ネイティブが教える英会話のジェムスクール☆Teachers☆

I have to confess that I have not been studying Japanese in recent days, at least not as ardently as I used to. I am not sure what is the cause of my slow down in my studies. My mind has been wandering lately, that`s for sure. I am still researching which PhD programs to apply to come December, and I am also diverting more and more of my time towards playing the guitar. Since I have been a bit down with the cold these few days I have been keeping myself in active in order to most speedily recover from the common cold. Consequently, with going to the gym and cafes and the shotengai less my ears have turned inward and my fingers towards the guitar fretboard. For the past few days I have been sending my friend short video recordings of the new riffs I would make up (invent), this way I could create a database of sounds for future songs, while keeping my friend in the loop (keeping her up to date with my progress on the guitar). I should also mention that this particular friend is now officially my bandmate, so that whenever she should fly over to Tokyo from California where she currently lives, her and I can meet up in the Kansai or Kanto regions for some improvised performances. This is actually where I confess that I have been playing guitar all day, finding that with all my staying in I`ve been recently doing my fingers have been gaining in dexterity and my ears in pitch accuracy. To this latter improvement I have to give cause to my vocal lessons. Despite the heavy price tag of my lessons, and my continuing poor vocal abilities, they are well worth it, since through them I have access to a wonderful and charismatic instructor, as well as inadvertent lessons in Japanese and pitch-copying practice. It would seem that learning to sing has yielded the unexpected benefit of improved, general musicianship. Perhaps we should consider proper education as never being direct and vocational, but rather as that which produces unexpected results, surprises and gifts, that is. At least for me, I find that learning to sing leads to learning to create better melodies, whether on the guitar or the piano, or in the classroom.

Pictured is TK from 凛として時雨 (Rin Toshiba Shigure), one of the most versatile and creative musicians I know: