HanGuang Vocal Band is founded and funded by a group of people who are on a mission to promote classical poetries. They gathered a group a young people who are interested in singing and formed a band that has administrative and operational support. We hope it can promote classical poetry and be self-funded. Therefore, we recruited people who are able to read music scores, and we assigned professional or internationally-known teachers to guide and train the group.

Personally, I like traditional Chinese music a lot. However, the sound of traditional Chinese music that grew up with me disappeared with the passing of time. That was a pity. I met Ms. Ku-Fang Lin, who was the head of Taipei Lecture Hall, during 2003 and 2004. At that time, she had a band called ‘Wang Le Hsiao Chi’ and I thought about different ways to help the band like funding it through the foundation, filming its performances as instructional videos for other teachers to use, or broadcasting its performances on television. Since this was out of my league, I did not know where to start. Later on, we came across Chinese crosstalk and composition, which were something that we could work with.

I found that singing is the easiest way to learn. We may not be able to memorize many of the poems, but we are able to sing quite a few songs. When I taught Three Character Classic to my son, he would catch only the sound of the last character every time I finished reading him a verse. Then I fused Three Character Classic with a nursery song that he was familiar with. After only a few attempts, he was able to get the words right. Through my own experience, I believe singing is able to accomplish many goals if used properly. Singing is indeed an excellent activity.

People are hard to manage. During this period of time, whenever I see them singing, they seem really into the songs. I was touched when I saw the expressions of their faces. Their happiness would resonate within me, and I would dance along because I enjoy listening to songs with classical poetry. This happiness is absolute and pure. For example, there is a song named ‘A spray of flowers (Not giving in to old age)- coda’. It is rearranged based on a popular verse from the Yuan Dynasty. This song is modern with a jazzy flavor to it. The way that this popular Yuan verse is sung by a group makes me happy. Therefore, I will continue our work regardless of the obstacles.

In the future, members of HanGuang must know the founding reason for the band and strengthen mutual understanding between band members. This will make us not only progress more smoothly, but also treat our work with more enthusiasm. Our song will then touch the hearts of more people. On the other hand, we need to think and make adjustments about raising our level of understanding on the essence of the poems, improving on the quality of our singing, and other means to raise our overall standard.
Finally, I would like to tell our band members that the footprints that we leave behind will reflect on the amount of effort that we put in. Regardless of what the future might say about us, as long as we give our best now, we will be rewarded by leaving a beautiful set of footprints for the future to see.

I am all for singing. I love singing myself, and I am also in a choir. I only learned about a cappella after joining the choir, and I was impressed by how explosive human voice can be. A cappella is more popular than choir and more artistic than pop songs. So I believe learning a cappella is more approachable by the public.
I would like to promote classical poetries to children. In my generation, classical poetry was weighted quite heavily in our learning. However, children nowadays are not able to understand and use them in their composition. I hope through HanGuang Vocal Band, we are able to bring classical poetries into the lives of children and help them appreciate classical poetries.