Beats

Beatboxing, the art of producing beats and sounds using one's mouth and voice, is often left out when one thinks of the word "music." It's a relatively new style of producing music and has its roots in hip-hop culture.

I am a huge fan of beatboxing because it's such a cool and easy way to make music. Well, not easy in terms of technique, but rather in terms of its portability. With your mouth as your instrument, you can produce beats and music anywhere. Beatboxing is also not limited to just hip-hop music; you can use its techniques to improvise classical pieces too if you want.

In the Asian beatboxing world, I usually watch videos by Krnfx and Hikakin. Krnfx (pronounced "Korean effects"), whose real name is Terry Im, is a Korean-Canadian beatboxer who has won the Canadian Beatbox Championship two years in a row and has also been a Beatbox Battle World Championship Finalist. He has a very clean style and is always precise in his technique. Many beatboxers blend their sounds together when they try really fast beats or multiple sounds at the same time, but you can still hear Krnfx’s individual sounds even when he speeds up his beats or adds different types of beats. He really tries to focus on perfecting his technique.

Krnfx freestyling on the stairs:

However, clean and precise isn’t the only style of beatboxing. Hikakin, a Japanese beatboxer, is famous for using beatboxing to imitate popular radio songs, video game theme songs, and classical pieces. His most viewed video on YouTube is a beatbox version of the Super Mario theme song, which has over 19 million views. Unlike Krnfx, Hikakin doesn’t put as much emphasis on advanced beatboxing skills or beatbox championships. Instead, he chooses to keep his beats simple and focus on creating melodies using beatboxing techniques. Many YouTubers argue about whether Krnfx or Hikakin is the better beatboxer, but I personally think they’re both great in their own ways. So I just sit back and enjoy the music.

Hikakin performing Super Mario:

-Sherry

My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean!

The problem with living in America is that it makes discovering less well known Asian pop songs much, much harder. The power of the internet is limited by the interest in the subject, and sadly, there isn't much interest in little known Asian bands. However, finding a good, less well known band becomes much more satisfying as a result. Off the top of my head, I can think of three such bands in the Kpop industry; Ft Island, CN Blue, and 10cm.

Ft Island was the band that prompted me to write this post, following the release of their new song, "I Wish." Ft Island has a very distinctive style with lots of guitar in the background and catchy verses. While they aren't totally clouded in anonymity, it is much harder to find an FT Island fan than it is to find a 2NE1, Big Bang, or SNSD (a very popular girl band) fan. My favorite song of theirs is "Love Love Love," and the music video is below.

Besides just being a good song, the music video for "Love Love Love has amazing side effects with starbursts of color along the walls and an interesting story line. Well, "interesting" in a weird sense. I don't really know what the burning dolls are for, but you know, it makes it more meaningful, yes?

Another band that I enjoy is CN Blue. I can't really say much about this band that I haven't already said about FT Island, the two bands are very similar in style. Neither band really fits into the usual sense of the genre Kpop, but both are just as good as any other Kpop band. My favorite song from CN Blue is "Loner" ("외톨이야" in Korean). If you listen to it, you'll probably notice how similar FT Island and CN Blue are. 

The last band I want to mention is 10cm. Out of the three bands in this post, 10cm is definitely the least well known. The band is named 10cm apparently because the difference in height of the two band members is, you guessed it, ten centimeters. The duo got their start playing their indie songs in coffee shops and bookstores and got a big jump when a well known Kpop new website in the US, allkpop, did an editorial on them. In fact, that was how I first heard of them. 

10cm's songs are softer and slower than those of FT Island and CN Blue and have more harmonies and prominent acoustic guitar. Their song "Healing" is below, from a live performance in a bookstore. I don't know about you, but this is my go to rainy-day song.

Needless to say, I definitely lean towards Korean indie bands when I am discovering music. I did a little happy dance inside when I found these three bands. Sadly, these are the only ones I know of so far because, as the post title says, my Bonnie lies over the Pacific ocean...

--Julia

Piano Battle

Before I begin, I just want to say that I’m really excited about a new Chopin waltz I’m currently working on and that it inspired me to write this post.

Jay Chou is my favorite Chinese pop (AKA C-pop) artist of all time. To be honest, I can’t actually tell what he’s saying in most of his songs because he mumbles so much. But the reason I love his songs is because he is such a great composer. He does an amazing job of combining classical music with popular music and creating his own arrangements for classical pieces. His favorite composer is Chopin, so he tends to use Chopin nocturnes and waltzes as the bases for his songs. (In fact, he loves Chopin so much that he even named one of his songs “Nocturne.”)

On top of composing and producing his own music, Jay Chou is also an actor and director. One of his films, “Secret,” included a piano battle, which eventually turned into a duet. The phrase “piano battle” comes from the story of the main character (Jay) having to battle the piano prince (Yuhao) to prove his worth at his new school. Of course, the music from the entire battle scene was arranged by Jay. During Yuhao’s second solo, he plays part of Chopin’s Waltz in C-sharp minor (the one that I am learning), and then transitions into an improvisation of the piece. The fast-paced improvisation contrasts nicely with the slower and smoother original Chopin waltz. Finally, Jay and Yuhao battle it out on the piano. They start out competing with each other for the melody, but then merge together to complete the piece. The view of the moving keys inside the piano makes the scene even more exciting to watch.

Check out the piano battle below:
(Howe-Yuhao (on the left), Other guy-Jay)



-Sherry

Best and Most Interesting of the Summer!

Over the summer, a lot of my favorite bands released songs that I jam out to every night now. For example, my all time favorite band, Big Bang, released a single titled "Monster." Big Bang is a very popular South Korean band (well I suppose there aren't any North Korean bands) with five members. Big Bang is best known for their unique music and style choices and are praised for composing their own pieces. The music video for Monster is below.

First of all, I'd like to say that Spock was not the hairstylist for this video. Secondly, I really, really love this song. It's catchy and the background music is just great, especially the piano part. The teasers came out right before I left for vacation and during the second week of my trip, I just had to seek out an Internet connection so I could watch it. Thankfully it didn't disappoint me at all.

Another notable video that has been released this summer is Gangnam Style, by Psy. It has a whopping view count of somewhere around 113 million, the most any Korean Pop (Kpop) video has gotten, as far as I know.

While this music video seems like another sleazy video, Psy, who masterminded the entire video, is actually sending a message about the Gangnam district of Seoul. The Gangnam district is the equivalent of the Beverly Hills of Korea, and in the music video, Psy mocks their attitude and lifestyle. Personally I think it's really funny, and I'm still working on learning that dance... Maybe if I go crazy during Finals week I can let off some steam and chase college students around while doing the little horse gallop dance.

-Julia