Starting to catch up, finally
Picture of the Day: All aboard the man train!
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As I begin to write this entry, it's 6:29 pm on Monday night. I don't know if I'll be able to get everything written that I want to before bedtime, but I'll see what I can do. Also, I hope I don't miss any important details that I would have wanted to write about, but again, I'll do my best. It's a good thing I take pictures almost everywhere I go, because it helps to keep my memories from fading away.
On Friday, September 3rd I was given some more real work to do at the school. Since Friday and Monday were all exams, I still hadn't gotten to start teacing, but Amimoto-sensei asked me to check some of the answers in an English exam. The section that she asked me to check was about past-tense verbs. One common mistake that students made was to say the past tense of "meet" was "meat!" Several students also thought it was "moot." Go figure...
Also that day (at least I think it might have been that day), I helped to record audio examples for a listening exam. I read several short paragraphs (1-2 sentences each) which students were to match up with the correct illustrations. Amimoto-sensei and I read a coversation which I subsequently read questions about. Those questions had multiple answer choices on the exam sheet. Finally, I read a longer paragraph telling the story of a Japanese girl going to visit an Australian friend in his country. I'm not sure what kind of questions the students were asked about that.
On Friday night, on my way to MoreCore (the bar in Kishi), I saw Daiba again, and we hung out in his shop for a while. I showed him my CD and played it for him. He asked me if I wanted to meet some people. I said 'sure,' and he briefly left and brought back his friend Koji (a different Koji than the one I've mentioned before), who told me he is the singer in a band. While the three of us were listening to my CD again, Koji called up the guiarist in the band (whose name I should know by now, but I still can never remember) who showed up shortly. We all talked for a while, about my music, and about English. Koji and the guitarist are both relatively good at English, and they are always eager to learn more and to get a chance to use what they already know. One thing they are especially interested in is how to swear and talk dirty in English, and I was happy to teach them.
After that, we went to the bar where we talked more, in a mixture of English and Japanese. That night, I felt like a had a breakthrough with my Japanese. It wasn't that I had gotten terribly facile (though I had certainly picked up a lot since I moved here), it was more an issue of confidence. Even though I still had difficulty understanding a lot of what was said, and I had trouble communicating all of my ideas, I didn't worry and hesitate very much, I was just talking and listening. At some points, I didn't even think too much about what language I was communicating in, I was just communicating, and enjoying it.
These days, when people say things in Japanese which I can clearly understand, I don't think about what language they're speaking, I just hear the meaning. Though sometimes not thinking about language can be a slight problem too. Sometimes when I'm talking with a Japanese person, I'll slip into English without thinking, and then I'll realize they could barely understand what I just said, and then I'll do my best to communicate the same thing in Japanese. This happens the most when I am asked a question in English by someone who only knows a little bit of English, and I answer in English as sort of a knee-jerk reaction.
Anyway, while I was talking with the two band members, they invited me to announce them at their next gig. They also invited me to come to the "studio" with them the next day. I didn't know what to expect, because I wasn't sure if they meant the same thing by "studio" as I do when I say the word. I assumed that what they were actually refering to was a practice space, but even with that in mind, I wasn't sure what they had in mind for me to do there. Join the band? Just jam? Play along with their setlist? Just hang out?
The next day, I took the train to Kishi to meet Koji, who took me to the barber shop where he works. It's the family business of his band's guitarist, who is also his childhood friend. We hung out there for a little while, and I got to meet the rest of the band members (except for the second guitarist, who must have been busy that night). We talked more about music, English, and America.
We then took the guitarist's van to the "studio," which did turn out to be a rehearsal space, and they ran through several songs on their setlist. They were a pretty tight band actually, and I could tell that they had all listened closely to the original songs in order to duplicate the original licks as best they could. Even Koji made an admirable effort to sing the English lyrics, but even so, they all ended up coming out in Engrish. The fact that he's not a very accomplished singer (which was compounded by the fact that a lot of the songs were in bad keys for his vocal register) added to the humor value of his performance. But even so, he has great energy and stage presense, and a real sincerity and passion about what he does, which counts just as much as technical ability in my opinion.
After they went through those songs, they invited me to have a go at the lead vocals on those songs, and I gladly did. Later, when we were taking a break (which I taught them is called 'taking 5'), they asked me to sing one of those songs ("Sleep Now in the Fire," by Rage Against the Machine) in their gig, which I agreed to without hesitation.
One funny thing I also remember from the conversation we had in the break was that the bass player was talking about how much he liked he liked western women. When I told him that I prefer Japanese women myself, he said, "Let's trade!"
The next day (Sunday, the 5th) I met up with Sasha and her sister Michelle (who had just arrived for a three-week visit) for a quiet late afternoon/early evening of drinking and playing cards. We played a Spanish game called Escabar (I might have screwed up the spelling), which Michelle had learned recently while she was visiting Spain.
On Sunday, I experienced my first Japanese earthquake. Coming from the American midwest, I had never experienced anything like it before. When it first started, I thought it was thunder, but it got stronger and I knew it was an earthquake, so I ducked under my kitchen table, covering my head with my hands (a pillow would have been ideal, but I didn't find the time to grab one at the time). My apartment got a pretty good shaking, but nothing fell down or was damaged.
After it ended, I tried calling Sasha and Michelle to make sure they were okay and also just to say, 'hey, how 'bout that earthquake?' The line was busy, even after after ten minutes or so, so I walked to Sasha's place to check on them. They were fine, and they weren't sure why I hadn't been able to get through to them. Looking back, I think it was probably because so many people were trying to make calls at once then. I probably should have stayed off of the phone then, so as not to jam the lines for someone who may have been trying to call emergency services.
Later, around midnight, there was another, stronger earthquake. That time, I was more mentally prepared and less surprised (which is not to say that I was afraid or panicy when the first one hit).
I had no idea how far-reaching the effects of the quakes were. I assumed at the time that they were only felt in the Osaka area, but later I found out that buildings were also shaking in Tokyo and the quakes were international news.
On Monday, I had another day of pretty much nothing to do at work, but around 1:30 pm, I heard a loud, musical rumbling, and I followed the sound to the second floor where I found some students practicing their taiko drumming. I asked if I could listen, and they asked me to come back at 2 when their practice officially started, so I did.
Taiko drumming is a pretty exciting thing to experience in person. The large drums make a very loud, very bassy sound which produces a viceral reaction in both the listener and the performer.
For those who haven't seen taiko drumming before, it is as athletic as it is musical. At 2, when the students' coach and another adult taiko drummer showed up, the two began doing stretches while the students warmed up. At first, I was confused about what was going on. I even started to wonder if the students were just providing workout music for them or something, but once the real practice started, it became clear that the reason they were stretching was because they needed to in order to play the drums with all their might without hurting themselves.
I was especially impressed with adult drummer other than the coach. She was clearly older than the students, but I didn't recognize her as a teacher either, but I wouldn't rule out her being one, because I still haven't become as able to recognize all of the teachers as I would like to be. Anyway, she played those drums with the toughness, strengh, grace, and fluidity of a martial artist.
At first, the complex rhythm of the taiko groove was hard for me to follow, but after a lot of close listening, I figured it out. There are two different figures, one in 7/4 and one in 4/4. These two patterns are played in the following sequence which repeats and accelerates: 7-7-4-4-7-4-4. At about any given time, half of the drummers are playing these figures while the others play an accompaniment figure of shuffle 8th notes.
Once I figured that out and was able to feel the groove, I started air-drumming along with the group. They saw my enthusiasm, and the coach invited me to join them. I think if she had just let me jump into their regular playing, I could have held my own, but instead, she tried to teach me the rhythms in a way that she might teach them to someone who had not already figured them out on their own. She had me play with her at an artificially slow tempo, with no accompaniment figure. Also, the way she counted it really threw me off. This frustrated me, because I was eager to jump in and impress them by demonstrating how quickly I had learned the music. But then again, if I really knew the music, I should have been able to play it slowly too...
Anyway, after I made an effort to tune out the teacher's counting, I was able to follow her, and then she had me play with the group. I did pretty well, all things considered. I'd like to do more of that some time.
On my way home, I was still feeling the taiko groove, and in my head I started to hear melodies to go with it. When I got home, I started doing sketches of a piece based on my ideas. I don't know if I'll ever finish it, but if I do, I think it has the potential to turn out pretty well.
It's 8:54 now, and I'm feeling drained. This isn't the longest I've spent on a blog entry by a longshot, but it's been a long day, and I didn't sleep much last night (the night of my sort-of-gig), so I don't feel up to writing my way back up to the present right now. Maybe tomorrow.
