Conceptual Life

"A Daily Festival Of Human Existence"

03/06/2014

This video is what it is all about! I love it. Please feel free to share (and follow on youtube).

I am in India now. It has been about a week since our final performance in Thailand. The performance was a big hit with the students, teachers, and parents who came to watch. I have a few more pictures from Thailand I want to share here as well as the final audio recordings of the songs, but that will have to wait until the internet is a little bit better.

Tomorrow I move into school number two. This week has been nuts. India is unlike anywhere else I have experienced. All the sights, smells, and noises are in your face all the time. It is incredibly beautiful, grotesque, and overwhelming. Flowers, beggars, traffic, sewage, incense, spices, garbage- it is a lot of everything all at once. Lonely Planet says this about Kolkata (Calcutta): "Simultaneously noble and squalid, cultured and desperate, Kolkata is a daily festival of human existence. And it’s all played out before your very eyes on teeming streets where not an inch of space is wasted." Very true in my experience.

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Practice and Phi Phi

02/24/2014

It is down to crunch time here in Phuket. Only three more days to get everything done before it is off to India. The video above is a clip of us practicing one of their original songs last week after school. This is one of the 4 songs that will be recorded in the next couple of days and performed on Thursday morning. Not perfect- but the kids rock it out pretty well if you ask me.

Over the weekend I spent a night on Phi Phi island with a group of the English teachers from my school and some other young expats living in Phuket. The island was beautiful, but quite over taken by tourists. I got a chance to swim in the ocean, which was nice despite the grimy water, and I got a massage for the first time. At less than 10$, I was a happy camper. After the sun went down, the beach turned into what I can only describe as a giant international frat party with lots of fire. The dubstep was was pulsing, the neon was glowing, the fists were pumping, and the Singha beer was flowing. Not usually my scene, but I certainly enjoyed myself.

Phi Phi Beach

Phuket: Week 2

02/15/2014

This week began on Sunday with a trip to the north of the island to see the gibbon project. Some of the English teachers were nice enough to bring me along for a hike through the jungle to try and spot some gibbons that have been reintroduced to the wild. We didn't see any gibbons on the trek, but still enjoyed a nice, sweaty morning getting some exercise in the woods, followed by a spicy Thai lunch and some beers.

King Gibbon (via google)

Phuket: Week One Update

02/07/2014

It is hard for me to believe that 1/4 of my time at Darasumuth has already passed. Four weeks is not long at all. This week was all about getting to know the school and getting to know the kids. I have my routine down now. I wake up a little before seven and eat breakfast with the students who live a the school. It is funny and a little awkward because all 30 of them stop eating and stand when I walk into the cafeteria. They all bow and say "good morning teacha Tom!" in unison.

Then I go back to my room for a while (I live at the school) and I start my first kindergarten music lesson at 9:00 am. I sing songs with 22 different kinder classes though out the week. This is something new for me, but it's pretty fun. They love it.

At lunch I have my upper elementary songwriters for 30 minutes. It's a big group, about 30 kids, and it is during their lunch break, so they are HYPED. They are great kids though. They love to sing and make noise.

After lunch I teach a few more kinder lessons, then prep for the after-school songwriters. This class is mostly middle schoolers and lasts for an hour. There is more of a language barrier with this group, but there are some talented musicians in there, so I am able to give them a little more room to just create. The next 3 weeks will mostly be spent on creating a couple songs with both groups to share during our performance on the 27th.

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Bangkok

01/30/2014

Although my quest to find some live traditional Thai folk music in Bangkok was not a success, I thought I should still share a couple examples of what I was looking for during my few days here.

Traditional Thai folk music comes mostly from the North part of the country. The two main styles are "Luk Thung", or Thai country music, (you hear this a lot on the streets and in taxis), and "Mor Lam", which made its way to Thailand from Laos and features a unique instrument called the Khaen.

Luk Thung

Mor Lam

Bangkok Protest Sounds

The protests in Bangkok were never a problem for me, but the protesters are very present all over the city center. I got off the metro a couple days and popped into a little rally. I took a couple photos and recorded some sound (now on Soundcloud) before getting out of there.

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