Classical Music psa

I've finished grading! To express my happiness, here is a favorite piece of mine by Chopin. I think Chopin is my favorite composer for solo piano. He's so diverse and expressive and he makes such a great use of the instrument. All of his pieces have a lot of different colors and voices to them. This one is one of his etudes, which is basically supposed to be a boring finger exercise but in this case it's an exercise in awesome. This particular etude is in Gb Major and is known as the "Black Keys" etude. I like the way it builds around 0:20. Listen for the pentatonic scale around the 1:00 mark. Fun stuff and expresses my current mood.

Working with non-musicians

Trying to provide music to the people who need it can be a challenge, especially when they have no idea how music works. I have been helping to lead worship music on piano twice a week for chapel. It hasn't been too difficult as the service is only for half an hour and usually only includes one song, but there have still been some awkward moments. For example, the times when the person leading the singing has looked over to me, during the service, just after I've played the intro, and said "lower please!" While there are very talented pianists who are capable of accommodating such requests, I am not one of them. Especially not when I am trying to sight-read a hymn.

 This brings me to yesterday. On arriving at chapel I was informed that the speaker wanted to use "Amazing Grace." This wasn't what I had chosen, but I didn't mind too much as I know it pretty well which would make sight-reading easier. But then I was informed that the students would be reading the English lyrics off of a slideshow. Not a powerpoint presentation, a slideshow that automatically switched from one slide the next. I pointed out that I would have no idea what tempo to play at in order to synchronize with the slideshow and it would be better if somebody changed the slides manually. At this realization, it was suggested that I play along with the music that accompanied the slideshow. Not only was this a bit unnecessary, this time I had to point out that the music was in a completely different key from the hymnal. so we ended up singing along with the prerecorded music and I kind of just laughed to myself about the whole thing.

Happily, the occurrence did give me a great excuse to share this video. I saw it because one of my fellow music majors posted it on facebook. Oh so true.

More things you cannot do on an airplane

I started writing this several weeks ago, and only now have I found the time to sit down and try to finish it. so here is a list of more things you cannot do on an airplane. 

• hip hop dancing
• play guitar
• fly the airplane
• touch the flight attendant (!)

Oh my students... They had to make a second list of things you cannot bring on an airplane. One particularly creative group said "people who are die," by which I figured out they meant "dead people." Okay. This actually sparked an argument with another group over whether or not ghosts counted as "dead people" since someone claimed to have seen a ghost on an airplane. 

This brings me to an interesting cultural observation. Pretty much everyone in Thailand believes in ghosts and many people will claim to have seen one. During my time here at Payap there have been several sightings and people take them very seriously. Nobody would ever be laughed at for such a claim. 

Thailand is a very superstitious country. There is a very sincere belief in the supernatural. People consult monks or perform rituals as a way to interact with these forces. It's very different from contemporary Western culture, where such beliefs would probably be considered childish and unscientific. Not so in Thailand.

While I'm generally a skeptic regarding these sorts of thing, this pervasive belief in the supernatural has given me some food for thought. I mean, I could laugh at such beliefs, but let's face it, I'm a Christian. That means I automatically have some pretty crazy beliefs in the supernatural myself. Coming out of Western culture, I'm more used to the skeptical approach. While it may be that many people believe in God or spirits or "forces" or whatever, not being a hardcore materialist pretty much seems like intellectual suicide. It is often touted as the only "rational" approach to thought, and I suppose I might agree depending on what people mean by "rational." Unfortunately though, by "rational" people often mean "intelligent" or even "sane," as if anybody who believes in anything outside of nature ought to be stripped of all credibility. so while I have found the emphasis on ghosts and spirits a bit unnerving, rather weird and somewhat laughable, it has been interesting to live in a society where the supernatural is still taken seriously.

Here is an article from a local magazine about superstition and the workplace. While I haven't experienced any of the examples in the article (except for hearing news about a need for ghost-protection) it does give you an idea of how different attitudes to the supernatural are here.

http://www.chiangmainews.com/indepth/details.php?id=1406

When students learn too much about you

I have a lot of things I could post about. I simply haven't had time to blog, and you know that means I've been seriously busy. What else would keep me from the self-importance of obsessively writing about my life? While there are better things I could write about,  today's post will be devoted to a technological mishap in the classroom.

It all began when I temporarily lost all the files on my thumb drive due to a virus. The files have since been restored and no harm done, thankfully, but it meant I was in a tight spot this afternoon and had to use my laptop for my Critical Thinking lecture. What I'd forgotten was that I had the screensaver set to My Pictures slideshow. so while my students were completing an in-class exercise, this rather interesting photo from freshman year at Whitworth came up.

My students were baffled, to say the least. My response? "Oops. Um, that is my friend Libby from college. she got taped to a wall once..."