Alice in Museum; Saga-Sensei

 

     So, for my next report, I'll cover Saga's event. 

If I can be honest, it was definitely a informative and interesting event, out of most. Nao's event was great, and it was similar to a mini-live, than a seminar. Tora's....I'll get to Tora later. 

Saga's event started on time, and with Saga talking about himself and his experience in Asia, mostly China. Talked about the food in China, and how hard it was for him to eat. He was very good at explaining the hot pot they tried when they were in Beijing. (Pardon me, if I made a mistake with this)

He talked about how he ate a lot of food at the hotel, and ate the food that Japanese fans brought for him, in his hotel room. Poor Saga. I got this feeling that Saga is not someone who is that open to trying new foods, or foods he's not familiar with. I won't say he's picky, since he did eat out of an ash tray once, and he tried bee larva. However, China made him nervous, and I can tell by the food he ate. Instant ramen, and McD's. 

So, after that, Saga was left alone, after talking to the announcer. He sat on a stool, and looked out towards us. I would say 70-80 fans showed up. A little more than Nao's event, and less than I expected. 

So, he was sitting and staring at us, how a teacher is left to lecture a class, and he just jumped right into it. He pointed out all his bass guitars, which are ESP brand. Three on his left and three on his right. He pointed out his main guitar, which has the worn down sticker. He explained why the sticker looks like that, and it was from the years of playing and rubbing his arm on it. Later, a fan asked him this through the forms that we could have filled out, and he mentioned it was just from the years of playing. 

He talked about his main guitar the most, and said that he uses it for most songs, while the white bass guitar he has, is mostly used for softer songs and ballads. He has two red, and one white bass guitar, the second red guitar, without the sticker, he called it his substitute guitar.

He did talk about the guitars to his right, our left, that those were only used incase of major problems that happen. 

I can't rewrite all that he talked about, because my memory isn't that great. Though, I felt like I should have taken notes, because I felt like I was taking a music class with him and all Saga fans. xD

He started off talking about how he got into playing the bass. He mentioned he knew nothing about the bass. "Seriously, I don't know!" And rubbed the fret and neck of his guitar randomly, and he mentioned that. He would just play random chords and notes to make sound. He was not really into it, until years later, and I would say about 10 years ago.(I can be wrong that he may have said that)

He talked about how and why he has his guitar rested at a certain length, and how long he has his strap. And he showed the two different examples of both extremes. He shoved his guitar up to his chest, and everyone giggled at how awkward it was, and he simply just said it wasn't cool to him. He did say it was simple to play, but he doesn't like it.

He also had his guitar down past his knees and said he liked this the most, but he can't perform with it that low. So what he does is he measures the length with one inch of his forearm, and rests the body against that, allowing his wrist to strum and pick at the strings freely. 

He went over the strings and chords, and this is where I felt like I was in music class, talked about D major, and B, and explained with examples, with playing a few songs. But he ended up forgetting a song that uses B, and he sat there staring at the ceiling trying to remember, which left us all silent, and him just saying, 

"Crap! I forgot." And he said, "Well, let's move on." And he moved onto his next topic. 

He went over chords and different songs that used those chords. He played Kaisen Zenya, and talked about the bassline and he played the into of The Gazette's song Agony, to also use as a example to his point and topic of basslines. 

He did talk about a lot of detail topics and he was really good about keeping a flow onto the next topic. Like, he went from fingering, to picking and using his fingers to pick. He was really good at this. I could tell he was prepared to talk about himself, his bass, and what he does. 

There was a corner section after he talked about all that he wanted to say, and he started answering some fans question. 

One fan asked him to make his favourite pose, or a pose he thinks his cool, and please explain why. 

"BAKA!" Everyone laughed, but he got up and he made a random pose, having his left arm in front of his face, and legs spread apart. He said that would be cool to do it for the Shooting Star PV, and that all the girls would fall in love with him over it. xD He even did a voice of a female fan who was fawning over "Saga-Sama", and he just does what he can to look cool in the music videos. 

One fan asked him, out of Alice Nine's songs, which is his favourite bassline, and which bassline does he hate or is hard for him. 

He couldn't think of any that he liked, and that he doesn't like difficult songs, but he did end up saying he like RAINBOWS bassline, and said it was simple for him.  (I love the bassline of Rainbows so I squeaked on the inside and was happy he said that)

"You know, because I'm an idiot(I can't remember difficult songs)"

I liked this question.

"How do you practice and how often do you practice and what is your method?" 

He stood there and said, "Practicing is boring, and I usually don't want to practice." Which I totally relate with. "But I hold my bass guitar when I'm watching TV," and he explained that it helps him keep his fingers familiar with fingering and he was will just finger and just do that for while. 

He got a lot of really good questions from fans, but I can't remember them all. 

He was asked what he calls his guitars. Ex. Wife or love?

He said he doesn't call them his wife, but "Tomodachi", and he numbered them off.

"Friend number one, and two..." That got us laughing as well. 

He went on talking about tuning, and he pointed out that his guitar has a lever on the back that he can pull on, and he usually thinks retuning is a pain in the ass, so he just keeps the lever at a certain position. And he will freak out if he sees that he pulled on the lever on accident or he sees it came down from its position. He will just get anxious during the live and think, "what should I do, what should I do!?" but he does do most of his tuning on his own. Because the guy that is supposed to help Saga, ends up helping Tora the most.

But he did give the main message that it's all part of the job, and that he makes mistakes, and he's not perfect. He didn't say that, but that's the vibe I got from him. He was just explaining that he's not really professional. I got a positive message from this lecture. 

And as soon as he was told that his time was up he stood on stage looked at us and said, 

"And that's it!" 

Again, as much I'm not interested in bass guitars, I did walk away inspired to keep trying and keep practicing the guitar. Because Saga made it come off that he still doesn't know what he's doing, and that's part of his job. He's the idiot but genius of this band, and he made all of us comfortable and explained to us using easy to understand language, along with showing us examples. 

He played two songs. 

Shining and Kaisen Zenya

If Saga did another lecture on music, I would go in a heart beat. 

And not to mention he's a very entertaining teacher, AND you walk away with actually learning something. 

This is why I call him Saga-Sensei. ^^b 

And I think I'll call him that from now on. 

If you have any other questions, please comment below.

-Nihongochick2