BUSY MONTH (AS A MUSIC STUDENT)
Monday, August 29, 2016Here's a little update for this month! I have been so occupied that I have skipped 3 weekends (for my church activity) and I am going to skip the next one too :'( I don't want to but I have to make choices.
On 13th and 14th August, I went to a choir camp which was organized by the INTI iChoir. We (UCSI Junior Choir) were invited as their guest choir for their annual concert. This camp was organized for our practice purpose; getting to know each other, sharing knowledge,...... Well at first it was a little awkward (so many new faces) but after some typical ice breaking games, it gets better. Not much game in the camp though, our time is mostly used to practise the two Finale songs. The theme for their concert this year is about Disney so our combined songs are "Vuelie" from Frozen (the beginning part when they are collecting the ice) and "Circle of Life" from The Lion King. Through this camp, I can see that there are quite some cultural differences between us - they are opting for more on Broadway style which includes drama and musical elements in it while us UCSI is emphasizing on singing techniques and more to Classical style. Frankly speaking, we could not really compare which one of us is better 'cuz we are performing in a really different style. Good thing about this camp is we get to know a lot more people from different college and more about the other choir's culture, perhaps? 
On 20th and 21st August, I went to the Music Therapy Conference at the HELP University. I get to learn more about music therapy in Malaysia and surprisingly they said there are a lot of clients are already in the waiting list (mostly people with special needs). The committees are actually asking the Malaysian students who are studying overseas to come back and receive special trainings and start conducting the therapies. In the conference, some typical questions were answered, examples like:
Question: Does music therapy works?
Answer: Of course! There are a lot of real cases which we have seen, like, at first, some children with autism could not control their behaviours and eye contact - through music therapy, we teach them how to start talking with singing, and bringing a lot of instruments to them to try and interact with them. Good thing about music therapy is that it is more stress-free than the other therapies and music itself is entertaining so that the clients are more willing to receive the therapy.
Q: How long does it takes?
A: Well it really depends on the clients' situation but normally in 3-4 months we can see some obvious improvements.
Q: How much do we pay?
A: It is not fixed but it is around RM100-200 per session...?
Overall, there are 4 main topics in the conference which are:
- Music and Psychology, Sociology
- Music and Culture, Community
- Music and Medicine
- Music and Special Education
They have also mentioned about the brief idea of how they conduct music therapies by collecting datas (with proved results). Amazing! Nice experience. (although at some point I was not fully focused 'cuz the night before was Lee Chong Wei and Men's Double Olympics final game. Can't miss it man. Haha) Anyways, it was indeed an informative conference!
27th August, the day of the "Once Upon a Time" concert! Rehearsal, lunch, rehearsal, make up, changing clothes, rehearsal, dinner, perform! Our performance was not bad tho, personally think that it was nicer than the time we first performed the same songs in our school haha. As this is our first time performing without our conductor, he said our sound is more "blended" 'cuz we are listening to each other more carefully instead of merely looking at the conductor hmm. (Lifetime performance list +1 )
Well I think that's pretty much of it! Next week, I am going to a piano competition in Singapore and hopefully it all goes well! Thank you for reading :)
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