The category we chose to participate in for the competition is " Local Music and Art " Forms.

Our community district is:

Our school is located in Yonghe District of New Taipei City. Being a group that is grown locally, HanGuang Vocal Band is one of the few international bands that have been insistent on social responsibility and cultural revamping. It is also a pioneer in fusing classical poetries with a cappella. The band has people as its backbone, with culture as its foundation. It is an a cappella band that focuses on the harmonization of people and groups. HanGuang Vocal Band is from Taiwan. It is working hard to send the voice of all Asians onto the international stage.

Project Outline

Founded in 2012, HanGuang Vocal Band fuses cultural heritage, musical elements, stage arts, and drama. It is Taiwan’s pioneer in fusing classical poetries with a cappella, and it focuses on cultural creativity. The band represents a new generation of performance with streamlined choreography and body language to create a brand new audio-visual experience with an Asian flavor. Most of the group’s songs are rearranged classical poetries, with only a few pop songs stashed in its repertoire. HanGuang Vocal Band is aiming to make itself a classical poetry a cappella band that is built on cultural creativity.
HanGuang Vocal Band demonstrates the purest form of human voice in singing. We hope to share with the world about what the band has been doing in music, public welfare, and cultural promotion. And we hope to learn, discover, and grow with the band through this research project.

Our Internet Environment

School Internet Environment:

Our Internet connection goes through the academic network. There are fifty computers in the computer room for our students to work on the project. There is between one to four computers in every office, including the library, and one computer in every classroom. All computers are connected to the web to facilitate searching, discussion and printing. Our outbound connection is a fiber-optic line that connects to the New Taipei City education network. Moreover, the entire school is covered by WiFi for staff access.

“the Beautiful Voices” Internet connection at home:

ADSL, fiber-optic network, WiFi

“the Beautiful Voices” data transferring:

We sometimes use memory sticks for storing files from school’s LAN to work from home. However, we use the EDUCOCO social network for discussions and submitting files most of the time. As a result, we are able to work on the project from home or from school.

Challenges and Obstacles We Overcame

• Team communication:
  We discuss in groups most of the time for Cyberfair projects. Therefore, communication and cooperation between group members are very important to us. In the beginning, when team members were still new to each other, we had arguments arising from minor issues. It was also due to these minor conflicts that we learned to calm ourselves, listen, and respect the opinions of others. Gradually, we learned to listen, express our own opinions, and ways to communicate with our peers.

• Teamwork:
  A Cyberfair project requires teamwork, and it is not meant to be completed by a single individual. Getting a group of students coming from different classes to work together presented a huge challenge for us! Therefore, after group tasks, such as guided tour and music seminar, were announced, we used the computer room for group meetings and discussions when it was vacant. While assigning jobs, we considered the strengths and weaknesses of each individual so everyone got a chance to contribute, making the project more efficient.

• Schedule management:
  Time constraint is even tighter for this Cyberfair project than the previous one since on the first day after winter vacation, we needed to hand in the complete layout of our project website. Therefore, managing the schedule was something that we paid close attention to in this project. Everyone had to finish his or her research topic one week before Chinese New Year. When that was done, we had to help out with the project website. Through teamwork, we were able to complete the project on schedule.

• Interviews and Researches:
  In order to get our information first hand, we interviewed and completed questionnaires with people related to the band, people in the community, audience in the concert, and students from Yu-Tsai. It was a major challenge for us because it was our first time interviewing people and asking them to do questionnaires. To overcome that obstacle, we practiced really hard before interviews, and we even got our teacher to do a mock interview with us just to get us ready. Finally, when it came time for the actual interviews, we finished them with confidence. Interviewing and doing questionnaires with courage helped us get a hold on a lot of crucial information we needed for this project!

Afterthoughts:

Over the six-month span in our Cyberfair project, we got to know a very special band called HanGuang Vocal Band. We learned what made this band unique. HanGuang was really active in charity events, and it promoted Chinese culture without reservation. There is a lot for people to know, learn, and do. In this project, we learned a lot about the band, a cappella, and classical poetries through interviews, questionnaires, researching online, observing team practices, participating in events with HanGuang, analyzing poetries, and writing our very own poem, Joy of Studying in Four Seasons. What made the project even more rewarding was we actually got to experience the fun in singing classical poetry in a cappella.
In an a cappella band, every member is responsible for a singing part, so it is important for each member to collaborate closely with each other in order to deliver their best performance. HanGuang Vocal Band is similar to our Cyberfair team in that everyone needs to do his or her job well so the project is able to move forward smoothly.
After getting to know the band better, we held a series of events, like in-school guided tours, music class lessons, music seminar, and a cappella poetry competition to help our teachers and fellow students learn about HanGuang and a cappella. In addition, we wanted students to learn about a cappella singing techniques and use them for reciting and learning classical poetries.
Cyberfair is packed with activities that are both fun and useful. These are learning experiences that we would never get from textbooks!

Source: the Beautiful Voices｜Pictures: the Beautiful Voices / HanGuang Vocal Band