World Music Exploration - Kanno Yoko's Song for the Victims in Japan

Japanese composer Kanno Yoko has uploaded her latest song, Kimi de Ite, Buji de Ite (Please be yourself, please be safe on Youtube. This song is a tribute to the victims of last week's massive earthquake and tsunami that hit northern Japan. One cannot help but get teary-eyed while listening to the melancholy, yet hopeful song.Kanno Yoko has composed music for many popular anime, including Cowboy Bebop, Escaflowne, Cardcaptor Sakura and Darker than Black.

Words cannot express the sorrow I feel for all those affected by last week's tragedy. However, the notes of Kanno Yoko's song come pretty close. Hoping and praying for everyone affected, and by all who are affected by natural disasters throughout the world.

(c) 2011 by Musespeak(tm), Calgary, AB, Canada. All rights reserved.

World Music Exploration - Yoshinao Nakada

For Week 21 of our World Music Exploration, my students are learning about Yoshinao Nakada. He lived from 1923 - 2000.Born in Tokyo, Nakada sensei was the son of an organist. He studied at Tokyo Music School. This WWII vet has composed piano music, choral works, songs for TV and radio and children's songs. His compositional style is extremely lyrical.

Music students in Royal Conservatory or Conservatory Canada are probably familiar with The Song of Twilight (Grade 3), Dance of the Aborigines (Grade 5), The Gear-Wheels of a Watch (Grade 7) and Etude Allegro (Grade 8). The following clip is of a young musician performing Etude Allegro:

What a fine introduction this young musician gives us!

(c) 2011 by Musespeak(TM), Calgary, AB, Canada. All rights reserved.

My Seraphic Singles Review Acknowledged by The Author

I've been giggly for the past hour. I checked my Suite101 writer stats to see how my latest article is doing. It's a review of Dorothy Cummings McLean's delightful book called Seraphic Singles: How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love the Single Life

She's witty, she's funny and boy, she gets what it's like to be a single Catholic, navigating through the dating scene in search for happiness and love.

Anyhow, I was surprised to see that Dorothy Cummings blogged about my review today. That soon progressed to feeling delighted, giggly and giddy.

[February 26, 2013 update: My review will be posted on my blog here!]

(c) 2011 by Musespeak(tm), Calgary, AB, Canada. All rights reserved.

World Music Exploration 2010/11 Week 20 - Traditional Japanese Music

It's definitely cold and flu season. This last bout of colds means that it's time to beef up on those vitamins and regularly clean off the piano keys!Our musical exploration resumes with Japan, a country I hope to visit someday. Some traditional Japanese musical instruments include the taiko drums, the koto (stringed instrument), the shakuhachi (flute) and the shamisen.

This week's clip features the shamisen, which is a long necked banjo-like instrument with three strings. The two musicians display their virtuosity and showmanship in this clip, which reminds me of fight scenes from the PS2 game "Samurai Warriors".

Here's a clip from "Samurai Warriors" that includes the shamisen:

(c) 2011 by Musespeak(TM), Calgary, AB, Canada. All rights reserved.

On Memorizing Music

Often, a piece of music becomes memorized after practicing it many times. However, for a piece to be truly memorized, musicians should incorporate more than one type of memorization. This is a great article on the different types of memory that music students can use, called "Music Memorization". Yes, it's similar to the VARK Learning Styles. Harmonic or analytical memory stems from read/write learning.

(c) 2011 by Musespeak(tm), Calgary, AB. All rights reserved.