On 11th June 2021, Kuen Cheng Music Composing Society held a song composing competition. It aimed to create a platform for showcasing the enthusiasm and talents of students regarding their song composing skills, and all students from Kuen Cheng High School were encouraged to participate in the competition.
The judges were Mr Ting Thiam Hock@Teh Thiam Hock, a Chinese teacher at our school and the Teacher-advisor for Kuen Cheng Broadcasting Club, and two other music teachers, Madam Hee Siaw Fuey and Mr Sim Wei Yih. The latter judge was a graduate from UCSI University.
The judging criteria were melody (30 marks), lyrics (30 marks), composition concept (20 marks) and music video (MV) performance (20 marks).
There were no shortages of impressive vocals, unique melody and MV presentations. Among many outstanding compositions, the 乱炒曲 (scrambled melody) from the “八独中作文比赛讨论区” (Eight Independent Chinese Schools’ Essay Competition Discussion Area) team has won extremely high praise among the audience for their cute MV and melodious singing. Throughout the competition, the audience was extremely supportive of the participants, often leaving motivating comments in the chat.
Later on, the audience were given 10 minutes to vote for their two favourite songs via Google Form while the judges were deciding on the winners. After voting, the event ended, the emcees announced the results of the competition. Below are the results of the audience vote:
In a joint third place with 10 votes each were teams 3 and 9 十音俱全 (Ten Harmonies United) and 壹伍妙羽 (Fifteen Adorned Feathers), in second, we had team ∞ (Infinity) who performed 13th achieving a marginally higher 11 votes, and in the lead was team 5 – “Eight Independent Chinese Schools’ Essay Competition Discussion Area”, winning with a landslide 23 votes.
To close the competition on a positive note, Mr Sim Wei Yih said he felt very satisfied with the results of the competition. He did not expect students to do this well with the pandemic condition worsens, life would not have been easy for the students. Finally, he gave some pieces of advice about song composing to all the participants.
Members of the Newsletter Club held a short interview session with the top three scorers of the song composing competition. Through this interview, a member from one of the teams revealed that they were from the Music Composing Society and had gotten encouragement from their coach to participate. The team was very satisfied with their results this time and they felt that their hard work had paid off.
The “Fifteen Adorned Feathers” team added that their song “Appreciate Nature” was a spontaneous idea from one of the Senior team members, but holds a much deeper meaning to it. The team wanted to encourage people to appreciate nature more, as the song title suggests, and not to trap oneself within the world of technology.
Overall, winning teams have learnt the benefits of teamwork. A member of a top scoring team said, “if I were to participate alone, I might not have the ability to win.” They saw how wonderful teamwork could be and were ever grateful for their teammates. They aimed to continue working hard and improving in future competitions.
