My formative years were troubled. I have many horrible memories, of which I refuse to go into here – they’re personal, and it’s not appropriate. But the memories were not all bad. Every year we had a religious festival – we called it the Festival of Tabernacles, or the “feast” for short. It was in some ways a rather staid affair – but it was a festival, and it was a celebration. Some people treated it as an excuse to get wasted for seven days, but for the most part,… Read More »Matsuri
As I might have mentioned at one point, I am a classically trained musician. I am familiar with most of the works of many major composers, but my favorite classical pieces – or romantic pieces, as the case may be, are some of the more famous piano concertos. Those by Saint-Saens, Rachmaninoff, Tchaikovsky, Schumann – I love them all and have been listening to them for many years. I love the complexity, the interplay between the soloist instruments and the orchestra, and most important, how even though there are many… Read More »Why does a Classically Trained Pianist like J-Pop?
In my seeking to understand Japanese culture, I found a YouTube video, and found it very interesting. Ohori Meshibe (also known as Ohori Megumi, but that was her name for this recording) was a 25 year old AKB48 member who was given an opportunity, but with a catch: we’ll give you a solo debut, but you have to sell 10,000 CDs within a month or you’ll have to graduate. So for a month, she went all over, selling one CD at a time, giving little performances all over the place,… Read More »Ohori Meshibe
“Ganbatte” is a word that, in Japanese, means “try your best”. It seems to be a very frequently used word, particularly in competitive contexts, such as variety shows, etc. But looking at the context in which it’s used, I don’t think it translates very well. The reason is, as with many things, cultural. In English, “Try your best” has a connotation of “Do the very best that you can, and it’s okay if you still fail”. I mean, obviously you don’t want to fail, but English speakers tend to have a… Read More »Ganbatte