Just Uke and Me: Ukulele Workshop
BY VIERNES CARISSA KRISTEL VILLAMARZO
Playing a musical instrument is something many people do to relax and get away from the stresses of life. With the stress of midterms looming up ahead, it was a joy to have two instructors from Ukulele Movement teach us how to play the ukulele.
We started by learning to tune the ukulele to the standard “G-C-E-A” tuning, singing the words “My dog has fleas” to the tune of each of the four strings. This strange exercise led to an animated retelling of the history of the ukulele, whose name translates to “jumping flea”, while the instructor wowed us with his skills.
Following that, we learned how to play chords by matching the position of our fingers with a chord diagram. Starting with a simple nursery rhyme, we learned how to strum and sing with a simple strumming pattern. As we went along, the instructor taught us more chords and different strumming patterns, teaching us familiar songs like “Just The Way You Are” and even oldies like “Stand By Me”. Under the guidance of the two instructors, we had a great time learning the songs. Some seniors even strummed and sang “Love Story” when we were given a break to rest our sore fingers!
To end off the session, we were split into three groups and tasked to learn a song to perform for everyone. Although it was quite challenging to learn a new song on our own, each group got together to perform our own renditions of three different songs.
The workshop may not have been long enough to teach us all the techniques needed to play the ukulele, but it did leave us with lasting memories and an eagerness to learn more. Overall, it was an enjoyable experience which opened our eyes to the joys of learning a musical instrument.
Making Cents
A Financial Literacy Workshop
BY TAN ZHAO KUANG
Earning money is hard, keeping money is harder. Financial literacy is a skill we all need in our daily lives, especially as we start earning money and taking up more responsibilities. The Holistic Development Portfolio is proud to present to you… Making Cents!
Everyone was ending their lessons and streaming in. As they registered their attendance, we provided dinner, and everyone was chilling around while we waited for the event to start. Ms Kris, our co-ordinator, and her instructors came early and began having an impromptu chit-chat session with the participants. This made the transition to the start of the event much smoother than originally planned.
She started by introducing her team and quizzing us on our basic financial knowledge. Seeing the varied income strata of the audience, and how many of us still do not plan for our finances, she brought awareness to the use of different financial tools, first and foremost being the use of spreadsheets and budgeting applications to help us record, analyse and project income and expenses. She showed us that not only can financial budgeting be important, it can be fun too!
Next, we played a small game on cashflows, My Singapore Guy/Gal. This was a game where scenarios were picked randomly by us, and the co-ordinators gave commentary and linked these scenarios to financial literacy habits. Throughout the game, it was emphasised that the current trajectory of our current spending habits will greatly influence the growth of our money. As the adage goes, “All good habits should have started yesterday.” The earlier we start planning and budgeting wisely, the more secure and stable our income will be in the future. The game also showed how money gets easier to save and to earn the higher your capital is and thus it’s best to start saving as early as possible.
There were smiles and laughter all around amidst the games. There were scenes where we all laughed at other people. Some iconic quotes include:
“I got pregnant.” – Hou Yi
“I got into a car accident for the third time in a row. (facepalm)” – Weien
“I married twice!” – Kai Xin
“I won the lottery!” – Luo Lin
At this point in our life, significant life events are becoming more frequent, and changes to our income and expenses becomes apparent. This can include remitting money to our parents and giving ang paos at weddings. Unexpected outcomes, especially so in the case of illness, occur very frequently, and we should be prepared for it. The importance of having good financial literacy became apparent as the game continued.
After that, we came to the segment about investing, and how we could make better use of our money, if we so wish to. She started with sharing of the causes of inflation, how money devalues and how interest rates in traditional methods will almost always guarantee a loss. It’s always better to diversify our income and explore searching for higher returns if we do not want our money to stagnate. The trade-off and risks between different methods were discussed and the amount of effort needed to start and continue these investment methods were discussed. The higher the returns, the higher the risks, and the more effort one has to put in. This segment was interesting. However, although there is much I can do, I don’t think I will change anything significant and start investing heavily. Nonetheless, this has opened me up to different perspectives, and brought awareness of alternatives I could look into if I so desire.
We concluded with a Q&A session and this surprisingly led to some very interesting discussions. For instance, Gary shared about how he had chosen to invest on the companies, and how his investment interests changed over the years. He shared his experience on how building up a credit rating from a young age is very useful in securing loans that he had needed. As undergraduates, we have many opportunities to make use of, for instances a credit card with a very low drawing limit. This will not only build our responsibility to pay on time in a safe manner, it also can help build up our credit rating. Furthermore, this will also aid us in recording our expenses, given the increasing prevalence of cashless payments. Nonetheless, he also warned of the high interest rates and how scary it can be compounded over time. This is not a task for the chronically irresponsible person. Ms Kris concurred.
Truly, the world is your oyster when we talk about getting more financially literate and there is so much to do. If one has the time, one shouldn’t hesitate in trying to explore more on financial literacy and make use of the resources available!
The Holistic Development Portfolio is very grateful for the participation of everyone. Overall, we hoped that this workshop served as a good platform for scholars to be more aware of their options, and together, we can start Making Cents!
Gallery: Making Cents
SingNYang: A Cappella Singing Workshop
BY ISHA SINGH LE XUE
Singing is a passion for many people, whether as a bathroom solo singer or as part of a larger choir or an A Cappella group. Yet for most people, it is rare to hear of singing lessons the way one might hear about piano, violin and other music lessons. As such, we were very fortunate to have Ms Angelina Choo, founder of The A Cappella Society of Singapore and a trained soprano, teach us basic vocal training.
Despite having been in choir for about 6 years of my life, it was rather enlightening to hear many of the techniques I have been taught from a different perspective, pertaining to A Cappella singing as opposed to choral singing. I found the experience very enriching as she also went on to explain how different pitches were derived from different ‘levels’ of your body, using how singing a G corresponds to the cheekbones area as an example. She also explained how this ‘level’ was different for guys and girls. This was an intriguing concept I wasn’t previously familiar with and it helped explain why it was often so natural to sing an octave above a male line.
Following that, Ms Angie had us participate in a rhythmic exercise where we were arranged in groups of 3 or 4 and each group was to clap, stomp or tap to a different rhythm of our choice to create an interlocking rhythm. As Ms Angie herself mentioned, this is often a difficult exercise and it was exciting when we managed to execute a rather competent round of rhythm!
We then had an entertaining time doing a SATB (soprano, alto, tenor, bass) version of Che Che Koolay, a folk song from Ghana, following her directions. During this time, we had fun discovering many ‘hidden talents’ amongst our fellow batchmates and seniors as amazing bass and beatboxers.
After that, we were instructed to split up into two groups to do our own rendition and edits to Bruno Mars’ “Just The Way You Are” and Jessie J’s “Price Tag”. Although it was a little challenging and not quite as entertaining as an all-out karaoke might have been, it allowed us to begin to explore and understand how A Cappella singing was like and both groups managed to pull together to perform our very own adaptations of the songs.
It was unfortunate that due to a lack of time, some of the singing techniques had to be glossed over and we were not quite given the individual attention that is often required for vocal training or music training in general. However, overall, thanks to the Holistic Development portfolio, we had a fascinating experience and for many of us, it was very much an eye-opener.