I am a native Japanese speaker who used to teach Japanese in a university somewhere on this planet. Currently I don't work but stayed in my house in Northern part of JAPAN. I hope that you could enjoy reading my posts and know what life in Japan is like.
I don’t remember if I had bought a bulb of white lily. Neither do I remember to have planted such kind in my garden. I prefer red, pink, orange, and yellow flowers with color. I hardly plant white flowers in my garden. Last year I found one white lily leaning, or lying down to the ground. The place was a mount of weeds that were pulled and gathered. I always pile up weeds at one place to make them compost. That simply means that I have never plant a white lily in my garden and that one came from somewhere. This year I dug that lily and planted in flower bed so that the lily could grow up well.
And then the lily has grown up high. It is taller than I am.
I don’t know why this lily is so high. Perhaps this is a kind of wild species that had not got improvement as an ornamental flowers. But I am not sure.
Now the season is turning because the rainy season has ended. One type of vegetable is growing fast in my garden. Well, don’t talk about weeds around, please.
And its flowers are actually beautiful.
But the flowers are not the purpose of this plant. It’s OKRA.
I boiled OKRA just a few minutes, cooled down with ice, and put mayonnaise on them. The slices of Tomato also came from my garden. This was one plate of tonight’s supper.
Gavotte I from Suite fur Laute Nr.3 BWV995, by J. S. Bach
I played this piece on piano as-is written on music sheet for a Lute. By playing so, the left hand part is actually very easy.
I took a walk on Thursday afternoon. Actually it was between two conversation classes on that day. I expected that I could take a photo of Iide Montain that had been “more white”.
The audio embedded below is my electric bass play. I usually play a bass with two fingers. I don’t like to use so-called “pick” which is a triangle plastic piece. Let alone “SLAP”. But I played this by slapping as a kind of practice for the technique that I am not good at. The piece is “Chorus of frogs (かえるの合唱)” which is a very famous song in Japan. It is said to be an old Deutsch traditional folk song, but I am not sure.
“SOEUR MONIQUE” F. Couperin, played by LQ Laoshi 3.26MB, 3min16sec
I actually connected two takes at 2:02. I tried playing as fast as I can from the connected point, but I could not catch up the speed. I regret using a piano recording of speed of 54 that was too fast for my finger picking style.
My electric bass Ibanez SR500 has got a problem with its built-in amplifier. It doesn’t work to generate bass sounds but makes noise like the following audio recording. Probably you will regret hearing the sound. I bought this Ibanez bass in 2010, in Tokyo. It has been already ten years. Since 10 years are not short for a life of an electric circuit, I don’t think I can complain about this.
Noise sounds from pre-amplifier of SR500 (414kB)
Electric Bass Ibanez SR500 that I bought in Tokyo Ten Years Ago
So I changed my main bass from Ibanez to Bacchus. The big difference between Ibanez and Bacchus is with or without the amplifier inside. Ibanez basses always have an active circuit which is a built-in amplifier, but Bacchus basically doesn’t have an active circuit inside of bass. I had an experience of using Ibanez for three years in past, I was always worry about troubles on active circuit. The pre-amplifier used 9-volt battery which also had a problem for availability in store. I want to say that I like passive pick-up for my bass. It is simple, no need to worry about battery and electric circuit.
I played the most famous piece from J. S. Bach’s Unaccompanied Cello Suite, that is Prelude from Suite No.1. I am not a good bassist, but I hope you enjoy it. The original cello version uses the open string of A near the end. I guess that the A-string of a cello is the highest. I also use the open A string for that part on my bass. But the A string on bass is the second lowest. So what is being played in high in the original is played in low in my version. Please do not complain about this. Because I know that many bassists have made much effort to play this A notes in high for this Bach Piece. If you play in low, actually it would be very easy. I admit my technique is poor but I am expecting that J.S.Bach in heaven might allow me to do so.
J. S. Bach, Unaccompanied Cello Suite No.1, Prelude in G major (2.70MB)
Bass：WJB-330M YLW by Bacchus
Strings：D’Addario, Extra-Light of Balanced Tension
Amplifier: Not a Bass Amplifier, but a cheap audio Amp.
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