Yesterday was the most exciting day after I arrived in London. One of the purposes I came to london is to learn Klezmer music. Yesteday, I attended a session event by SOAS klezmer ensemble. There were 25-30 people who had their own instuments (Violin, Cello, Clarinet...). I didn't bring my instrument because I couldn't bring accordion from Japan, so by the next time, I bought a new one in London.
The session started with singing a beautiful nign (non-text song). I recorded all this session, so I will show you this song later.
After that, we played this song by our instruments. Although I already learnt it in Weimar workshop, I realized again that singing the tune before playing is good to be familiar with the its atmosphere and memolise its melody and structure.
Then, after a short break, we learnt another klezmer tune, Moldavian hora. It was different from the one I played in Japan with my friends. Just looking its score, it is not so compex, and not so active. However, the tune is dramatically changed by performers. The speed, the accents, the ornamentation, the special technique (for me the special technique's name sounds KULEccehtu). I read writing about this technique in Japan but it was difficult to understand its meaning. "Seeing is Believing". That was the moment I realised this saying.
Anyway, I need more time to edit and update the recording I recorded during this session.
Today, I go to the accordion shop in Lewisham. I've never used Docklands Light Railway, but I checked again and again how to get to this shop, so I think I will be OK. After coming back, i will show you my new accordion! Bye!
2011年10月13日木曜日
2011年10月11日火曜日
Zionism
Zionism...Japanese people are taught to pronounce it as SI-O-NI-ZU-MU. Today's topic in Israeli music class was Zionism. Starting this class, I was surprised. The theacher repeated ZA-I-O-NI-ZU-MU!? Therefore, I could not understand what she said at the beginning. Anyway, I learned about several kinds of Zionism and Shirei Eretz Yisrael or "Songs of the Land of Israel"(SLI). SLI is the most important musical genre in popular music until the 1960s and sung by Hebrew, references to the land are often seen in the texts. What I was ashemed, I didn't know Israel National Anthem "Ha'tikva". I thought I heard its melody from somewhere...Yes! It is very similar with Smetana's The Moldau. (the teacher also mentioned the similarity)
"Ha'tikva" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvDrBXBUx8E
"The Moldau" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lK_3WlXfm9o
To be honest, it is difficult to understand all thing in the class. I think I followed 70 percent today, I could take notes about what was written on the screen, and what the teacher and classmates said. I know I usually do not make sense the specific terms like Aliyeh, Balfour Declaration in a moment because I am not familiar with them. But then why I was not able to join a discussion more? The main reason is a lack of enough listening ability. I didn't understand the questions so I could not answer. The insessional English course at SOAS starts in this week, and I take a listening class tomorrow morning. It lasts only for four weeks, but I will make efforts to find the reason why I have a listening difficulty and improve.
BTW, I went to the organic shop, called Planet Organic to take a lunch with my japanese friend. There is a DELI corner, and we enjoyed some organic dishes and soup. It is a little higher than other normal shops, but the taste was good. The order system is very simple. First, you choose the size of box, small/ midium/ large. After that, you choose which doshes you want. For example, I chose 3 dishes, brown rice, lasagna, and broccoli salad. Then, go to the register and pay for them. If you want a cup of soup, you help yourself. If you want coffee, or tea, fresh jouces, you just say it before the payment.
"Ha'tikva" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvDrBXBUx8E
"The Moldau" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lK_3WlXfm9o
To be honest, it is difficult to understand all thing in the class. I think I followed 70 percent today, I could take notes about what was written on the screen, and what the teacher and classmates said. I know I usually do not make sense the specific terms like Aliyeh, Balfour Declaration in a moment because I am not familiar with them. But then why I was not able to join a discussion more? The main reason is a lack of enough listening ability. I didn't understand the questions so I could not answer. The insessional English course at SOAS starts in this week, and I take a listening class tomorrow morning. It lasts only for four weeks, but I will make efforts to find the reason why I have a listening difficulty and improve.
BTW, I went to the organic shop, called Planet Organic to take a lunch with my japanese friend. There is a DELI corner, and we enjoyed some organic dishes and soup. It is a little higher than other normal shops, but the taste was good. The order system is very simple. First, you choose the size of box, small/ midium/ large. After that, you choose which doshes you want. For example, I chose 3 dishes, brown rice, lasagna, and broccoli salad. Then, go to the register and pay for them. If you want a cup of soup, you help yourself. If you want coffee, or tea, fresh jouces, you just say it before the payment.
2011年10月10日月曜日
MixB
Do you know MixB? It is a online site where Japanese people can sell and buy second hand goods. Some students will leave for Japan, and some students are going to start their lives in London. MixB is a good site for them.
As for me, I bought a big printer(Hukugouki Canon) through this site. At 11:00 today, I went to a train station to get it from a Japanese woman. I paid 60 pounds for it with inks, papers, and other stuffs (rice and seasoning). It is not so cheap, but after I came back to my room, I found it good.
Aside from second hand goods, this site introduces jobs, societies, and lessons. I need to concentrate to my study (Mou, teippaidayo~), I will not have anything to do with them...
In any case, this site is very helpful for Japanese students who start studying in London!
As for me, I bought a big printer(Hukugouki Canon) through this site. At 11:00 today, I went to a train station to get it from a Japanese woman. I paid 60 pounds for it with inks, papers, and other stuffs (rice and seasoning). It is not so cheap, but after I came back to my room, I found it good.
Aside from second hand goods, this site introduces jobs, societies, and lessons. I need to concentrate to my study (Mou, teippaidayo~), I will not have anything to do with them...
In any case, this site is very helpful for Japanese students who start studying in London!
2011年10月9日日曜日
Saturday dinner party
Today, I enjoyed Japanese food party with other three japanese students at SOAS. We made Chikuzen-ni, Miso-soup with eggplant, Tofu salad, white rice. I had very relax IYASHI time with them. The tastes of all dishes were excellent! Before the party, I went to Picadelly Circus and purchased Japanese seasonings (MISO, Soy souce, Mirin) with a friend. Several Japanese food shops are there, and I felt "Arigato" shop is cheaper than "Japan Centre". In Arigato, people are able to eat sishi there. So I will try it later.
Anyway, I would like to continue this party on every Saturday with many japanese students for keeping my mental healthy.
Anyway, I would like to continue this party on every Saturday with many japanese students for keeping my mental healthy.
Flash back this week 2
I need to write about what happened this week for me while I remember.
On Thursday evening, I went to Oxford Circus to attend a party to get to know each other for people who are interested in Japan and for Japanese people in London. The reason I joined in this party are partly I wanted to meet Japanese people outside my university, partly I wanted to experience a british old pub, and partly the party was introduced in Japanese newspaper as a nice community to exchange the information about London and Japan and also to know each other healthy. ( It means I believed the community is not the place to find a girlfriend or boyfriend.) The great benefits was to know a Japanese girl university student who is the same old as me. Her personality is very unique and I can learn a lot of things about London because she lives here for 2 years. Anyway, several kinds of people (Japanese, English, other European and Asian people) came to this party and enjoyed to talk and drink. However, I observed that some people tried to make a good mood with someone of the opposite sex...
On Friday, I attended a class on Asian popular music (K-pop, J-pop, Enka, Chinese pops). There were a big class, 60 or70 students(?), however I was only one Japanese... This means a lot of foreigners are interested in Japanese (or other East asian) music. In fact, a male student who was Westerner knew a lot about Japanese culture. (NIKONIKODOUGA) I would like to continue to attend this class as many as possible! And then, Friday Night! I went to Oxford Street and enjoy shopping with my friend who met on Thursday at a party. She knew nice clothes shops, shoe shops, mobile phone shop, and cafes. We met at 5:30 in Tottenam Court Road, and we said goodbye at 10:30. This means we walked around there and looked for good clothes for 5 hours! Thanks to her, I could buy shoes, a shirt, two sweaters, two pants.
I understood there are a lot of nice shops in Oxford Street. My favorite shops are below.
Shoe shop: OFFICE (shop assistants are basically kind)
Cloth shop: ZARA, 21, Debenhams ( I think there are more nice shops there)
And do you know there are many Japanese food franchisement shops. On Friday, we went to WASABI, where we can get Sushi, Bento, Chinese hot foods, Yakisoba, Tanmen... People can eat inside the shop, but it looks Japanese Bento-ya, rather than restaurant. Compared with YO!Sushi, it is much better and reasonable to buy in Wasabi.
On Thursday evening, I went to Oxford Circus to attend a party to get to know each other for people who are interested in Japan and for Japanese people in London. The reason I joined in this party are partly I wanted to meet Japanese people outside my university, partly I wanted to experience a british old pub, and partly the party was introduced in Japanese newspaper as a nice community to exchange the information about London and Japan and also to know each other healthy. ( It means I believed the community is not the place to find a girlfriend or boyfriend.) The great benefits was to know a Japanese girl university student who is the same old as me. Her personality is very unique and I can learn a lot of things about London because she lives here for 2 years. Anyway, several kinds of people (Japanese, English, other European and Asian people) came to this party and enjoyed to talk and drink. However, I observed that some people tried to make a good mood with someone of the opposite sex...
On Friday, I attended a class on Asian popular music (K-pop, J-pop, Enka, Chinese pops). There were a big class, 60 or70 students(?), however I was only one Japanese... This means a lot of foreigners are interested in Japanese (or other East asian) music. In fact, a male student who was Westerner knew a lot about Japanese culture. (NIKONIKODOUGA) I would like to continue to attend this class as many as possible! And then, Friday Night! I went to Oxford Street and enjoy shopping with my friend who met on Thursday at a party. She knew nice clothes shops, shoe shops, mobile phone shop, and cafes. We met at 5:30 in Tottenam Court Road, and we said goodbye at 10:30. This means we walked around there and looked for good clothes for 5 hours! Thanks to her, I could buy shoes, a shirt, two sweaters, two pants.
I understood there are a lot of nice shops in Oxford Street. My favorite shops are below.
Shoe shop: OFFICE (shop assistants are basically kind)
Cloth shop: ZARA, 21, Debenhams ( I think there are more nice shops there)
And do you know there are many Japanese food franchisement shops. On Friday, we went to WASABI, where we can get Sushi, Bento, Chinese hot foods, Yakisoba, Tanmen... People can eat inside the shop, but it looks Japanese Bento-ya, rather than restaurant. Compared with YO!Sushi, it is much better and reasonable to buy in Wasabi.
2011年10月8日土曜日
first week -- flash back
This week was so fast that I didn't manage to update my blog... Therefore, I would like to share my life in this week briefly as my flash back!
On Monday, I had a first class at SOAS in the afternoon. It was about Israel popular music and politics. Looking the texts and video images of Israel pop, the popular songs have political implication. In this lecture and seminar, I found it interesting to analyse song texts.
On Tuesday, I went to a workshop, where I can talk and question about the study life in London and at SOAS. I could talk one to one with the current students. It was helpful as listening & speaking exercise, and I recognized again that it was necessary to improve my listening skill. Then, I went to have a lunch. As other students at SOAS wrote it, queues of people form in front of main building and burnai gallery at noon everyday. Many new students wonder about it, but it is for free lunch. In this day, I was with a new, adventurous Chinese friend so we tried this free food! The food was a sort of Indian curry with rice and brown suger cake. Since we were hungry, so we enjoyed it. Asking other Japanese friends who tried this food, they said it was OK. After that, I tried to meet my advisor. In the fifth floor of main building, there are many small individual rooms for teachers. The floor was like a big maze, and I walked around this floor twice before I found his room. Unfotunately, he was not there... In the afternoon, I attended a core course named Ethnomusicology in Practice. It was very very interesting, because I could understand well what the lecturer's said. The reason was I studied about the contents again and again at Geidai in Japan.
On Wednesday, I went to British library to make my reading pass. Actually, I went there on Thesday, but I turned down in my request because of luck of nesassary documentation. Anyway, I could make it in that day. The reason why I needed to use British liburary was I needed to collect all books on the long reading lists gave by lecturers. We, the students in the same class including me, must join in a scramble for books to read. It is not enough to use SOAS library, we need to go to 3 or 4 liburaries! Following it, I went to talk with my advisor. I needed to talk about my courses. New SOAS master students needed to sign-up their courses until this day. I already decided all courses to take until this day, but I didn't know well about "performance" course. I wanted to learn accordion. My advisor said, I can learn any instrument outside the university, and I need to pay a lesson fee. I need to take lessons as many as possible. The university will return some money (ooo pounds) to me after the programme ended. And I need to take a performance exam at the end of course. So I asked some university Institute for a teacher who can teach me accordion. This evening, there was Performance Fair and Indian, Chinese, Indonesian music were played there.
On Thursday, I found my face was so blue and pale. I spent exciting days at univerisity, but I put too more stresses on the body than I recognized. I woke up late in that morning, and I went out at noon. I visitied to the university library and printed out journals and books to read. At SOAS, students can print out by 5 pence each page. New students have 20 pounds or less charge from the first. We don't need to bring "copy card" because the "copy" system is controlled by computer. All we should do before printing out is to enter our ID number and password to the screen of copy machine. It is a convenient system, I would like my university in Japan to introduce this system.
This article must be not so fun for you. I'm just writing what I did. In the future, I would like to write interestingly and quicker! Thank you for reading!
On Monday, I had a first class at SOAS in the afternoon. It was about Israel popular music and politics. Looking the texts and video images of Israel pop, the popular songs have political implication. In this lecture and seminar, I found it interesting to analyse song texts.
On Tuesday, I went to a workshop, where I can talk and question about the study life in London and at SOAS. I could talk one to one with the current students. It was helpful as listening & speaking exercise, and I recognized again that it was necessary to improve my listening skill. Then, I went to have a lunch. As other students at SOAS wrote it, queues of people form in front of main building and burnai gallery at noon everyday. Many new students wonder about it, but it is for free lunch. In this day, I was with a new, adventurous Chinese friend so we tried this free food! The food was a sort of Indian curry with rice and brown suger cake. Since we were hungry, so we enjoyed it. Asking other Japanese friends who tried this food, they said it was OK. After that, I tried to meet my advisor. In the fifth floor of main building, there are many small individual rooms for teachers. The floor was like a big maze, and I walked around this floor twice before I found his room. Unfotunately, he was not there... In the afternoon, I attended a core course named Ethnomusicology in Practice. It was very very interesting, because I could understand well what the lecturer's said. The reason was I studied about the contents again and again at Geidai in Japan.
On Wednesday, I went to British library to make my reading pass. Actually, I went there on Thesday, but I turned down in my request because of luck of nesassary documentation. Anyway, I could make it in that day. The reason why I needed to use British liburary was I needed to collect all books on the long reading lists gave by lecturers. We, the students in the same class including me, must join in a scramble for books to read. It is not enough to use SOAS library, we need to go to 3 or 4 liburaries! Following it, I went to talk with my advisor. I needed to talk about my courses. New SOAS master students needed to sign-up their courses until this day. I already decided all courses to take until this day, but I didn't know well about "performance" course. I wanted to learn accordion. My advisor said, I can learn any instrument outside the university, and I need to pay a lesson fee. I need to take lessons as many as possible. The university will return some money (ooo pounds) to me after the programme ended. And I need to take a performance exam at the end of course. So I asked some university Institute for a teacher who can teach me accordion. This evening, there was Performance Fair and Indian, Chinese, Indonesian music were played there.
On Thursday, I found my face was so blue and pale. I spent exciting days at univerisity, but I put too more stresses on the body than I recognized. I woke up late in that morning, and I went out at noon. I visitied to the university library and printed out journals and books to read. At SOAS, students can print out by 5 pence each page. New students have 20 pounds or less charge from the first. We don't need to bring "copy card" because the "copy" system is controlled by computer. All we should do before printing out is to enter our ID number and password to the screen of copy machine. It is a convenient system, I would like my university in Japan to introduce this system.
This article must be not so fun for you. I'm just writing what I did. In the future, I would like to write interestingly and quicker! Thank you for reading!
2011年10月5日水曜日
Studying at SOAS started!
The courses started this week, and I atteded some classes, "popular music and politics in Israel", "Ethnomusicology in Practice". The latter one is the core course of my programme, and it was interesting.
I am tired and sleepy everyday because there are a lot of things to deal with such as attending classes, events, register, sign-up courses, meeting with teachers, friends, preparing for classes (almost reading books), memorizing a map and location of classes and library...as well as considering about my own
research. fortunately, I could meet good classmates who also study ethnomusicology. They are very friendly and have a good musical tastes and talents.
Last week, my parents came to london and see me. They brought a lot of Japanese food ingredients, it was so helpful. I gradually settled into London. I understand a map of central London, and I am able to walk around SOAS, King's cross station, and Oxford Circus. I think we can get fresh fruits, meat, fish, jueces and good breads, but it is difficult for me to find a wonderful restaurant (reasonable, and delicious). I know some restaurants, but not so many. I try to look for a nice restaurant near my University.
As for today, I attended one school event in the morning, and I met a good friend from China. After that, I went to SOAS library but I was so sleepy. At 3 p.m. I attended a core course "Ethnomsuicology in Practice", which was so heplful to understand ethnomusicology characteristics and history. And then, I listened to how to search for music resources online and in library. After that, I talked with friends for a ling time, then I came back at 9:30.
Today's blog could be terrible, because I have no energy to corrent my English spelling.
Anyway, to say in short, my life at SOAS is incredible!
Sorry, I will write better thing in the next time.
I am tired and sleepy everyday because there are a lot of things to deal with such as attending classes, events, register, sign-up courses, meeting with teachers, friends, preparing for classes (almost reading books), memorizing a map and location of classes and library...as well as considering about my own
research. fortunately, I could meet good classmates who also study ethnomusicology. They are very friendly and have a good musical tastes and talents.
Last week, my parents came to london and see me. They brought a lot of Japanese food ingredients, it was so helpful. I gradually settled into London. I understand a map of central London, and I am able to walk around SOAS, King's cross station, and Oxford Circus. I think we can get fresh fruits, meat, fish, jueces and good breads, but it is difficult for me to find a wonderful restaurant (reasonable, and delicious). I know some restaurants, but not so many. I try to look for a nice restaurant near my University.
As for today, I attended one school event in the morning, and I met a good friend from China. After that, I went to SOAS library but I was so sleepy. At 3 p.m. I attended a core course "Ethnomsuicology in Practice", which was so heplful to understand ethnomusicology characteristics and history. And then, I listened to how to search for music resources online and in library. After that, I talked with friends for a ling time, then I came back at 9:30.
Today's blog could be terrible, because I have no energy to corrent my English spelling.
Anyway, to say in short, my life at SOAS is incredible!
Sorry, I will write better thing in the next time.
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