you have to sell your kidney to get it, just do it - it's totally worth it!
(or if you are that desperate, you're welcome to download the songs into your own iPod from my CD).

Now, maybe I could consider listening to the other CDs that I bought.

From the long list of CDs that I purchased together with The Essential, I hope that they are every bit as good as Dave Brubeck. Maybe this means that I can save some money by not buying anymore CDs for the rest of the year.

Yeah! *sarcastic chuckle*

Like that's gonna happen, eh?

Yin and Yang

Yesterday was a very interesting day. I had a very elatedly happy morning but shattered by a mere twist of fate.

As I sometimes do, yesterday morning I took a few hours off work for a bit of 'treatment' from the Doctor.
Partly because I will be away this Sunday - so I can't go, and because I am not so busy at work - thus this presents as good a time as any to pull a flex time, and most importantly because it was going to be my friend MirPir's first class at the taiko drumming. I always like to be in a newbie's first class, particularly when I brought the newbie into the troupe. I somewhat feel the responsibility to keep them entertained with the class, so they would come back for more.

Anyways, the class was excellent. An unusual Thursday class indeed. We had me, the great Tazawa-san, the chirpy Sato-san, Kiyomi, lovely Lena, Arianne, Hattori-san and of course the eager MirPir.
The class was divided into two shifts, the beginner and the advance. Sensei put me on both, so I could help MirPir out with some of the tricky pieces. Let me tell you, drumming for 2 solid hours with no break was quite a workout.
We played so many arrangements and spent sometime with MirPir so she could pick up the rythm and join in with the pieces. Such a happy morning, everybody was actually taking the time to re-study some of the pieces that we have taken for granted. Very energizing.

A professional musician, MirPir* picked up really quickly, she remembered the pieces very quickly and absorbed everything in, even the tricky movement. Normally sensei does not teach the movement so early in the class, but he did yesterday.
It was amazing to experience the energy, she was so happy to be banging on the drums, and I was so happy because she was so happy, and our teacher was so happy because everyone were giving their everything. Given the variety of levels in the players yesterday, the pieces were not perfect, but it did not matter. The class was so alive, the taiko drums even seemed to be giving out more energy than usual. And I couldn't stop laughing because I was ecstatic. This is one of the best class that I've ever attended.

Everybody stayed back, while I had to leave at noon and go back to my corporate live. I took the train to Yoyogi station and was ready to hop on my bicycle and discovered that my bicycle disappeared.
It was gone. Missing. GONE.

I thought... WHAT? Did some jerk steal my bicycle?

I was about to stomp my feet to the nearby police box, when I took a deep breath and looked around and I saw something really strange. There was no bicycle in sight. Not a single one. Only then it downed on me, I guess they're really doing it now. On that fateful morning, my beautiful bicycle was swept and being discarded at the bicycle graveyard because it was considered to be illegally parked.

Damn.

Not in the mood for the police to be preaching me about bicycle parking, I decided to just go ahead to work anyway and deal with it in the evening after work.

The bicycle was finally collected at the bicycle 'graveyard' not so far from my house. I had to pay 2,000 yen (about 20 USD) to bail it. At the graveyard I saw at least 300 other bicycle, which means if all owners go and collect their bicycles and pay the bail fee, in just one day's work, the government of Shibuya district has just made 600,000 yen (approx 6,000 USD) in one go.

Maybe I should consider a service I could provide for the district administration. hehehe. It seems like easy money.

All that happened yesterday made me wonder though... I think I was scarily happy yesterday morning at drumming, it almost consumed me. Then I got to the station and had the disastrous experience with the bicycle.
Something tells me it might have something to do with the universe trying to keep my feet on the ground. Do you belive in this kind of stuff? I'm beginning to.



---
*MirPir is a musician performing for the much celebrated Cirque du Soleil. Throughout 2007 and 2008, Dralion will be performing in various locations in Japan.

I should've called it a day

I am bored,

All workload for the day is completed.

I am bored,

So very bored,

So I went shopping,

"Cirque du Soleil: Quidam/ Dralion/ Journey of Man",

"Before These Crowded Streets",

"Busted Stuff",

"Live at the Gorge", and

"Live at Fenway Park, Boston MA",

Quickly became my posessions over a few clicks at Amazon.com,

I have become broke,

But I am content,

Maybe I should call it a day.

You say Bono, I say Vertigo!

"Raaaaaaaaaaaaaaagggghhhhh! In the name of loooooveeeeee....!!!"

Thanks to Deenster's impromptu invitation, I finally got a U2 experience. Deenster and I met up at Tokyo station to catch a train that would take us to Saitama Super Arena, where U2 had their Vertigo tour. Our festival area tickets said BL 2000 something. We were wondering why we were advised to get to the concert place at 6 PM when the ticket said that concert time was 7:30 PM, only to understand as we got there.
We had to line up, along with about 4,000 other people (strictly for the festival area, others are already with seating arrangement), so that latter on we could fight for the furthest front area as possible. Gathering the fact that our number is 2000 something, there were literally 2000 more people in front of us. The whole line looks like a labyrinth. We could not make the head nor tail of it.

The huge arena was packed with U2 fans, hardcore and mediocre.
Bono and the gang finally came out at 8 PM. They were late, but it was well worth it. Very energetic performance. Very communicative attitude were displayed. You must applaud Bono's persistent attempt to say some thing Japanese. Owing to his non-existent sense of Japanese pronunciation, we had no idea what he was saying, but of course just the fact that he was saying something was enough to make Deenster, me and about 10,000 other people cheered in unison.

I have to be honest that I didn't (and still don't) know that many U2 songs. I shamelessly admit to Deenster that my knowledge of U2 stretched as far as "With or Without You"; but I was more than happy to be there with Deenster and in my sister's spirit. Both Deenster and my sister are hardcore U2 fans, so it was very important for them to be there.
Once the band started playing I quickly recognized the songs in their collection which made it a whole lot easier to mingle with the jumping crowd. Everybody tranced in unison, dancing, singing, jumping about and generally were having a great time. The coolest thing of all was that we were allowed to bring our camera and since I always have a camera in my bag, I started taking pictures like a mad photographer.

U2 means Bono and Bono means Amnesty International. The concert was heavily promoting the "No More War" slogan, human right and other world peace related spirit. Nearing the end, Bono had everybody from the audience pulled out their cell phone and waved it around. That was really neat, it felt like you're in those vigilant times with 1,000 candles lit up, except that they're all lights from the many cell phones.

All in all, it was a super fun time. The only catch was that the fact that Deenster and myself are females of average height; and the same comment applied to Bono and his band members. So, of the 2 hours we were there, we could see very little of them physically, the rest was from the giant screen above the stage.
It was a very expensive TV experience. haha.... But, Deenster, don't you worry - I had a FANTASTIC TIME!

We ARE women of average height!


Our view was mostly restricted to the large screen


But, what is most important is that we had a FANTASTIC time!

Tales from Earthsea: A Viewer's Tale in Tokyo

I want to share with you my amazing discovery yesterday.

Cousin Yudo, my favorite movie-going buddy and I were discussing about a movie that we wanted to go watch.
After much debate over "Pirates of the Carribean 2", "Mission Impossible III" and "Cars"... he talked me into seeing something completely different.
He kept on saying, "Let's go watch that Gedo something movie. It's a Studio Ghibli production and Miyazaki is directing it, I reckon it must be good."
On my comp day yesterday, I finally caved in.
I went with him, not knowing what to expect, except that the movie is an animated one, of a fantasy story.

So, we watched the movie. It was very enjoyable, although I think it's a little heavy for children.

As we were watching the movie, I noticed the set of the story was from some country's seacoast. I kept on thinking and said, "Hmm, this reminds me so much of Spain. The Galician coast, to be exact. Where is the book supposed to be set in? Is it Spain?"

"I'm not sure. It's gotta be somewhere in Europe, though. Look at the old buildings."

"It must be Spain or some Mediterranean country, since the characters seem to have darker skin tone."

Shortly after I said that, the soundtrack music started playing. It was a bagpipe based music.

I said, "I'll be damned, but this is Galician bagpipe."

"If it is a bagpipe, shouldn't this be Scottish, then?"

"Not necessarily, you see bagpipe is also a part of Spanish culture, and I can be wrong, but this music really sounds like the works of Carlos Nunez."

"They do have darker skin tone, they can be Spanish I suppose..."

"Trust me, I know my bagpipes. This one is not Scottish, this one is definitely Galician."

So we continued watching the movie. And it ended beautifully. However, I was still a little unsure about the story-line even after the movie finished.
When I raised my opinion, Yudo said, "Well if you haven't read the books, then I supposed it will be a little difficult to understand the story, especially because this one is not of the first book."

When I inquired about the books, he said, "It's a part of a series. Some western author wrote it, maybe she's European, although I'm not so sure. I can't quite remember what the name is, it's not easy to pronounce. But the series is called Tales from Earthsea."

and then I said... "Wait a minute, is it Ursula Le Guin?"

my cousin yelped, "YES! That's it"

I said, "You've got to be joking! Ursula Le Guin is my client's mother. Oh my goodness. Now everything makes sense!!"

Theo Downes- Le Guin, one of my most cherished clients, often travels to Japan for research projects. Every time he's in town, we always go out for a meal. One of the subject that always comes up is his 'side' business trip that he does for his mother. He often animatedly told me about meeting Mr. Miyazaki, or visiting the Studio Ghibli production house.
The works of Ursula Le Guin is highly noted in the fantasy world. She is a cherished author, and I'm a little ashamed that I haven't yet read any of her books.

Anyway, so we talked about the books and Mrs. Le Guin while waiting for the lights to come out.

As we were talking, we were reading the names of the voice cast, and I wanted to make sure I see who contributed in the music for the soundtrack. When I least expected it, there standing proudly and singularly the name "Carlos Nunez".
Hahaha.... STRIKE 2!!
Carlos Nunez is a good friend that I met at a music festival in Japan in Summer 2005. He is, in fact, my first introduction to the Celtic music. We befriended each other since then. Carlos is a phenomenal musician who was very kind to show me around Galicia when I paid him a short visit in November 2005.
I recalled Carlos was in town for a month earlier in Spring this year. We caught up for meals and phone calls whenever the opportunity presented itself. During which time he often spoke of the works and the recordings that he did. Only yesterday I remember he was speaking very fondly of a work he's doing with an "animation movie about the sea" - that's how he simply put it.

What an amazing coincidence!!!
Never in my wildest imagination would I expect to discover such connection in one small occasion. I would never have put the two and two together.
Going to see the movie with zero expectation and genuinely enjoyed it is one thing, but discovering the amazing surprise elements after watching it has made this movie even more special to me.

Great work, Everyone!!