I sang in church (but it's not like that)

I taught my first music class today in a small church near the English school I work at. They wanted to learn a song in English, so I chose "Love Me Do" by the Beatles because it's so simple. At my boss' request I also did "Amazing Grace".

It felt a little weird to be sitting in church singing a song praising God, but I agreed because it is a beautiful song. That's the great thing about atheism, you don't have any faith to violate.

The class went really well. I tried to focus on teaching them the meaning of the songs while also touching on the pronunciation of some of the trickier words. Although, since "Amazing Grace" was written in like 1779 it is filled with tricky words like toils, wretch, thus far, and 'twas.

It did feel cool to have a whole chorus singing along with me, though.

My Japanese Debut

Last night we went to see a Jazz trio at this tiny place in Saitama prefecture called Club Kuest (like quest, but with a k). The band played some classic Jazz standards. The singer had a really cool voice and her English pronunciation was so good that it was actually a little jarring when she spoke to the audience in Japanese between numbers.

The highlight for me, though, was the cellist. He was frickin' sweet. It was the first time I ever heard the 12 bar blues played on a cello.

After their first set they started jamming with the owner of the bar and some audience members. Just as they were getting warmed up, a friend of mine ushered me up on the stage and asked me to play a song. It was pretty rough.

The band seemed to insist on playing with me, so I decided to play "I Know" because it's a simple song. I showed them the chords and seemed to follow me, so we started the song, but I was playing an acoustic that wasn't plugged in and they didn't know the chords so it just kind of stuck to G-D the whole time. It basically sounded like shit and wasn't that fun, but hey, at least I got a chance to perform one of my songs in a Japanese Jazz club.

Cello? You gotta bass.

Later I picked up an electric guitar and attempted to initiate a freestyle jam, but that kind of went nowhere. The other guys just seemed confused and didn't know what to play so I just kind of cranked up the volume and whaled away. I don't think it went over very well.

At the end I got on the drums and finally found my niche. It was the first time everybody seemed to appreciate the fact that I had a slightly different approach to playing. At least things ended well.