And now some tunes...

There hasn't been much music here lately, so perhaps it's about time for some new songs. Two new favourites.

Uh Huh Her - Dreamer



Marina and the Diamonds - Numb

Eerie chaos.

Say what you want about Norway and Norwegians, but they do make some good music! One artist that has recently (although I'm guessing she's been around for a while!) been more or less discovered by the entire country is Susanne Sundfør. She got some excellent reviews in the newspapers, and I really have a hard time imagining anyone not noticing her. In Norway, that is. And since almost all the people I know are from outside of Norway (all the stereotypes you've heard about Norwegians being hard to get to know are 100% true), I thought I'd write a little bit about her.

Sundfør makes music that is quite simply magic. I have finally been able to listen to her entire album (the 2nd one, The Brothel) since I got access to the Norwegian Spotify, Wimp (but she is on Spotify as well), and it is in no way disappointing after having heard the title track, the Brothel. I really thought it would be hard for her to live up to such a song, but she actually does it.

In a couple of words, Sundfør's music is melodic, violent, calm, energetic, chaotic creepy and/or eerie. She uses her voice as a true instrument, not just as a tool for adding words to music, and this is one of the very few albums I have a hard time listening to as background music. I just have to listen to it.

My favorite songs are The Brothel, It's All Gone Tomorrow and Father Father (which is delightfully and unsettlingly similar to church music).

This is what music should be like.

()

What's with the trumpets?

For some reason, I have thing for trumpets. I wasn't really aware of it, until I started noticing that a lot of the songs that I can't stop listening to include trumpets.

Here are my three favorites :-) (Swedish, Russian and Russian)

Do you know of any other good songs with trumpets?

Regularity.

(This post was really much more interesting and better formulated before I wrote it down, but unfortunately it has been traveling around in my head for over a week and bits and pieces got lost whereas other just became muddled.)

When I was still rather new to language learning, I used to have periods when I was extremely motivated and then periods when I wasn't the slightest bit interested in languages. Perhaps this was due to the rather low level I was at in both of my languages (Russian and Arabic), or just due to lack of experience. I really do believe that you learn how to learn, and that I partly did learn after lots of trial and error.

I would really be interested in hearing from you other folks how this works for you personally. Do you ever - or often - lose interest in your languages? I never lose interest anymore. I think the last time I lost interest was last summer; since then I have had no unproductive periods (and since I always used to get quite depressed during such times I guess it's uniquely a good thing, just so that SOMEONE doesn't start talking about how we all need to rest and so on - we don't).

I was engaged in some other things back in the up-and-down days as well; I used to be a very ferocious knitter, and anyone who has ever been into knitting knows that this is (or can be) an extremely time-consuming activity, especially when you are working on 12 simultaneous projects, something that all hard-core knitters naturally do. I also used to go to the gym quite a lot (yes I know, weight lifting and knitting... I have always liked weird combinations) and that is surely a very tiring activity. I do neither of those these days, both due to inability and lack of opportunity/time/money... the positive effect of this has been a concentration of my interest and energy on foreign languages. This concentration could however just as well have been applied to knitting instead. I can very well imagine a situation where it is completely unimaginable to not knit during any free moment of the day (yes, that's how serious you get) since that was practically what I was like when I was not in my language learning mode, just like it is now completely unimaginable for me to not constantly try to improve my languages. It doesn't really require an effort; not doing anything is more of a task than just naturally keeping myself busy. It is usually not worth pointing out such things to people who have no interest in anything and who don't spend ridiculous amounts of time doing something most people wouldn't even think twice about since you just get weird looks. It is much easier to just go along with their "oh, you are so talented with languages"-excuse or the "wow, your knitting is so even, that surely is the result of TALENT and not hard work!". Talent is a lame excuse, and an extremely annoying one when you don't have any.

Oh oh, I almost forgot. I think (know) that the language learning community (dear Skypers/IRCers, dear Forum folks!) has also helped me a lot. I just can't bear seeing other people hard at work, or speaking about being hard at work at least, while just sitting there myself.


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The other day Jack sent me a link to a song that was just incredibly beautiful and ever since I have been listening to Ludovico Einaudi. I will provide you with the very same song that he gave me. I have the feeling it was made for my very own little world of classic literary.

Saami music.

The Saami languages are some of the most awesome sounding languages in the world, in my opinion. They are also quite hidden away and rarely heard outside of Scandinavia (and perhaps Russia, but I'm not sure how big a part the Saamis are of Russian society). Anyway, Norway has a quite famous Saami singer, Mari Boine, who has made some quite awesome songs and I thought I'd share her with you.

My all time favourite:




And here's another Saami artist (Swedish) for those of you who like pretty blondes.

A Hungarian song.

Napoleon Boulevard is a cozy old Hungarian group that I like and listen to a lot (even though I can't follow the lyrics like... at all), and I thought I'd share one song here. I also thought it would be interesting to see how many words out of the lyrics I actually know, so I have put those in bold.

Játék



Egy játék megesett, jókat nevetett rajta egy tucat ember
Falnak szegezett arccal gyerekek várták ki esik el
Jó játék, hiszen nem volt tét, csak a sorrend nem dőlt el
Ha mégis volt, az az egy szempont: milyen a színe

Göndör hajadat, ében fekete bőröd ne takard el
Sárga a kezed, játszom veled is, kérlek ne szaladj el!
Ha Lou sírna, Johny elringat, Eduard majd énekel
Ha Ráhel fél ugye megbékél vele Michael.

Refr.:
Menekülnél, játszani kell
Szól a parancs: "Hajtsd végre!"
Menekülnél, túl nagy a tét
Mondd ki marad majd élve?

Láttam sebeket, asszony kezeket fegyvernehezékkel
Hosszú sorokon, fából faragott sírokon neve sincsen
Ha Lou sírna, Johny elringat, Eduard majd énekel
Ha Ráhel fél ugye megbékél vele Michael.

Refr.

Szép tömött sorrendben jönnek a katonák, zöld színű jelmezben
Kőkemény arccal, hogy mindenki megijed, látták a filmekben.

Refr. 2x