Now it’s the time for our students to participate in the Hong Kong Schools Music Festival. Under Ms Lee’s leadership our school has been very successful in such competitions in the past several years, with ensembles and individuals winning many trophies.
What do you think about the competition? What are the aims and what are the benefits?
- To push students to achieve their potential?
- To help them develop a love for music?
- To bring glory to the school and enhance its reputation in Hong Kong?
- To help students achieve a sense of teamwork by working together to achieve a common goal?
- To bring students happiness (e.g., If they win, they are happy)?
- To see how one measures up to competitors?
If you are a participant how do you view the music festival?
However, are there also some drawbacks?
- Do some participating students start to neglect their studies and other duties?
- Are other aspects of the school (e.g., classes and extracurricular activities) disrupted?
- Is there additional pressure on students when they are forced to compete in individual competitions even when they don’t want to join? Does this put a burden on some students?
- Are some students exploited? Some talented students may be required to participate in several competitions within a single music festival. Is this too much?
- Can the focus on competition change the students’ motivation so that they perform more for the reward of winning and less out of love for music?
- Do students become overly concerned with winning and competition, adopting a win-at-all cost mentality that carries on long after the competition has finished?
What do you think? Do the benefits outweigh by the costs?
If you think the way the school approaches the music festival is good, do you also think the Chinese and English departments should adopt similar approaches for the Speech Festival? Our students also participate regularly in the speech festival, but they mainly do it for the experience rather than to win, only participate in one or two events, are not forced to participate in individual events and don’t spend an extraordinary amount of time to prepare for it. Should the language departments also become more competition-oriented?
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Music Festival produce a platform for students in the middle of a school year to let you have a chance to see yours and other people skills. So that you can improve your skills through listening to other people performance. And also can train yourself to be confidence to face a lot of people that it is beneficial for your future. On the other hand, attending the music festival use a lot of your time to practice the piece that maybe use your time to doing revision of the test, and also you may feel bad if you cannot get a good performance in the competition and become lack of confidence.
I think there are many pros of music competitions for students.
First, shape the awareness of participation and cultivate the enthusiasm and initiative for learning. Participation is the focus of competition activities. When students participate in it, they will actively prepare to improve their results. They will be proactive in learning so as to cultivate their proactive character.
Second, broaden your horizons and increase your knowledge. In every comparison, there are players from all aspects. Every contestant has a winning skill, or has an outstanding performance. In short, the strengths of others are worth learning and learning from.
Third, cultivate a sense of competition. Encouraging students to participate in the competition can enhance their self-confidence. The spirit and talents displayed by the students in the competition will enable students to make a positive evaluation of themselves, and will inspire students to progress and strive for progress. Also, the competition can overcome the timid character of some students.
However, there are cons to participating in music competitions.
First, it takes a lot of effort before the music competition. If you want to practice difficult tunes, you must practice often. If you want to practice regularly, you have to sacrifice some other time for fun and rest. The point is that the process of practicing is very tiring. It is only a basic requirement to memorize a difficult piece of music in its entirety, and it is also necessary to practice “repeating and diligently” continuously.
Second, the performance and psychological quality of the competition. Basically everyone cares about grades. It’s hard for someone to not mind at all. Of course everyone is happy to get good grades or ideal grades in mind. On the contrary, if the performance is not satisfactory, it will not reach the standard in the mind. After one or two times, gradually, there will be accusations, sadness, anger or worry, or all kinds of doubts in the heart.
All in all, the performance of a game is really not clear in a few words. In fact, the quality of the game really depends on your own ideas.
I think music festival is a very good platform for students to show their own music ability and learn from others. Especially in music teams like choir, students can learn how to cooperate with others and know the importance of teamwork . It’s also a good goal for students to achieve within a year as each lamwooer has to learn at least one kind of musical instrument.
There are many benefits of participating in the music festival. However, there are some negative effects if students are forced to join so. For example, all choir members have to join the solo competition besides the choir one, no matter the student have enough time to practice or even willing to join. In this case, students only work hard for the score but not enjoying the whole process. This makes the original aim of the competition becomes meaningless. Moreover, as too much students have to go to the competition, many school events cannot be held during March, including Reading Aloud Days like last year.
In conclusion, I think music festival is a great chance for students to practice their performing skills,but it may also have bad impacts if students cannot enjoy it or it affects students’ daily lives.
As I am a member of symphonic band, I totally agree that Music Festival had made me learned about what teamwork is. I also learned that we should be humble as there are many people that are play instruments better than me. Through the competition, student can improve their skills and learns good from others.However, the Music Festival also bring many bad impacts to students.
Firstly, as our music teacher Miss Lee want us to get prizes to get the sense of achievement for ourselves, she push us to practise instruments to play them better, but if we not perform our skill well in the music lesson, she will immediately scold us loudly in front of the class. I think this will increase the pressure of junior form students.
Secondly, I think that the Music Festival will affect our academic result. As participating competitions need a lot of time to prepare and practise after school, especially the member of choir, which will make the time for doing homework and revision reduce. Also, the students who go out for competition on school day will normally use a half day or a whole, which will make them miss some important lessons .
Lastly, as Miss Lee force all the member in music team to join the competition, for the students who are in low income family, it is hard for them to pay the fee to join the competition.
To conclude, Miss Lee should not force the students to join the competition, and should not put too much stress on students as playing music shall be a fun activity
The Music Festival aims to make available worthwhile concerts for school students and generally to foster interest in music in the schools of Hong Kong. For students, the Music Festival may give them a little push force to them practise more and achieve their potential in music. For music lovers, this must be a stage for them to show their achievement after a long time of hard practise. For schools, this is a time for them to get glory and enhance their reputation in Hong Kong.
The Music Festival divides to many different items-individual ones and group ones. If students participate in individual ones, they can gain more experience. If they win, of course they must be excited and bring them happiness. But if they lose, they can gain more experience and learn from the winners and do better next time. If students participate in group ones, they can learn what teamwork is and try to cooperate with other students.
I am also one of the participants. This year, I joined Junior Choir, Band and Orchestra. I have completely learnt what teamwork is. When we win, we would share the kind of happiness with each other. However when we lose, we would console each other and tell each other to cheer up and try better next time.
Some students may think that if they spend most of the time to practise their musical instrument, they will have fewer time to study. In my view, actually if students can arrange their time better, they can also practise their instrument and have enough revision and keep the time balance. As Miss Lee said, if students cannot handle their studies, they should quit choir immediately or find her and she will find some big brothers or big sisters to help you. Therefore, this is not such a big problem.
Some students may be also frustrated that they cannot refuse to participate the Music Festival. According to Miss Lee, this is a chance to expand your horizons towards the world in fact.
Lastly, I think that participating in the Music Festival is more credit than fault. And I think the Chinese Department and English Department can be also participating the Speech Festival more actively. This can give students which are good at language a chance to show off themselves. Maybe some of the students have great potential but they don’t know. This can help them excavate their talent.
I agree that the Music Festival can give a little push force for some of the students (including you). However, don’t you think it may be too much? Our Music teacher, Miss Lee, always give schoolmates a push force. The way is to force the students to join the Music Festival. The ability of each student is different. Some students who are not so talented may also be forced to join Mus Fest. You know, you cannot reject Miss Lee (otherwise you will be scolded by Miss Lee for a long, long time). Then those students went to the competition, but the result? They may get very low marks and they will be depressed. After going back to school, they would still be scolded by Miss Lee. Then the further consequence is that the person may feel that they cannot improve anymore. Therefore, they won’t put effort on it anymore.
In conclusion, participating Mus Fest may be more credit at your thought. However, at most of Lamwooers’ thought, it is more fault than credit.
I don’t agree with you since Miss Lee always forces us to join Music Festival. Like me, I was forced to join the Di competition. If I don’t join, I will be scolded by Miss Lee and I will get a very low mark in the later music examination. I extremely disagree that Music Festival can broaden my eyes. Therefore, I think Music Festival is more fault than credit
The music/speech festival was started in year 1949. It aims for push the student to achieve their potential of music/speech. It is a competition that is popular and many volunteers entire. Because of the support of the schools, it has the high recognition claims that it’s a fair competition in Hong Kong.
The pros of entire the music/speech festival is to improve student’s music skills, and their confidence on the stage, also it’s a show time of the music/speech talented students, show the best of the best and win the competition. As hence, the students can learn how to correct the error at the first time you participate it,
do it better at the next time you entire it.
The music/speech festival also contain some team competition like Choir, Concert Band, Orchestra , Chinese Orchestra , Madrigals and Partsongs, learn not to be selfish, communicate with the teammate, improve the team spirit. Therefore, he/she has high sense of belonging, especially the team wins and participates the final competition.
Conversely, the cons of entire music/speech festival is the talented students that participate many competitions, they need to go everythere to join, but sometimes they missed many lessons on daily time, may affect the academic year that they learn, also there’re pressure that they have to practise of such hours with many homework to do. They cannot handle is properly, and may cause stress of life.
Lastly, some of the music teachers may order the students to entire the festival and enforce them to win, thar cause a serious effect that the student feel stressful he/she must not let the teacher feel disappointed, so that some cases of the students feel scared to entire the competition.
In Lam Woo , most of the students have to join at least one musical instrument class. Some of them even join two to three classes. If students perform well in the class or they are talented in some instruments, Miss Lee would push them to join Music Festival.I think there are both pros and cons. I think that if you join the competition, it can push yourself to practice more so you would have a lager possibility to get the price. Secondly, if you are the members of the school team(s), such as orchestra, you can learn how to work with your teammates and perform a piece of music. Also, you will get the sense of accomplishment if you can get a prize in the competition.
Although there are many pros of the competition, there are still cons of the competition. First of all, if you join the competition, you would pay more attention and time on practicing, and you would have less time on studying. Secondly, you would lose confident if you cannot accept failure when you lose the competition.
Finally, I think that teacher should not force students to join the competition since some of the students may not like to perform in front of a lot of people.
I strongly agree with your analysis, especially the last standpoint. Outstanding performance will be attained only when a student is interested in music, not forced by anyone.
Miss Lee pushed students to join the music festival in order to encourage students to practice their skills of playing musical instrument or singing more in order to be more skillful.This initiative is good but as many students are forced to join music-related activities,they may even don’t want to practice and so being forced to join the music festival only cause to a burden to these students.But,miss Lee have said that if your are forced to join the festival,that means you have the ability,so you should treasure this golden opportunity to broaden your horizons.I agreed with her initiative as this really forced most students to practice more.But what can even force students to practice more is to perform in front of Miss Lee.Students are afraid being scolded by her so they practiced hard before performing to Miss Lee.
miss Lee said that the performance of Lamwoo in the music festival is unsatisfactory.the total prize we got keep decreasing year by year so miss Lee is very angry.She thinks that the standards of Lamwoo students keep decreasing year by year and so we may not get much prizes in the future.In my opinion,if we have tried hard,we don’t need to worry.Just admit that we don’t have that ability is ok.Why should we crave for prizes like it is essential for life?
I saw many students participated in a number of music-related activity.They are really busy,especially when the time is near to the music festival,but most of them can still maintain their academic results.In contrast,those who didn’t joined those activities may not score higher,maybe they will only play more on phones.So,this is related to one’s distribution of time but not directly related to music.
I believe two third Lam Woo students have joined the Music Festival as the music aspects in Lam Woo did really well by the leading of Miss Lee. Choirs, band, orchestra, Chinese orchestra, ensemble groups…… Lam Woo have so many music teams and parts, some talented students may even join 3 to 4 groups. Some of them said that they can afford and they really learn many through these activities. However, some of the students said they feel really harsh and tired of joining so many music activities and also the academic stress. So what makes they feel so good or bad?
Miss Lee always said that joining music festival can directly improve our skills of music directly as we need to practise a lot before going to the competition. That’s the main point of encouraging people to join the music festival. It can raise people’s attention to practise more and even “force” some lazy students to practice. And going out for this kind of competition can widen our eyesight we can see the standard of the outside world and give us motion to work harder in the future. With the different music groups, we can practise our team spirit there as if one is absent he or she may miss some important message from the song and he or she will slow down the whole group of practising. And everyone in the groups needs to pay our whole effort to practice to gain a better result.
However, I think Miss Lee should not force everyone to join the Music Festival as is too stressful for the one who joins 2-3 competitions. Then Miss Lee always complain about nobody come to practice. However, I have heard about so many complain that practising solo is so tired and “scary”. People afraid that they will be scolded by Miss Lee so they don’t go to practice. So I think Miss Lee should practise with us with a nicer attitude but not scold us and use ur to compare with the graduate students because we felt really uncomfortable when we heard that.
In conclusion, I think joining the Music Festival can really improve our personality and the skills but the way that Miss Lee taught us may let us feel uncomfortable. So either we accept that or Miss Lee change a little bit, we can get a happier experience and practising condition, and also a better result.
The Music Festival: Pros and Cons
We can hear a lot of music around the school this month, and it tells us that it is time for the music festival. The music festival has been started for a few weeks and I have already participated in most of my competitions, including both team and the individual ones. It is the 69th Music Festival this year, and I have joined it since I was primary 1. I think it has a lot of pros, and cons of course.
Pros:
The music festival is always a place for us to develop our strengths and show our talents, especially for solo competitions. It is a good time to train our confidence, as we need to bravely go on the stage and start our solos. We would not perform as well as the time practicing if we are lack of confidence. Self-confidence is also important in our daily life. We have different kinds of speeches, presentations etc. when we are studying, or even working. If we are lack of confidence, we will fail to do them well or face problems.
Also, we can learn to fight for our goal and never give up. Practice makes perfect. We need to practice hard before the competition. However, we are not always the one to get the prize, as there is only one winner in a competition. We need to respect the judge of the adjudicator. We can learn to face failure and keep trying harder. We need to believe in ourselves and try again next time. These experiences can help us to handle a lot of challenges in our lives actually, using the same attitude to face them.
We can also learn a lot from the team competition. Use choir as an example, we need to cooperate with the whole team. We must spare out our time for the practices, especially the day right before the competition. Everything can be very different without a member. We can also learn to be responsible to tell the teacher if we are really busy on the practicing day.
Cons:
The practices for the competitions are somehow quite time-consuming. For example, the practices of choir last for several hours and they sometimes overrun. We do not have enough time to do our homework. In order to finish them on time, we may need to do it until midnight. Then we would not have enough time to rest.
On the other hand, the competitions usually take place at school time. We have to absent many lessons to participate them. Therefore, we are not able to learn everything that the teachers have taught. At the same time, teachers also face difficulties on teaching when there are quite a number of absentees.
Moreover, we are always feeling nervous before the competitions. They give us plenty of pressure. In addition, we may feel sad if we don’t have a good result. It is not good to our mental health.
So is the music festival a good or a bad things? In my opinion, the music festival is a good thing to me. I can learn a lot from it and I enjoy the time of the competition. Actually it just depends on how you see it. If you can face it as a challenge but not a burden, maybe you can also find something enjoyable through this event. Anyway, practice hard and try your best in the competition! 🙂
As the music festival is going on now. We have prepared it for quite long time. We practice it every day and want to do it well. However, I think the competition is somehow good and bad for us:
Good: We can get some experiences from the competition also, we can get some comment from the adjudicator and improve our quality. We can also get comment and do it better next year.
Bad: We need to spend a lot of time to do the practice and don’t have enough for doing other’s things. Joining a competition will also give us worry and stress. Every time, when we join a competition, we will hope to get a price and we may give ourselves a lot of stress and it will also affect the performance of us.
I joined the Music Festival, and I have already had the competition last week. I think I had do all my best, however, I cannot a good result, I had felt sad for about a week.
And I think music festival cannot said it is bad or good, but this is the opinion that what you look for it,
Music festival – Pros and cons
I think that music festival is somehow is good and a bad thing at the same time.
As a member of many music teams in F.1, I think I have a negative view on music festival this year. But however I will also try my best to perform in the music festival!
Cons:
I think is a quite a harsh time for us in these days. Because the music teams always occupied our weekdays and holidays, and we don’t have much time for revising and enough rest. Plus, there aren’t any extra holidays on normal weekdays, did you noticed that? That make me feel that I am dying every day but don’t have enough rest. But the most important is: the teacher always overrun for half to an hour ,that make my schedule very messy, hope she will take note of that. (My Parents are not satisfied with that.) Apart from that ,music festivals also gave many stress to us. Because we always want to compete with others and want to do better than them. And thus, because there is some problems with the judges this year, so we got “good”results in junior choir this and I felt like all those extra practices are wasted.
Pros:
Although it will be a harsh time for us, I also think it will be a great time for develop our full potential and also a great time to enjoy playing music. But also I think the band and orchestra should choose more romantic stuff instead of the strange “Arabian Dances” and the song which always repeat “La Gazza Ladra Overture”, I didn’t like Rossini’s style so much at all. Apart from it, I think the registration fee is quite cheap too, it is only about $210 only. Although I think it will be busy and have so many practice, I can still find some interesting places when practising the teams, so it is not boring at all, it is just a bit of tiring. Also, we can achieve sense of successful after we get a good result after competition. And that can encourage us to participate music festival again next year.
At last, I think music festival have its cons and pros, so it’s better not to have prejudices with the music festival because everything is two-sided and it has its benefit and disadvantage, so I wish every participants will get a good results in every competition. Work hard, play hard!
Comments:The Music festival:Pros and Cons
The Music Festival has held for many years and many Lamwoo students participate in it.I think the aim of the festival is share the experience with other players.However,this competition brings pros and cons.
Before the competition,our music teacher,Miss Lee,will see your performance during music lesson and gives you advises,or classmates give you advises.With the advises,we can have a larger chance to win in the competition and we feel more confident.If you don’t want Miss Lee scold you,you would practise more which help us to reach our full potential.
After many times pratising,soon you will develop a love of music(maybe o(￣▽￣)d)Also,as you as a music team member,you would soon achieve a sense of teamwork by working together to achieve a common goal.
As a participant,I think the competition fee is too expensive.A solo competition need $210 for one ONLY!Thus,the competition disrupted my studies and the time to do my homework.Usually competition held on Monday to Friday and it crushed my schoolday.This hinder teacher teach us new thing and we can’t learn new thing in a short period of time.
Music Festival brings us benefits and drawbacks.Therefore,I think music teacher should give us a choice whether choose it or not.
I believe that many LW students had participate in the music festival. Although I didn’t participate in any of the competition, but I’m pretty sure that classmates in my class put a lot of effort in it, they even sacrifice their revision time to praticise their solo competition, choir competition or competition on their instruments. I think the music festival can definitely let students to have more experience of competition and to improve their skills of playing the instruments, the school is also giving time to students to practice more, cause I see there are rapidly less homework in this week. Ms Lee is a good music teacher, she is willing to help her students to improve their weaknesness, so she will ask students who has participated in the music festival perform in front of the class, and also ask students who has already competed give opinion and advice. Without a doubt, this is a really good idea of improving students’ weaknessness, however I think she has put too much pressure on students, this cause some students performing in front of the class being very nervous and even vibrating their mouth, hands. Moderate pressure is a must because this can let students putting more effort on it, or a kind of motivation, but in some cases Ms Lee probably not satisfied about some students’ performance, then she will tell the student many things how to improve, she is worried about the student’s performance so she will scold the student. The may cause the student’s esteem being stepped on it, so I think she can suggest opinion on students and not scolding the student in a negative way. Also, choir members will practice frerquently for the music festival and other competitions. Choir members always sacrafice their lunch time to practice, I think it brings too much pressure to them, cause Ms Lee’s standard is high, and standard high is a positive thing, it brings high quality performance. Choir members may like to join many different extra curricular activities, however frequent music team practice don’t allow them to join other activities, their are too much activities overlapped with choir practice! Although I’m not a choir member nor any music teams, I can feel the choir members’ busy atmosphere! I think the music department has put more than suitable of pressure on students, one suggestion is to provide longer lessons, or set policy like 2 days a school week, this is more healthy to students who always need to participate in choir practice, they always need to eat noodles, also can offer them a recess and rest. These are the opinion of me about the music festival:)
Almost all students in Lam Woo join the Music Festival each year.Many of them join as a team for example,choir.I think this helps to unite them.A competition can make the students work even harder as they have a goal and they do concern about their rates and marks in the competition.In my experience,although joining team competitions needs a lot of time to practice,it is worth it. I’ve joined the choir competition last year and I was a part in singing the Chinese song.We won at last.I felt satisfied as out effort paid is returned.Even though sometimes we may not get what we want,it is still more important to enjoy the process.You have to pay effort if you want to win something.In personal competitions,the students may feel more stressful.However,I think a competition is used as a ‘pusher’ because when you don’t have a goal,it is easy to be lazy.Also,we can learn from the competitions.For example,the students from other schools and the judge.We can gain knowledge and have improvement.It also brings glory to their schools and themselves if they get an award.They feel delighted if they win.Sometimes,even some of them lose,they won’t give up.They may work even harder so reach a higher level.This also further their ability.
However,some students may be very upset and then give up after they lose again and again. I’ve never win any Music Festival before primary 4.I was about to give up and then I decided to give my last try and to my surprise,I did won an award!I know that if I still lose in that competition,I might be already given up.I admit that competition brings students stress but it depends on how they deal with it.I always get nervous before my competitions but I turn them in my ‘kinetic energy’ to work harder.Some students may think that Music Festival spend most of their time. I agree joining these competitions takes up more time.But in my aspect,the most important thing is their time management.
The cons might be the expensive cost of the competition fee.For example,a solo competition takes up to $210.Some families don’t have the ability to pay for it.Also,the students might absent in their school lessons as they need to go out to compete with others.Many students in our school join 3-4 competitions.The choir members sometime even need to join 5-6 competitions.Maybe the absentees cannot catch up with the lessons because they have been absent for days.This is also a potential problem of joining the Music Festival.
Many people have said that the most important thing in competitions is the process,not the result.I don’t agree with that.As you enjoy the process,the will of winning a prize gets stronger.You may feel even more upset as the result is not good enough.
As a whole,I think that the pros and cons of the Music Festival mostly depends on the mind of the students.If he or she is positive,they will learn something and gain experiences during the competitions.If he or she is the kind of person who give up easily,the cons of the Music Festival will be more oblivious.
You are right. Remember to add oil in your music festival. Otherwise you will become an upset student and give up.
I am sure that almost all students in Lam woo have to join the Music Festival. Some are forced and some are voluntary. But of course there are pros and cons of the music festival. lets talk about the pros first.
For the pros, I am sure that joining the music festival can build up students’ self-confidence. When they get a reward, they will know that the efforts they put in have returns and they will be proud of themselves. Also, they can learn more and know more about their instruments through joining competitions. If they join choir or orchestra, they will feel the team spirit that is hard to feel it in other aspects.
For the cons, the students who joined the competitions especially the one who join the music teams, have to practise always that they do not have the time to finish their homework and revise. Also, students have already joined a lot of extra-curricular activities. Extra practise will affect their private life. They may feel stressful if they cannot give consideration to different things in the same time. They may also feel stressful if they overly concerned about their result and prizes.
Overall, I think Music Festival is mostly good for students if we know to manage our time appropriately and relieve stresses in a good way.
I am also a choir member.😂😂 I am sure that our music teacher Ms Lee will push students to achieve their potential.✨
Actually, in each year , all the choir member should join a solo competition and most of the people learn music instruments should also join a solo competition .
I think it is a chance for us to achieve our potential and learn to work hard in each things . Ms Lee will train us to do better👍
However, Ms Lee needs us to stay after school to practise solo songs one time in each week. I know that we need to be hard-working but most of the student are busy after school. Lamwooers always join different activities,such as sport, music and debate to discover more around this world💫💫. Their time are almost full.
For me, I need to have choir on Monday , learn chinese on Tuesday , Red Cross on Thursday , choir solo on Friday and learn piano on Saturday. I almost do not have time to do homework and do revision😭 .
I agree that we can learn many things through joining different kinds of competition but the main point is we should ensure that we will have enough time to do homework and revision , do practise and rest. If we think that we do not have enough time , how can we have a good condition to learn ?
I suggest that Ms Lee should give a chance for us to choose we want to have competition or not. Students can response to their own jobs to do to decide join the copetitions or not👍✨✔
A rich and comfortable time can give us energy and we can do better during each activities . And we can become stronger and healthy. 🌈💫
If the students think that they can have a good distributions on rest , learning and practising . I think they can join more competitions to enrich themselves and know about different kinds of skills and also perform better.😜👍
And I think we will have a happy and healthy environment in Lamwoo and have a flourishing life.🌈🌈✨🙈🔥🔥
The deadline of the application of Hong Kong Music Festival had been ended for a long while.I believe that there must be lots of students in Lam Woo had applied for participation.Music Festival is benefit to student’s all-round development.However,is it also do harm to students themselves?
Firstly,students need to prepare for their competitions.They have to practice hard their skills of musical instruments or how to sing well.Since they aim to get the champion,their skills have to be as perfect as they can.Therefore,the students need to be very hard-working.Through this,they can achieve a higher attainment and stimulate their potentials on music.
Secondly,students can strengthen their confidence,learn and gain experience.During competition,they need to face the audience.And the audience may come from everywhere in Hong Kong!They have to be confident,to show their music talents.And also,there will be good or bad participants in the competition,students can learn their merits from them.They can gain experience through winning or losing the game too.
However,Music Festival stress the students.Studying in school has already been stressful.A lot of homework,examinations and extra-curricular activities put pressure on students.As I have said above,students who are participants need to practice hard.Some talented students may be required to join several competitions in single Music Festival.It is too much and tough for them!Recently,quite a lot students suicide because of their stressful school life.It is worrying that students who participate in Music Festival would not be able to fix their stress.
Moreover,Music Festival disrupts the lessons.Students who go to Music Festival cannot have lessons,they may need to catch up the pace difficultly.Or else,they may disrupt the class.There is a true example:In class 2D(my class) in Lam Woo,about 75% of my classmates are choir members.If they go out for competitions on school days,the students left will lose a day for learning.
Chinese and English departments should not become competition-oriented.It is because these departments are raising interests of students on language aspects through speech festival.Instead,I think music department can try to adopt the similar approaches of the languages departments. Lam Woo should not oblique too much on music.
I think this competition has both pros and cons. Let me talk about the pros of this competition. Firstly, I think that it can push us to achieve our potential. I like singing very much since I was small and I was chosen to be a choir member in school. When I was a choir member in primary school, I often chose to sing alto part as the teacher didn’t know if I was suitable for alto or soprano. We could choose which part to sing! But now, Miss Lee finds that my voice is more suitable for soprano part and now I will work hard in singing soprano. She helped me a lot in achieving my singing potential. Secondly, after I joined Lam Woo choir, I found that I love music and put more effort in it! Now I am studying grade 8 music theory, I will work harder in it. Thirdly, I can improve my singing skills during the practice for the music festival too. Miss Lee has asked the entire choir member to join solo competition and she teaches us how to sing well. I have learnt much through a year of practicing.
There are several cons in this competition too. Firstly, we have to spend much time in practicing. In my personal experience, as this year I am a member of junior choir as well as Chinese orchestra, I have to leave school at around 19:00 on Monday as it is practice time for junior choir. For Thursday, it is practice time for Chinese orchestra and I have to leave school at around 19:30! I am very exhausted after the practice but I still have to finish my homework. I often slept late this year. Secondly, it may be a pressure for some people who don’t like music and are forced to join the singing competition. Maybe after they have joined the practice for several months, they would find that they are really not interested in singing, and maybe they would feel bored in practice and don’t perform well. If they don’t perform well, they will not be satisfied with themselves. Then it will be a pressure for them.
For me, to compare the pros and cons for this competition, I think this has more pros and cons. I hope that my music skills can be improved.
I am 2D18
Nowadays, Hong Kong students have really tight schedule. However, extra-curricular activities still plays an important character, especially music. Music can make a person feel more relaxed and act as some refreshments for us to gain more energy.
When we talk about music, the most popular event is surely the Music Festival. Every year, Ms Lee always encourages us to participate more in these competitions. Last year, I thought it was impossible due to the heavy workload. However, this year I think my thoughts are wrong.
Firstly, I think the competition can let different competitors on one hand show off their excellent talents in music. On another hand, they can gain some knowledge, when they are listening to the competitors during competition, they can learn what others did well in order to have a perfect standard. If we said this competition push student to achieve their potential, it’s really correct. Everyday we may just go to school, eat, do homework, play some computer games then sleep. If we just have these kinds of normal life, life is very boring, isn’t it? When we participate in this competition, we may find our potential in music! Therefore, do further explore yourself much more in order to reach full potential.
Secondly, I think this competition can help students to develop a love towards music. Every single piece of music represents a single story. When I was small, I though music is useless. However, as time passes, I finally found out that music is really interesting and expressive. When we have some solo rehearsals about the piece, we may find some melody very broad use of keyboard and that’s peaceful. Through these channels, we can develop lover towards music.
As I am a school orchestra member, I usually participate in two events in the Music Festival (one is solo and one is orchestra). We always have to practice for days in order to get a good result in the festival! When we are practicing, we might thought it’s boring without doing anything. For me, I would spend the time to feel the music piece’s ,melody, dynamics, rhythm, etc. I started joining the school orchestra in form one so I have already participated once in the festival orchestra group. Luckily, we got the second-runner-up last time! Although we have been practicing for about four months at most, when we got the prizes, we felt very delightful!
I think the language departments shall also promote students to join these kinds of competitions. For me, I have joined the solo-verse speaking competition and our class has formed a group to join choral speaking! We are the champion and that’s really celebrating! When we got the prize, we felt really satisfied and proud of ourselves! Although everyone hopes to get prize in competitions, every competition must have someone win or loose. For us, we shall enjoy music and as well as speech. At last, whatever results it is, it is still win as you gained the experience and passion towards the competition!
I think the Music Festival have both Pros and Cons.
Pros:
Students can gain more experiences after joining Music Festival.
Students can be more confident after joining competitions.
Students can learn to work harder.
Cons:
Teachers and parents will be concerned about it and may increase student’s stress.
Students will have more work to do and it will also increase their stress.
It may affect their studies if they don’t plan their study schedule well.
The application of music festival has just ended. I believe the many students have applied to join various competitions in the music festival.
Last year, I have written my thoughts about the music festival here as well. However, this year, I have a completely different view towards the music festival.
Well, I’m sure that the music festival is quite a controversial topic among the teachers and students. Everything has pros and cons, However, we shouldn’t just look positively or negatively towards the music festival.
PROS
I used to think that music festival is only a place for competitions between students from a diverse range of schools, and that you can improve your skills while practicing and as well as learn from others.
When I join the music festival in primary school, I always hope to get a prize. I would be very disappointed if I don’t get one. However, now, I finally understood the greatest thing behind the music festival.
Well, music festival isn’t only about the “Music” or the “Prizes”.
Firstly, joining the music festival can build up your courage. Standing in front of forty to fifty audiences and performing is not an easy task to do. It is absolutely normal to lack courage and be scared when performing in front of so many people. However, after years and years of participation, you will finally be confident and try your best to perform.Besides, confidence is very important in our daily lives as well. Normally, when you talk to people, you should look into other people’s eyes and talk, but not staring at your own shoes and talk lacking of confidence. I think music festival is a great place to build up your self confidence.
Another great point of music festival, is that you can learn to “never give up”. We do not always succeed. In every competition, every activity, there must be someone who succeed, and become a winner, and someone who loses. You won’t be the winner every time. Sometimes, you would lose. However, if you give up, you can never succeed. However, if you try harder and harder every time, there is a chance of succeeding, and winning. I think that we shouldn’t just give up because of failure. If we give up every time we fail, we can never accomplish anything. I think music festival is a great place for us to learn that we should keep trying, harder and harder, until we succeed.
Many people are very proud of themselves. I think that being confident is good, but being too proud of yourself is not a good thing. When you are very proud, you would underestimate other people’s abilities. For example, in a competition, you should always try your best, but not thinking that “I would surely win, so I don’t need to put any effort”. There are many people with excellent abilities outside. You may be the best in your class, but you may not be the best in your school. You may be the best in your school, but you may not be the best in the whole district. Always remind yourself that there are still a very large number of talented people outside. We should be humble, always. Also, we should try our best in everything, no matter big or small.
To join music festival, it already shows that you love music. Most people who join music festival joins because they like music. Once you enter the competition venue, you will see a lot of people from a diverse range of schools, and that they are music lovers. I think that we can try to make friends with the competitors of the competition, get to know them better and share the love towards music.
While practicing the music festival performing songs, you can learn a lot of new skills. Most of these skills can apply to other songs as well. Therefore, I think practicing the music festival songs is a great way to improve your skills.
At the same time, I think different competitors have their own good points when interpreting the song they are performing. We should learn from them and improve next time. However, some competitors may express some places of the song wrongly. We should not laugh at them. However, we should avoid making their mistakes and have a self-reflection on ourselves, whether we have made their mistakes or not.
Also, at music festivals, there are a lot of foreign judges. They are very well-experienced. Before and after the competitions, the judges will come out to give a short speech. I think that the speech is one of the most important thing of the whole competition. From the speech before the competition, the judge may introduce a little more about the song that we would be performing. That can make us understand the song better and we may perform it better on stage once we understand better about the song. After the competition, the judge would come out and explain some places that we need improvement. When the judge announces the winner, first-runner up and second-runner up, he/she would normally explain what good points they have made. We should learn from what the judge explains, in order to improve ourselves.
If you are a member of the choir, orchestra, band or Chinese orchestra, you would understand you have to sacrifice a lot of time to practice for music festival, usually in the long holidays. Some people may think it is useless and time-consuming. However, I think practicing together is very warm and meaningful. If everyone make up excuses and say that they are not free to participate in the practices, I think that the whole team would not perform well. Every practice is important, there is always something to learn in each practice.If you don’t attend one practice, you miss a thing. It doesn’t only affect the team. It affects you, as well. Sometimes, the lesson taught during rehearsals are not just useful to the song that will be performed by the school music team. Sometimes, the lesson taught may be a skill that could be applied into different pieces of music that you play. In addition, we can learn the importance of teamwork. If one person makes a mistake during the competition, the whole team loses. On the other hand, if everyone doesn’t try their best in the competition, the whole team fails as well. Every member is important. We have to try to work hard in order to help the team achieve good results.
We go to school every day, go home, do homework, eat and sleep every day. Don’t you think it’s really boring? Shouldn’t we add something to our lives to make it more interesting and meaningful? I think joining the music festival is a great choice. Joining the music festival can help enrich your daily lives. Some people may say. “How come? Joining music festival is so stressful!” Music festival can be quite stressful, I agree with that. For example, we are rubber bands. The perimeter of the rubber band is our abilities. We can pull and stretch the elastic band. It will expand. After some time, the perimeter of the band will increase. Yes, our abilities can increase as we join music festival. However, keep pulling the rubber band and never letting it rest may make it snap. This shows that adding some challenges to our lives is a good thing, but never letting ourselves rest is not a good thing. We may snap, like the elastic bands anytime if we are too stressful. That’s why joining the music festival is a good thing, but we should learn how to release our stress.
Lastly, we can learn the importance of time management. As many people say, music festival is really time-consuming. Well, I can’t disagree with that. However, we shouldn’t let the competitions affect our studies, We may have to cut down our “Whats App time”, or “Online games playing time” in order to practice the piece of music we are going to perform.
To conclude, there are countless of pros of music festivals. I haven’t noticed them before. From competitions last year, I really understood the advantages of music festival.
CONS:
Quite a number of people think that music festival is not a good thing.
To some family which are having less money, paying the application fees of the music festival can be quite a large burden! Most competitions require the application fee of about $210! It is quite expensive to me. Some competitions are $190, which are also expensive. Some competitions require $320! For example, I have applied for 4 solo competitions, and it took me $95, which is totally unacceptable. I think the fee is quite unacceptable. You need to hire a teacher to help you, which requires learning fees, and you also need to buy the score of the music, which requires another hundred of dollars. To add up all the expenditures, the music festival may waste a lot of our money!
Secondly, because of high expectations, students may become depressed, and disappointed. Sometimes, the aim too much, much more than they can do, and it will affect their emotions. They may feel useless, and sad. I think that we should aim for a suitable goal, and if we achieve it, we will be happier. Then, if we achieve one goal, we can set a one that is a little more higher than that. I think it would be better this way, than setting one that is absolutely “Impossible” to achieve, and then make yourself depressed.
During March, the classrooms may be really quiet, unlike the usual ones that the teachers call “Wet-markets”. During March, almost all the students go out for competitions, and they don’t attend classes.Teachers may find it hard to teach because of the absence of so many students! Therefore, the music festival may slow down the teaching progress of teachers.
CONCLUSION:
Everything has pros and cons. We have to look into each side, but not only focus one side. I think that joining the music festival is a great way to see what other people are like, but not only the people in your class, your school, I think that joining the music festival can give you a really valuable experience that you should treasure.
Lastly, wish all Lamwooers good luck in the coming music festival! Start practicing now, try your best, but you shouldn’t push yourself too hard!
I believe that everyone would achieve great results in the coming Music Festival.
Break a leg!
Corrections:
CONS
Quite a number of people think that music festival is not a good thing.
To some family which are having less money, paying the application fees of the music festival can be quite a large burden! Most competitions require the application fee of about $210! It is quite expensive to me. Some competitions are $190, which are also expensive. Some competitions require $320! For example, I have applied for 4 solo competitions, and it took me $950, which is totally unacceptable. I think the fee is quite unacceptable. You need to hire a teacher to help you, which requires learning fees, and you also need to buy the score of the music, which requires another hundred of dollars. To add up all the expenditures, the music festival may waste a lot of our money!
Over 60 years has Music Festival been organized and this is actually a great event for every lamwooer who has a passion or talent in music. They are very eager to participate in the competitions, not only aiming to win prizes, but also to prove their effort and gain experience. Probably in March, you can hear your schoolmates practising hard in the music room or the sixth floor. Even though I am not a music lover, I have a few comments on Music Festival, which actually brings both pros and cons.
First and foremost, I would like to talk about the benefits that students can gain in joining such an event. As everyone knows, perserverance is the key to success. Students would have a deeper understanding in the idiom “No pain, no gain” in the process of doing a well preperation. It is true that they can learn never giving up. For the first few times they may be quite frightened singing or playing musical instruments in front of so many people, but after some experience, they may be standing on the stage, oozing with confidence. They would apparently change a lot in their character. If they win, they can build up their self-esteem and gain a sense of recognition. They win glory for their schools and for themselves. If they lose, they can learn that failure is the mother of success.
I cannot deny the benefits brought by joining Music Festivial, but we should not neglect the potential problems that it has brought. Often, some of my classmates are absent for participating the competitions not only for one or two days, but nearly “missing” for the whole the month. Can they bear the stress? Can they catch up with the lessons in school? Is it fair to the other classmates if the teaching is slowed down due to the Music Festival? Are the students really willing to join or just being forced to do so? These are not only personal matters, but somehow it may affect the others.
Well, to be honest, it is hard to measure whether costs outweight benefits or the opposite. What matters most is whether we can strike a balance between study and those music events. There are certainly something that we can gain in participating Music Festival, but we should also manage to solve the problems. Other than Music Festival, how about joining some other activities such as Speech Festival? Enjoy what we take part in and we can get a lot fun.
The Music Festival is a competition for students to show their their talent in music and improve themselves.This is always a healthy event for Lam Woo.It is annual chance for talented students to show off.
But the question is:are all students in Lam Woo interested in music?
Although Lam Woo is famous for music,I think the most important reason is that:students are passionate in music so that they can do their best without Miss Lee telling them.
I think that students cannot be forced to learn instrument.Just like studying,students must first accept teachers and knowledge.
If students can build up their interest in music,the Music Festival won’t be a big problem to all LamWooers.
The music festival has been held for more than 65 years, the number of participants is always being increasing.I think that if there has no benefit(s), the event cannot be here now.
As the Lamwooers is always good at music, and of the hard-work of the students and Miss Lee, Lamwooers often get prizes in the music festival. One of the senior form student, had told me that, he really had fun during the practice, and also the performance, he believes that the Lamwooers always do enjoy in it.
I have joined five groups in the music festival. Maybe somene may thinks that it had took a long time for practice, and it affects our studies.But to me, the practice isn’t that boring at all, and do not affect my time-table and my studies. I think that the main-point is that how we manage our time; if we have a good time-management, we would have fun in it, and maybe we can get rewards in it. But if not, if would becomes boring and a wasting time activities.
The most important point is, firstly, you have to love and enjoy music.
I think there is both good and bad points about Music Festival. Many students in Lam Woo are excellent at music. They all play different kinds of instruments. The Music Festival is a great chance to show their talents. However, there are pros and cons of the Music Festival.
Pros:
Firstly, Lam wooers get a chance to show their talents to everyone.
Secondly, we can learn a lot of new techniques throughout the process
Thirdly, through setting goals, we can work hard to achieve our goals.
Fourthly, we can learn from other participants in the competition.
Also, we can understand the phrase “No pain, no gain”. Without working hard, we cannot get good results. The more effort you put in, the more you gain.
We can build our characters during the process as well.
We can also build higher self-esteem because we may understand ourselves better.
Cons:
Firstly, I don’t think Ms. Lee should force students to join the Music Festival. There is no point of joining the competition if the student doesn’t enjoy it at all, They can never win the competition because they won’t practice hard. Unlike the ones who volunteer, they will really put effort and will get better results than the ones forced,
Secondly, some students may really want to win. Because of this, they can’t play the piece well because all they think of is winning. However, winning isn’t everything. We must love the piece of music before we think of anything else. The important thing is that you enjoy the process and learn from others.
Thirdly, if the students have very high expectations, for example that he or she must be the winner of the competition, then if lastly, he or she doesn’t win, they will be unhappy and depressed because their expectations are too high. They should aim for a suitable goal for themselves and if they achieve it, they will have the sense of success.
I hope Lam wooers can join the competitions by their own wills and work hard. It is important to always remember that “Winning isn’t everything” the important thing is that we learn and enjoy during the process. Lastly, I wish Lam wooers good luck in their coming Music Festival!
I think participating in the Music Festival is meaningful. It can push students to spend more time on practicing their instruments. Also, most of the students will try their best to achieve their goals or to get the awards. I think winning a lot of awards can bring glory to the school and enhance its reputation in Hong Kong. Winning the awards can show that we are hard-working and we always try our best. Of course, it doesn’t mean that students who didn’t get awards are not paying effort to it.( I know that feeling because I didn’t get any awards)
Besides, I think it can help students to achieve a sense of teamwork by working together to achieve a common goal. As I am a member of the school orchestra, we work very hard and always practice together. Therefore, our relationship is quite good and we all know that we must work hard if we want to achieve our goal. Actually, I think it can help students to develop a love for music and it can bring them happiness if they are the one who volunteer to join the competition but not force by the teacher.
Although there are many advantages to join the Music Festival, I think Ms Lee shouldn’t force students to participate. Maybe some students really hate music or they are too busy. Everyone has their own reason and they should have the choice to whether to join the competition or not. I think it may put a burden on the students who are forced to compete in individual competitions even when they don’t want to join.
As I have said, I think joining competition is meaningful. However, it is not good for us to have too much pressure. If we have too much pressure, we will be very nervous and we may not perform well during the competition. We may also be very upset if we cannot get any awards. I think we be relax and try our best so that we won’t regret.
On the other hand, I think Ms Lee should trust us that we will try our best. She shouldn’t force people to practice. If we spend too much time on it, we may neglect our studies and other duties. I think we need to do well in the other aspects too. Therefore, I think having a good time-management is very important, especially for the talented students who are required to participate in several competitions within a single music festival. They may be tired but I think it is worth to do it if they enjoy to do. I think most of them can get a sense of satisfaction.
Sometimes, the focus on competition may change the students’ motivation so that they perform more for the reward of winning and less out of love for music. However, I don;t think it is a serious problem.
Occasionally, I think the way the school approaches the music festival is too harsh so I don’ t think the Chinese and English departments should adopt similar approaches for the Speech Festival. We will be very tired if the language departments also become more competition-oriented. Thus, I don’t agree with this suggestion.
2D (27)
In March and April annually, Lamwoo is covered with tensions. You can hear music all around the school. Some of your classmates will only appear for 3-4 days in the class. What makes all the above phenomenon happened? The answers is, The Music Festivals. Being a Lamwooer, I am really proud of the excellent results that our student get. However is music festival really good for students?
Firstly ,I will talk about the pros of participating the music festival. When we join the competition, we will have a goal for us to achieve. We do not like learning the instrument for no reasons. Also, we can see what the level of students outside Lamwoo are. We will know how well do we play and improve our skills.
Secondly, we will learn about how to cooperate with others if you join Orchestra and Choir. In Orchestra and Choir, if just one person plays well or sings well, the music will not be pleasant. Only when all people are ready, it will sound harmonious. You will learn to be responsible since if you don’t practice your part well, you will drag the whole team of just waiting for you. So every time you will practice your part well before the next practice.
However there is also some cons of participating the music festival
During March, every students who have participated the music festival will put all their homework and academic aside. Their main focus is how to let their pieces sound more pleasant. Some students will even practice for the whole lunch which means they will have no time for their lunch. If some of the students have join many contents, then he or she will miss many lessons. When he or she finish all the competitions, they may not catch up what the teachers teach.
Next, when some of our students didn’t participate the music festival, our music teacher will said “When you are in form 6 and is ready to go to the university, you will find nothing to write on the SLP.” Nowadays playing music is not for student to enjoy and express their emotion but is striving for the prize and the university degree. The purpose of participating the music festival has become so utilitarian. Students will see the result as the most important thing.
In my opinions, students participate the music festival will have a good experience which can let them know more about the outside world. However, we should not give too many pressure on them .I think without the pressure students will be more relax and really enjoy in the music and maybe they will get a better result.
Whether joining the Music Festival or not, is always a controversial topic among students and teachers. Some think that participating in the event helps build students’ character and personality, while some people think that it is only a waste of money and time. I think there are both pros and cons for joining the Music Festival. My opinions are as follows:
For the pros, we cannot deny that participating in the Music Festival can train students’ self-discipline. We must practice a lot before going out for competition, and it is important for every single practice. We must be punctual for every practice in order not to lose any progress. Also, joining the Music Festival can enhance the self-belonging towards the school. Being a member of the mixed voice choir and the orchestra, I feel proud of ourselves when we get prizes in the competition. It motivates us to continue practicing. Through participating in the Music Festival, we can set a goal for ourselves and strive for it. It helps us establish a clear goal and we will know what we are going to do in the following period of time.
However, there must be some drawbacks for joining the Music Festival. The most serious problem is that it is very time-consuming. Apart from the regular practices once a week, music team members often have extra practices at lunch and afterschool. This occupies students’ free time and even dominates their time for studying. Use me as an example, I am a member of two music teams and I have to reserve almost all the lunches and some of the afterschool periods for practicing. Although I think it is worthwile to practice for longer and get a better result, it really affects my life. Sometimes I cannot even finish my homework just because of the music practices until night. Also, in March, there will always be an interesting situation in our class. Only ten are left in the classroom since too many of us need to go for competition. Teachers cannot follow their schedule well because there are always someone absent in March.
Although there are both pros and cons in joining the Music Festival, I think it is still worthy to participate in it since it is really a great experience. However, we have to manage our time well and keep a balance between music and studying.
By Chloe Tse 3D (26)
Music Festival has always been a great event in Lam Woo. If you ask me what is the busiest period in Lam Woo, it will undoubtedly be March and April. Almost one-third of the students in the school will participate in this great event. Not only choir and orchestra members, but also a lot of solo contest, including both singing and performing music instrument.
As an ex-choir member and a solo contestant of this year, I found actually music festival can affect students in different aspects. I agree that our school really got great reputation and succeed in music development, but somehow i think the meaning of enjoying music had started to disappear in our school because of the tense atmosphere on wining the contest.
Music Festival do brings benefits to students, competition can give student some sort of pressure which will force them to practice more than usual. Gaining more experience of performing in front of the audience can also strengthen our confidence to ourselves. As long as you keep participating in these kind of contest or performance, you will not be afraid of doing anything to the public anymore. Moreover, joining contest can also boarden our horizons and to evaluate ourselves at the same time. From getting comments from judges and appreciating others’ performance, we can find out of shortcomings and try to make improvement.
However, there are also a few bad points that Music Festival brought. The most significant one must be the concentration of students in class. Because of the long practicing time, music team members often get exhausted in class. It is quite hard for them to concentrate. Besides, as students always went to competition, the class was always incomplete. They may miss what the teacher teaches. In extreme case like in our class, half of the girls leave to join choir finals. As the result, even teachers cannot continue teaching, which is quite troublesome.
In conclusion, music is a good way to express our emotion and release our stress. Joining competitions may bring us a lot of insights and also give us a chance to improve. However, too much emphasizing on competing will just increase the pressure of students. In order not to increase their burden, we should try learning to enjoy the process of practicing music and so we can have a happy music festival.
In the past music festivals, our school choir won a lot of awards and we had established our reputations by defeating some others famous secondary schools in Kowloon. The music power of our school is undoubtedly higher than the other schools.
Participating in the music festivals can benefit us a lot in many different aspects. Firstly, because of tense exercises and practices, we can boost ourselves to do the best. There is an old saying, ‘Practise makes perfects.’ However, if we do not prepare well, then we must prepare to fail. The music competitions just prove the same thing. I believe that music festival acts as a hone to brush up our music levels.
Secondly, during music festival, we can learn a lot by appreciating the other competitors in the competition. Therefore, it is a good opportunity for us to broaden our views. Moreover, we can learn how to be confident as we need a lot of courage to perform in front of the audiences.
Thirdly, if students won awards in music festival, they will feel proud of themselves and will raise up their self-esteem. It may be a once in a life time experience for us and it is a good memory of us. In addition, it will develop our love towards music and winning will bring glory to our school.
Whether music festival is beneficial to students or not, this hot topic has been argued for many times and many people have their own opinions. However, the issue is still controversial.
In my opinion, music is undoubtedly a way for us to throw all our worries and stress behind our minds. Through music, we can relax ourselves and simply just enjoy it. We can also put our feelings into music to make it serve as a way to help us to relieve burden in life. Yet, music festival is a double-bladed sword. It can either kill you or help you. Everything has drawbacks. Just see how the handler controls it.
During the period of music festival, I will usually see the same words on the blackboard. ‘Choir members, please go to hall to have practices at lunch time.’ When I see these words, I feel happy and sad. You may ask me why I have these contradiction feelings. The reason is simple, I am happy because I am not a choir member, I do not need to attend those tense practices and I can have a relaxing lunchtime with my friends. I feel sad for the choir members because they seldom have lunch because they have to go practising immediately after the bell rings. I appreciate them a lot for their hardworking and perseverance. Sometime when they are sick, they still drag their tiring body to practise. I can see that some of them are reluctant but some of them enjoy it.
Music festival also gives pressure to students. Once they participate in the competition, they will have the responsibility to try their best to achieve a good result in the competition. Moreover, there is a new trend that people will comment on the face book page to criticize the choirs in other schools. This gives another great pressure to the students as well.
Nevertheless, there are actually tones of homework and projects waiting for them. They do not have sufficient time to finish their work. Or they need to do the homework in a hurry. Intense practices deprive the rights of students of joining the other activities. Music nearly occupy all of their time. I think that this is not a time management issue, but the time how to use. So, it is important how we plan our time?
I think that this is not a time management issue, but how to use the time well. So, it is important to plan our time.
March is usually the busiest month for Lamwoo music department and the 300 Lamwooers which take parts in the music festival. All members of music teams worked really hard the whole year to prepare for this large-scale annual music competition. The long practicing hours does lead us to a great success in our school’s music development, but it also affects our lives in a negative way sometimes.
As a member of junior choir and orchestra, I can tell you that music festival do help us to learn a lot, not only about music, but also about other things in many aspects, like team spirit and respecting our competitors. Losing the competition helps us to learn from experience while wining the competition definitely encourages us to keep it up and work hard. Apart from the music festival, the long and frequent practices also bring some benefits to us. Although the practices are tiring, we learn to improve our patience as we have to practice every single line again and again. (and I am becoming more muscular since I stand for a long time in both choir and orchestra and I lift up my double bass more often now due to orchestra practices)
As for the cons, I think the music festival itself does bring a few defects to our studies and daily routine. We may miss a few lessons for going out to have our competitions and cause little inconvenience as teacher may not be able to have sufficient lessons while a group of pupils are away. But most of the cons come from the over-time practices. We all know that we have to work hard in order to get good results, but the frequent practice of music teams, especially choirs, somehow affect our lives negatively. It is ok for pupil who just join 1 music team as the practice time was not really whole-day-long, but for students who join both choir and band, orchestra, they may have no time for studying as music practices already occupy most of their time. It is really tiring to practice for the music festival, especially during long holidays like Christmas and Chinese New Year. We basically do not have rest and so we may face difficulties with our school work.
The music festival is a great chance for us to learn outside the classroom but it does have some negative impacts in students due to the unavoidably long practicing hours. I hope that students can try they best to balance their studies with their music developments and do not use music festival as an excuse to escape from the school works.
By Bo Bo Chia 3D (6)
If someone asks me which is the busiest month for the lamwooers, I will definitely answer him or her, “March.”
The Forty- second Hong Kong Schools Music Festival has just passed for about a month and the students can finally take a short break. Lam Woo is well- known because of its rapid development of the music department in Hong Kong. In order to get an outstanding result in the music festivals, all the participants need to practice hard and make a lot of effort. Let me talk about the pros and cons of the competition now.
At first, joining the music festival may affect our leaning and academic results. Although I am not a member of any music organizations ( e.g. choirs, Chinese Orchestra, Orchestra and band) and only joined the Suona solo this year, I have already needed to contribute a lot of time for practicing the music instrument. Therefore, it is not very difficult to imagine the workloads of the students who joined lots of events. I have a lot of friends and classmates are the members of the choirs and the orchestras. Sometimes more than half of the class was absent at the same day! They have missed some important lessons and needed extra time to revise the content that has been taught already by themselves. This may really affect the students’ spirit during the lessons and further affect their academic result.
” Practicing for the music festival is totally a waste of time and money!” I have heard some sentences like this from some classmates’ parents. However, I do not agree with them. In my opinion, although the competition had some negative impacts on the students, it is still worth for us to participate. It is because it is a very valuable and meaningful leaning experience. We can set up a goal for ourselves and strive for it. We can also learn from our companions and opponents to improve ourselves and broaden our minds. The music festival is a chance to increase our courage and self confident. The scores and the comments give by the judges are good for our leaning of music, too. The most important thing is that when we receive the payback of our contribution, the great happiness can’t be described.
When we grow up, the chances for us to join the music festival will become fewer and fewer. I will treasure all the unforgettable memories gave from it and work hard for the competition next year. 🙂
By 3D Elaine Sun (24)
Undoubtedly, music has become an essential part of every Lamwooer’s school life. It is very common to see us practicing our musical instrument during lunch time or even recess. Choir practices during both lunch time and after school period are also very usual for students singing in choir. The very direct purpose of all these practices is just to prepare well for the annual biggest event of the school——– the Hong Kong Schools Music Festival.
Named as a “music festival”, it is supposed to act as a platform for all schools in Hong Kong to try presenting the best they could do to the piece of music given, and let students from different schools to appreciate other’s performances and learn from them. However, I think that the ‘festival’ has now become a cruel coliseum for the participants. The competition between schools is very tense. If a team won the competition, other teams may develop hatred towards the winning school and then began to keep saying that the winning team did not deserve to win. All teams become aggressive to one another. This makes us no longer to enjoy the fun in joining such competitions to produce music of higher quality, but producing music just for winning the other schools or teams.
There are of course some benefits brought by this event. Both students who joined voluntarily or involuntarily could all be more skillful in playing their instrument or singing. As students are put through great pressure before the competition that they must pay hard work preparing, they thus gain more time on practicing their instrument and could further use their potential to handle a new skill taught. You may say that the pressure given is too high, but I think pressure help students to really push themselves fully to their own potential. Without any pressure, I don’t think any of the students would spend time preparing for the competition and therefore with no improvement.
Everyone loves winning and becoming the champion. The joy brought by victory after paying hard work for a long time is a kind of joy that is irreplaceable, especially the triumph in a choir competition as it requires excellent teamwork from every members. The satisfaction we could get after receiving a rewarding result could give us the motive to continue on producing better music and working harder on the same competition during the coming year. The approval given by the judges would also help us to gain more confidence in similar competitions or performances. For those who didn’t become the winners, they would gain experience too. They could be striking for more in the coming year so as to make no more disappointment again. This could also be the motive for them to practice harder in the coming year.
Overall, I think the Music Festival could be an enjoyable stage and platform for us to further use our potential in music while also learning and appreciating from other schools. Winning should not be the focus of the competition, but just simply focus all joy that music could bring us during this festival.
By Ivy Wong 3D (28)
As a member of choir, I do agree that students who participate in school music festival will be very busy, especially during February to April. Although students have to show up in frequent practices, if you are a music-lover, I think it is worth to spend time on it.
Miss Lee always encourage us to participate competition in music festival . She thinks that participating in competitions is the most effective way to push ourselves to achieve a higher goal. It’s because students will practice more frequently and take it more serious. After that, our skills in playing the musical instrument or singing will have been polished. Besides, winning a prize in a competition will bring us a sense of achievement and it prove that you really have potential to develop in music. Our self-esteem will be increase as well.
Therefore, participating a competition can help us to achieve a higher level.
Choir members almost have to attend choir practice every day during Chinese New Year holiday. I understand that it is quite exhausting to attend frequent practices before competition. However, students should understand that successful is only for the one who are well-prepared. Thus, practices are necessary.
Some parents and students complaint that taking part in music activities bother them to concentrate on school work. When I was in secondary 1, my parents and I always complain about this too since I didn’t know how to manage my time. I spent less time on studying but quite a lot of time to rest. Now, I’ve learnt the importance of time-management. Starting from f.1 2nd term, I started to make a study plan every week and force myself to follow it strictly. Because the studying time and resting time are distributed evenly, I can manage to take part in music activities and my academic results had improved a lot. Therefore, if you have better time- management skill, you can participate in more extra-curricular activities in order to widen you horizon.
Indeed, nowadays, having outstanding academic results is no longer an advantage in the society as the society is looking for a person who posseses creativity and multi-skills. Hence, it is more important to develop an all-round ability. Students should spend time on discovering their interests and potential , not just concentrate on school works all the time.
Overall, I think students will gain more benefits than defects in joining the music festival competition. Moreover, it can bring us precious memories.
The Music Festival: Pros and Cons
March is over while everything are back to normal. Both teachers and students are becoming extremely busy just because of the annual Schools Music Festival. Music is one of the elements that our school is proud of. Thus, the school has keep on putting a lot of resources on music developments. Every year almost 600 students in our school joined the Music Festival. We have to admit that they’ve got a great number of prizes and bring a lot of glory for the school, however, students often skip lessons for competitions and it affects the schedule of teaching. There are lots of opinions towards the Music Festival. Let’s discuss some of them.
There are numerous advantages of joining the Music Festival. Students often stay until night to practice for their competition, and this may train their perseverance. Also, winning in competitions can enhance students’ self-esteem and confidence towards themselves. Once they are praised, they will have a greater motivation in doing so. Apart from improving student’s character, the music festival also enhances our ability in music. We must practice before going out for competition, during the practice, more improvements can be made.
However, there must be lots of disadvantages of participating in the Music Festival. First of all, it is quite time-consuming. I don’t mean that it occupies all the leisure time of students, however, I don’t think it is worthy to practice for such a long time.
Being a choir member last year, I’ve found that some of the practicing time were used as doing other work, and it ends at almost 7pm every time. During March, there are always a bunch of students missing in the class because of joining competitions. Yes, it helps our school to gain a better fame, but will it be too time-consuming for doing so? Secondly, results seem to be more important than enjoying music itself in our school. Aiming at high marks, students are often having great pressure because of the Music Festival. The meaning of the competition has actually been changed.
There are both pros and cons in joining this annual event. We cannot judge that whether it is good for us or not, and it depends on how much effort you’re putting in and how well do you control your time.
By Candice Tam 3D (25)
Lam Woo always get very result in the music festival and I am proud of it. I am not a member of the choir, orchestra or band. But I also join the Zheng solo this year. Of course, there are pros and cons of the music festival.
For the pros, joining the music festival motivates you to practice hard. As most of the students do not want to have an bad performance during the competition, they need to get well prepared and then becoming very hard-working. Some of them might practice a lot more than usual in order to win the prizes. If there is no competition, students will be lazy and make up excuses for not practicing.
Also, members of choir, orchestra, chinese orchestra and band can have a chance to learn for teamwork. As it requires the cooperation of everyone to make the performance perfect, they practice together and point out others’ mistake to help them to improve. I use choir as an example, there are different sections for different pitches. Each of them will learn the notes first, then practice in their sections. They must practice well as they will be separated from their section member on the stage. They are attentive to their accuracy of their notes. After practicing a lot, the teams will have an excellent performance at the end.
For the cons, i think it is kind of a waste of time and students only want to get a good result but not enjoying the music itself. Some students are forced to join the music festival by parents and teacher. They won’t enjoy the delight of music. Even though they practice a lot, it is a waste of time for them. They are joining the competition with purpose of getting a certificate. This attitude is not good. For a person who really love music, he won’t care about how much time and effort he gives out. However, most of the students don’t have this lofty character. Therefore, I think joining the music festival is not good somehow.
As you see, there are really both pros and cons of music festival. You may discover more if you join it too!
By LilyLam 3D(17)
The Hong Kong School Music Festival has always been an important competition for lamwooers. The music teams have put a great effort on practising. Some of us enjoy being a part of the music team members while some of them think it is a waste of time. Is it worth to put such effort on this competition?
We have regular practises every week and extra practises during the holiday as well as the period before the competitions. Some students who are in different music teams have to take part in certain practises. Undoubtedly, this will increase the workload of the students in March when the competition is held. This may lead them to a more stressful school life. To face the pressure from both music practises and academic performance, students have to learn how to manage their time well. They might have to sacrifice the time on entertainment or make good use of lunchtime and recesses to finish their own work. I am sure students can handle their work if they were self-disciplined.
As I have mentioned, self-disciplined is essential. During the music festival, students who joined in many competitions will miss many lessons. This does not only cause inconvenience to students but also teachers. The teachers might have planned the teaching schedule already. It is difficult for them to arrange the schedule due to the absent students. At the same time, the teachers have to teach the students who are present. Therefore, the absentees will miss a lot of things from the lessons. In order to follow up the learning progress, they should ask their teachers or classmates what they have learnt actively and seek help whenever they need.
Though someone has complained about they were forced to join in some competitions, I think it benefits the competitor. Our teacher always encourages us to join in the competitions because it helps us to build up a better character and personality. While we are preparing for the competition, we aim for a higher goal. And so, we will make ourselves nearly perfect in order to compete with others. Joining the competitions encourages us to try our best so that we can find out the ability of ourselves. During the practises, we can also understand the importance of persistence as you won’t have done anything if you give up whenever you face challenges. You might think that joining in other competitions can also learn the same attitude, but one thing that the music competition is different from others is, it gives you a chance to develop your interest. You can definitely feel the joy while you are practising if you enjoy music.
Although the practises are quite tough before the competition, the happiness and the success we get after the competition are more valuable. I am sure it is worth joining in the music festival.
In March, there is a important event for Lamwoo, the Hong Kong Schools Music Festival. Many students, especially the ones in the school teams look forward to this month since it is a chance for them to show their talents in music and effort paid in the months before.
First of all, I want to talk about the pros of Music Festival. I think it is a good chance for us to show our talents in music. Lam Woo is famous for it’s music achievements. We join in different music teams and have regular practices every week. Also almost everyone in Lam Woo knows how to play at least one kind of musical instruments. In order to show our efforts, we are encouraged to join solo competitions. Through these competitions, we can show our talents that we are not only good at studying, we are also good at many things.
Secondly, Music Festival gives us a chance to face the others confidently. When we go to the competitions, the competitors and audience may not be our schoolmates and relatives, they are the students from other schools. Therefore, we need to be confident to face the audience and tell them that we are very talented and we will not disappoint them. In our daily life, we need to communicate with different people. If we lack of confidence, how can we become outstanding in the society? Therefore, I think Music Festival helps train our confidence.
Besides that, we can learn to appreciate the others and learn from our failures. We will always be the prize-winners in the competitions. Through this kind of experiences, we can learn to appreciate the winners but not to be jealous since they must have some attractions if the adjudicators chose then as the winners. Not only learn to appreciate, but also learn from ourselves. Why did we lose in the competitions? Are we not hardworking enough? We need to find the reasons behind, or otherwise, we will never succeed. If we know it, we can try our best to improve ourselves and try again in the following years.
However, there are some cons of joining Music Festival. We may spend our time on practicing and neglect our homework and academic. As we need to practise a lot before the competitions, we may put our schoolwork aside and our academic results may regress. Parents sometimes complained that we use too much time on practices and we spend less time on studying. In fact, music teams’ practices will last long and we may go back home late. Therefore, we may spend less time on studying after we join the Music Festival.
Also, we may lose our chances on learning. We sometimes go to the competitions in school time, then we cannot have lessons in class. Teachers nay not wait for us and just go on according to their schedules. Therefore we may learn less than the others. Besides, if large number if students in the class leave, teachers may ask the students remained to do self-study or watch some films in the lessons. Then the progress will be slower as one lesson is used for doing other things instead of teaching.
In my opinion, pros of Music Festival are more than the cons. It is because the things we can learn from it are the knowledge and spirit which we cannot learn then from a book. Music Festival gives us a good chance to interact with other people through music and to learn from the others. From this event, I have learnt a lot of things. For example, I can manage my time well as I learnt how to cope with so many things at the same time. In recent years, Lamwooers have got excellent results in this event. I think I have had many unforgettable and memorable moments in Music Festival. Although we got good results, we will not become arrogant and we will do our best in the following years.
When it comes to music festival that will be held in March to April annually, everyone in our school, especially those who are in different music teams, such as choirs and orchestras will start practicing. The members of these music teams will pay as much effort as they can to get good results or some prizes. The more prizes we have gotten in the music festival, the more glorious we are. However, are the prizes really important? Does the music festival affect our studying? These are the questions really matter.
First and foremost, I will talk about the pros of the music festival. As the students have attended the competitions in the music festival, they will practice them hard and they will become more hard-working. It enhances their initiative to learn more and they can know that if you have worked hard, you will have better results. It will make them study more and pay more attention to the teacher so as to reach their ideal ranking.
Moreover, it can help students achieve a sense of teamwork by working together to achieve a common goal. For instance, the members of the orchestras will need to cooperate with each other to compose a melodious song. Different members are responsible for different instruments. To compose it out, besides the cooperation between each other, the members also need to practice hard at home to follow the progress. If not, the song will like the noise in the wet market or at the streets which is so disordered.
On the other hand, the music festival brings us many cons. I think that practicing for the music festival consumes a lot of our time. Whatever practicing the music instruments or singing, it needs a lot of time for us to recite the songs and beautify the things you haven’t done well. For example, our school’s choir always practices during the music festival although it can bring them good results. The time for practicing even includes the lunch time or after school. It hinders the members to join in some extra-curriculum activities after school. And the members of the music teams may not have their own interests and they may be disrupted by the competitions of the music festival.
Secondly, the focus on the competitions may also change the students’ motivation so that they perform more for the reward of winning but forget the original meaning of the music festival. Its original meaning is for the participants to know that there are many talented people outside and hard work will give you good results. And they are for all of you to get more experiences through having competitions in the music festival. Moreover, when you lose in the competitions, it teaches you that we should not give up but add oil next time. Oppositely, if you win in the competitions, you should not be proud of yourself but also improve the things you haven’t done well this time and do better at the next time.
According to the above reasons, I think that the music festival brings both pros and cons to the students. And the main point is that the students’ ability to handle the competitions. It can also help them practice how to have a good time management.
By Jason Choy 3D 32
As a Lamwooer, I am proud of the success of our music department. I believe every lamwooer has joined the Music Festival before. No matter what instrument you learn, our music teacher must have encouraged you to join the competition.
In my opinion, the advantages of joining Music Festivals are more than the disadvantages. Firstly, we can improve our musical skills through practicing the song for competition. Joining music festival is like setting a target for us. We practice every day in order to achieve our target. This pushes is to practice our musical instruments.
Secondly, it is a good chance for us to practice managing our time. As we need to have extra time practicing, we need to arrange our time well. If not, we can’t do well in both academic and music aspects. Some people say that the long time practicing will worsen our academic results. However, if we allocate the time well, there will not be any serious impacts on our studies. Your time-management is important.
Thirdly, joining the music festival gives us chances to inspect and learn from each other. If we only perform in front of classmates, we won’t know how good other performers are. There must be other better students that join the competition. During the competition, we can observe the skills form others and improve ourselves. It must be a valuable experience for us to learn.
Although there are quite a lot of benefits of joining the musical festival, I think there is still a big problem. Half of my classmates are choir members. When there is a competition, half of our class will disappear. Teacher will not teach if half of the class is gone. There were about 3 days in March that was in this situation. It makes our class become far behind the schedule. The schedule was already tight, and we had lost a few days. It affects the teaching speed of our class.
By the above reasons, I still think joining music festival brings more advantages than disadvantages to us.
We can handle both our studies and competition at the sme time if we have good time management.
By Amy Chan 3D(1)
The Music Festival: Pros and Cons
I think that the Music Festival can make the students to become harder working. It encourages the students to practice hard for their coming competitions. It is a good chance for them to know more about their ability. The prizes that they get have confirmed their ability on the area of music. During the practice for the Music Festival, they can enhance their ability on their musical instrument. Also, if some of the students who have joined choir or orchestra can also improve their ability. They can learn to cooperate with others during the practice. Moreover, their willpower will be increased. Since they want to get prizes in the competition, they will pay much effort on it. They will be more willing to practice their musical instrument. If they win in the competition, their self-esteem will be increased. It can make them to be more confident in front of the people. Therefore, the Musical Festival brings many advantages to the students.
However, there are also many disadvantages, which are brought from the Music Festival. First, it is very time-consuming. Students need to spend a lot of time that focus on practicing. They may use their time to practice their musical instrument instead of studying. They may have less time to study and do homework. Then, they may not be able to follow up the homework. The academic results of the students may then decrease. If the students get lose in the competition, they may be very upset and disappointed. They may not want to join in the competition anymore as they have lost their confidence. In addition, the fee of joining the competition is quite expensive, which is over $100. Some students may think that it is a waste of money.
I think that if we can have a good time management, such as making a timetable, we can also handle our homework and our competitions. I hope that everyone can enjoy the Music Festival without feeling stressful.
By Samantha Chiu 3D(7)
The Hong Kong Schools Music Festival, which is usually held in March, is undoubtedly an important music event in the academia. Members of our school’s music teams pay much effort in order to achieve better results. It may bring us glory if we win a competition, and it may improve our musical skills through the competition. However, I think that the Music Festival has more drawbacks than benefits.
First, from HKSMSA’s website, the organization claims that the Music Festival is to promote music activities and improve the music performances of the academia. However, I disagree that the organization has achieved this aim. In my opinion, it promotes competition more than music itself. Who would like to lose if one participates a competition? Everyone wants awards. Therefore, arguments cannot be avoided in a competition. For example, after choir competitions, some students from the schools which have lost the competition (for not getting the champion) scold at the school which has won and its students (some even swear) on the Internet. This act is absolutely unreasonable since it may be a personal attack. Moreover, the arguments are not about music. As a result, when everyone only cares about competition, they will ignore whether the competition will promote music development or not.
Second, the Music Festival brings pressure on students. They must need to achieve well, especially for school teams, in order to get good results in the music Festival. Therefore, there are intense practices before the Music Festival. Students may have to practise their musical instruments for a long period of time, therefore they may easily feel exhausted even before the competition ends. For example, I was sick on the first week of March, possibly due to the extra practices beforehand. Meanwhile, it will affect students’ studies. As we put more time on practices and competitions, we lose time for going to school and studying at home. We may need to catch up what others have learnt in the following months, but there will be a heavy workload in April and May due to projects and “probably” the English Portfolio, so it makes the time extremely tight. As a result, students may feel pressured under these conditions.
So what is the way out? The most important way is that we should care less about competition. We should only consider the Music Festival as a platform to perform if we want to relieve our stress. Then we can think less about the competition during and before it, and put more effort on our studies so that we can relieve our stress. Competition may be important to us, but should be aware of it if it has caused too many drawbacks on ourselves. By Nick
As a member of the school music team, I agree that our school emphasizes a lot on music development. Most students are members of choir, orchestra and music instrument classes. Many of us are multi-team members too. It is great that our school music teams have great achievements in the Music Festivals, and the prizes did give us great encouragements and sense of belonging towards Lam Woo.
I know that our lunch practices caused great inconvenience to the teachers as we were always late for the lessons behind. We promise we will run to our classroom immediately after the practices. Hope teachers will forgive us.
Some students said that they did not have time joining other activities as they were too busy practicing for the Music Festival. Also, some of them said that their academic results dropped significantly after joining the music teams. However, I totally disagree with their points of view. I think that joining the Music Festival is good for us. Reasons are as follows:
Firstly, we are now secondary school students instead of primary school students. Each of us understands that it’s our duty to study hard and complete our homework on time. We have the ability to plan our time well and we can keep a balance between academic studies and extra-curricular activities. Actually, there are lots of students who have good academic results even they have joint lots of music teams. Therefore, I think the problem is not how many music teams are you participating, but the time management skills.
Also, Lam Woo is a school which emphasizes on all-round education. The school has provided many extra-curricular activities for us, not only music activities. We can join other kinds of activities according to our interests, such as Badminton Team and Swimming Team. Take myself as an example. Although I am a member of three school music teams, I have also joined other non-music clubs and activities, for example, the Guidance Team and EAS, at the same time. So far, I can manage my academic results as well.
In my opinion, joining festival can increase our confidence and improve our musical skills. In our daily time, we don’t have lots of chances to show others our talents and ability. Music Festival is a good channel for us to show our musical skills and we can also broaden our vision. During competitions, we have learnt to be confident so that the judges will have good impression on us. We will be more confident after joining music competitions. It is good for our future interviews or career development. Also , if we didn’t do well in our previous competitions, we can learn from other competitors and do better next time. On the contrary, if we are the winners of competitions, we will be delightful and try to achieve higher levels next year.
We should not see the Music Festival as a burden. Although we have spent lots of time practicing, we can make friends during practices and build up our sense of belonging towards the music teams gradually. It’s not compulsory to join the Music Festival. If you are not interested in music, you can refuse to join the competition. No one can force you to do so. Also, for those talented students, I don’t really think that it is a burden for them to join more than one competition.
There are always losers and winners in competitions. We should not be too disappointed if we are the losers, and don’t be proud of we win the competitions. We should not forget the joy and our pleasure to share our beautiful music to others. The most important meaning of the Music Festival is to enjoy music together, not to see which competitor performs the best.
Anyway, the Music Festival has ended and now we should return to our normal school lives. I would never forget the unforgettable experiences in the past Music Festival and I’m looking forward to next year’s Music Festival.
By Ava Cheung 3D (05)
Spring is here and summer is just around the corner. It is the season of Hong Kong Schools Music Festival. I think the Music Festival brings out a lot of advantages.
Firstly, the competitions provide opportunities for students to share their music with others during the music lessons. From this, students can know more about their standard among others. It is an extra bonus to have the chances to sing/play the song in front of the class and Miss Lee.
Secondly, it is an rewarding experience after students worked hard on it. Students can improve their skills and raise their standards. Students can also get valuable comments from the adjudicator.
Thirdly, it requires courage to perform in front of a group of people. Courage can be strengthened and developed through joining various competitions.
Unfortunately, some parents have arranged too much competitions for their child. Some of the students are unwilling to join those competitions. Many students are lack of time to practice and I saw a few of them even failed to recite the piece during the competition. As a result of all these bad experiences, they will lost motivation and confidence. In some extreme cases, students will feel frustrated and lost the interest in playing music.
Overall I enjoy joining the Hong Kong Schools Music Festival every year. We should treasure the chance and join the competitions by our own choice. We will gain a lot from the competitions and it will be an unforgettable experience.
For Lamwooers, I think that The Hong Kong Schools Music Festival really brings us a great effect for our school. Everyone knows that we are famous of music and we value it as one of an important thing of our school. Of course, Music Festival has a lot of advantages and disadvantages.
Advantages
>It is a good chance to encourage the talented students to show and also to develop themselves by practicing and giving out prizes.
> There are many different kinds of competitions that was held by the association, e.g. choirs, vocal, musical instruments, etc. and our school joined most of them. One student can also join more than one competition.
> Let the student to have an aim and power to push them to finish.
> If the students win, their self-esteem will increase because they will proud of themselves after listening to their parents, teachers or even friends appreciations.
> The students can bring glory to the school and they can receive a certificate.
> The students can learn more about music and also teamwork in the choirs to achieve the same goal.
> Classes and extracurricular activities will be effected if a lot of students join the same competition.
Disadvantages
> It is very time consuming for practicing.
> If the student joins the competitions, then the student will have less time for studying at school.
> The student may not be able to follow up the class as the other students.
> The student’s academic result will decrease.
> If the students lose in the competition, then they maybe upset about that.
> The fee for the competitions are quite expensive, they are all above $100.
I am also a choir member of the school. Sometimes, I feel stressful because of using lots of time for practicing solo or choir. However, I enjoy them very much! Not just because of singing is one of my interest, but also for singing with my friends! As a secondary school student, I know that it will be a great pressure to force you to join those activities that you are not very interested in. Here are some tips for you to make yourself more comfortable: if you think that’s so boring and tiring, try to think that joining these will bring you success; if you think you don’t have enough time for both academic and extra curriculum activities, try to make a time table for yourself!
Hope all of us will enjoy the Music Festival!
In my opinion, joining the competitions can encourage students to practice more on their songs in order to get good scores. Via this channel, student’s skills can be improved. Students can also learn about the skills of other competitors and learn something good from them. For example, a student who has learnt flute for a year and was invited to join the competition, the student may not know how to perform the song well so the student will keep on practicing, the student may also learn some new skills of performing well.The student may also add much afford on this and may proud of his/her affords towards the competition, no matter he/she get the prize or not. Absolutely, if the student win the competition, he/she will be very happy, and they will have the competition again next year. They will also develop a love of music. If the student join in a competition through school choir/orchestra, they may learn more about team work and have a sense of belonging towards the school. Also, this may bring glory to the school and enhance its reputation in Hong Kong, especially Ms Lee will be more famous.
As I have joined the cello solo competition and a member of school orchestra, although it is really good and will bring us a lot of benefits towards ourselves, our future and to our school, there are also many drawbacks. It will take too many time to practice in order to get good results. Also, other extra-curricular activities will be distributed, almost all. Since some students join too many competitions, they may be not in school to attend the lessons, some students are almost not in school for a whole week, and some even a month! How can teachers do their teaching? How about other students? Sit in the classroom and do nothing for a week? Therefore, both the teacher and the student cannot complete one of the most basic ‘Lamwooer’ quality–responsibility.Teachers cannot finish their teaching and students cannot done their homework.
If a student just want to get a ‘pass’ and just get a certificate, the student cannot escape from Ms Lee and must be scold by her. For students who is talented in music, they must be forced by Ms Lee to join more competitions. I think these students may suffer too many pressure towards this one and a half month Music Festival.That will make them feel stressed and easily feel sick. Also, they will not have have enough time to practice. However, if they do not get good results, they will be punished by Ms Lee again.
There are some students who get bad results last year and not willing to join this year, however, Ms Lee will forced you until you join, although the deadline for the application form was over. Besides, Ms Lee will punish the students who did not join any competitions during our music lessons! Therefore, students will loss the interest towards music.
Overall, almost all the drawback of competitions are because of the encouragement of Ms Lee. No one would like to join so many competitions, isn’t it? Just 2 to 4 is enough, but not over 10! Also, joining competition is to show interest of students but not to win, and set their goal as ‘Champion’ every time.
Lastly, I think joining competition is good and meaningful but not too much. Just treat them like your interest and not to spend too much time on it. Also, joining competition is a good way to get more experience. More experience and interest, are the good ways to be success.
I thinks that the music festival can help us to learn a lot.Although it is stress when practising but practise makes perfect so I think that join the music festival can help you improve your skill in playing music or singing.I am also a choir member in lamwoo.We have to practise almost every day after school and even lunch time.But we all enjoyed singing a lot.I thinks that practising can also make you even love more music.
On the other hand, I thinks that the extra curriculum activities will be distrbed but only in a few weeks.It doesn’t takes all your time with music festival.It’s only in March.So I think it won’t disturb the others extra curriculums activities a lot.
Although there will be some pressure on those students whp don’t want to join in the music festival but they are fored to join.But if they don’t join the music festival.How can they improve their skills if they have no motive?So I think joining the music festival is a good way to improve your skills on playing instruments.
Also, I think that joining the music festival is a very meaningful expreience,the mainpoint of joining the music festival is not the winning or competition.You can enjoy the time practising with your classmates and enjoy the happiness when playing the instrument and singing.It’s a good way for us to learn more things and higher our self=esteem in joining the music festival!
So I think that the music festival aims to bring us happiness and it gives us motivation to practise music.
At last, eventhough how stress are the practise in music festival,I think it is a meaningful experience and it can help us to learn more thing.
As a part of choir, I agree that our choir has great achievements in the School Music Festival, and these prizes have brought our pride and sense of belonging to Lam Woo. However, our school’s emphasis on musical achievements has brought great pressure to students and also Ms Lee.
Under such competitive environment in Hong Kong, no matter finding a job, getting a house, or even getting on an MTR seems to be difficult. You always have to be the first to take the lead to get the best for yourself. These are all the same to students. Everyone wants to choose a better school to study in, referring to the school profiles, rankings etc. to choose a reputable and ‘powerful’ school. Variant criteria are considered: History background, teacher quality, achievements in academic, sports, and of course, music. In this capitalist society, interest and passion are always neglected. Thus, pushing students to achieve their potential , helping them develop a love for music, bringing students happiness, are not the main aims of a school. In the school’s position, bringing glory to the school and enhance its reputation in Hong Kong should be the most considered factor.
Indeed, Lamwooer quality includes leadership and responsibility. Also, the mission of school is for an all-round education, including that of inter-personal development. As a choir member, I think being a part of a group brings us connection with each other, we even sing the songs together during class or class trip on the beach. We do find our passion in music and partnership with other members.
Not only the choir, we have won many prizes in solo competitions. Although not everyone wants to attend the competitions, and are being ‘forced’ to participate; but through practices and improvements, we learnt how to produce good music and
the techniques and skills to play music, so it somehow develops our music potential.
Some students complain that the busy music practice made their academic results dropped. As a secondary student, handing in homework and working hard for exams are our responsibilities, we should do our best on these aspects. The most serious problem of these students is that they have lost their balance between extra-curricular activities, which in this case, refers to music and academic studies. Actually, there are lots of students who have good results both in music and exams, so the problem is not in the number of practices, but time management and studying skills.
In this hustle month of music competitions, many other school activities are disrupted: lessons cannot follow the regular schedule as there are many students going out for competitions, they cannot attend other extra-curricular activities, this causes inconvenience in those related events. However, I think that missing a few lessons would not bother too much on the syllabus, and students can catch up if they will ask classmates or teachers when they need any assistance.
In my observation, there are students who are talented and are capable to get good results in many competitions, but some are forced to join the festival. Indeed, the responsibility of any competitor is to respect the competition, and do their best in their performances, which is not a burden at all. Also, those talented are capable to attend the number of competitions they applied, which I think is not really too much for those who have the ability.
Many secrets pages in Facebook talks about the result in each competition– people cheer when they win, and get praises from others; the losers are outraged and keep on posting offensive words. This is like a war between schools, due to the results.
There are always winners and losers in a contest; no one wants to be the underdog. However, most of us have forgotten the meaning, the joy, the pleasure to sing and spread the music with our elegant voices. For example, in the Mix Voice Choir Chinese competition in 2012, the judge directed all groups to sing together, the meaning of the competition is not to see which school is the best, but to enjoy music together.
Overall, no matter how hard the practice is, I think participating for the music festival is a meaningful experience.
I think the competition aims to push students to achieve their skills of playing the instrument and also learn the new songs. I don’t think the competition will develop all the students a love for music. Some students don’t want to join the competition. However, their teachers order them to join it. And this might make them even hate music more. This competition could bring students happiness, but it can also bring sadness to them. If the students win, of cause they are happy. However, if they lose, they will be very upset as they have practiced for a long time. And they can only get a certificate.
On the other hand, the classes and extracurricular activities are disrupted. The choir members always have to practice at lunch time and after school. And they cannot join any other activities.
I think some talented students participated in several competitions with a single music festival is too much. It brings so much pressure to them.