2 . Top Music Festivals

The festival season is just kicking off, and there is a lot to look forward to in the upcoming months.

The Pitchfork Music Festival

Anyone who likes indie (独立的) music and up-and-coming artists will have an amazing time at the Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago’s Union Park. It is an indie rock heaven where you can explore more underground and lesser-known bands than at the other big Chicago summer festival, Lollapalooza.

Date: July 14—16

Location: Chicago, Illinois, USA

Music Type: Indie rock

Price:$126—$2,700

The Essence Music Festival

No matter what time of the year it is, New Orleans is an amazing place if you love live music. The Essence Music Festival is a celebration of well-known artists like Diana Ross, Chaka Khan, and Mary J. Blige.

Date: June 29—July 2

Location: New Orleans, Louisiana, USA

Music Type: R&B, soul, rock

Price: $75—$365

The Sziget Festival

Budapest knows how to hold a party, and the Sziget Festival is one of the biggest celebrations of music and culture in all of Europe. You can expect to find favorite artists like Bad Religion and Mac DeMarco playing here during this three-day festival.

Date: August 9—11

Location: Budapest, Hungary

Music Type: Eclectic, Indie rock

Price: $70—$296

The Flow Festival

The Flow Festival is a great excuse to explore the city of Helsinki. Artists including Lana Del Rey and The XX will be playing, among many others. Come to this festival to enjoy yourselves with an earth-friendly belief.

Date: August 11—13

Location: Helsinki, Finland

Music Type: Rock, soul, jazz

Price: $106—$199

Have you ever dreamed of being famous    1    a musician? At first many singers may form a band to practice their music. And then they may get the chance to give     2    (perform) in pubs or clubs. Later they may gradually become popular. However, the Monkees started in     3     different way. They began as a TV show. The TV organizers had put an advertisement in a newspaper,     4    (look) for rock musicians who could act as well as sing.     5    (honest) speaking, only one of them was good enough and the other three members pretended     6    (sing). So it couldn’t    7    (call) a real band in the beginning. Anyhow, their shows were     8    (creativity) and they became popular. After a year or so, they worked harder, produced     9    (they) own records and started touring. In about 1970, the Monkees broke up but they reunited in the mid-1980s and in 1996 produced a new record, with     10     they became more successful.

4 . When I was a child, I began learning to play the piano, which was my favourite musical _____, but I was forced to give up when I started my middle school so that I could concentrate more on my studies.

It’s one of my biggest _____ to stop practising the piano when I recall sadly today. During the following years, I kept telling my piano teacher that I would _____. However, I didn’t keep my promise because I was occupied with my study. _____ I lost touch with my teacher. Some years later, my teacher died. I was very sad because I lost such a good teacher. She was a very warm and gentle person. It hurts me to think she may have been _____ that I never returned. I haven’t taken lessons since then but to be honest, I _____ to. Sitting at the piano, I couldn’t help recalling many memories — times of my practising at home and playing before my teacher and one time my teacher _____ me after I played entire pieces of music wrong in front of her colleagues. I was so _____ that I could hardly say anything. But her _____ helped ease my shame. These memories, ______, good or bad, never caused my courage for playing the piano again.

This thought then led me to think that ______ is like music, and that we all try to play different ______ in the instrument of our life. Sometimes the pitch (音准) ______ when we play it well, but sometimes we are out of tune. However, we all continue to create our own ______ style of music. No matter what style our music is, it is important that we sing the songs of joy, quietness and love. Though I may never make it back to piano lessons, it doesn’t ______ that I’ve stopped making music.

7 . What’s On?

Electric Underground

7.30pm－1.00am   Free at the Cyclops Theatre

Do you know who’s playing in your area? We’re bringing you an evening of live rock and pop music from the best local bands. Are you interested in becoming a musician and getting a recording contract? If so, come early to the talk at 7.30 pm by Jules Skye, a successful record producer. He’s going to talk about how you can find the right person to produce your music.

Gee Whizz

8.30pm-10.30pm   Comedy (喜剧)at Kaleidoscope

Come and see Gee Whizz perform. He’s the funniest stand-up comedian on the comedy scene. This joyful show will please everyone, from the youngest to the oldest. Gee Whizz really knows how to make you laugh! Our bar is open from 7.00pm for drinks and snacks(快餐).

Simon’s Workshop

5.00pm-7.30pm   Wednesdays at Victoria Stage

This is a good chance for anyone who wants to learn how to do comedy. The workshop looks at every kind of comedy, and practices many different ways of making people laugh. Simon is a comedian and actor who has 10 years’ experience of teaching comedy. His workshops are exciting and fun. An evening with Simon will give you the confidence to be funny.

Charlotte Stone

8.00pm-11.00pm     Pizza World

Fine food with beautiful jazz music; this is a great evening out. Charlotte Stone will perform songs from her new best-selling CD, with James Pickering on the piano. The menu is Italian, with excellent meat and fresh fish, pizzas and pasta(面食). Book early to get a table. Our bar is open all day, and serves cocktails, coffee, beer, and white wine.

8 . Music is not just a set of sounds and rhythms. Its influence on brain is much deeper than any other human experience. Keep on reading to know all these amazing power of music.

A recent study suggests that preterm (早产的) babies appear to experience less pain and feed more when listening to music. Experts led by Dr. Manoj Kumar of the University of Alberta,Canada,found that music had a beneficial effect on reducing pain for preterm babies experiencing painful medical tests. It also appeared to benefit full-term babies during operations.

Many people experiencing brain damage have speech and movement-related problems. Music can help recover from brain injuries. As a different and effective treatment, doctors often advise such patients to listen to good music to improve the parts of the brain responsible for these two functions. When people with neurological (神经的) disorders hear a musical beat, it helps them to regain a balanced walk.

Though music cannot make deafness disappear, it really can stave off the loss of hearing. There was an experiment involving 163 people where 74 were musicians. Participants were asked to pass some listening tests. Musicians heard the sounds better than non-musicians, and this difference gets clearer with age. This means that a 70-year-old musician hears better than a 50-year-old non-musician, even in a noisy environment.

Besides, music mends a broken heart. It is not about a thrown-away love,   but about a heart attack. The matter is that music can help people recover from a heart attack or heart operation by reducing blood pressure, slowing down the heartbeat rate, and reducing anxiety. Listening to the quality music produces positive emotions, improves the movement of blood, and expands blood vessels, thus, promoting quick recovery of the whole cardiovascular (心血管的) system.

10 . Pharrell Williams takes a breath and considers how the past years have developed for him: ten Grammy Awards and a number of hit singles including a song that has caused countless fans to express how they are “happy”.

And the key, says the 43-year-old known simply as Pharrell, has been taking advantage of audiences’(听众的) need for heartfelt personal stories.

“I think we’ve entered a new singer-songwriter time,” said the American singer and producer. “People want a story. They want a story they can connect to. It’s not about what you have or what you don’t have; it’s more about your journey and your viewpoint that’s important to people.”

Pharrell said he noticed a change in audiences’ tastes over the past year in particular with the sudden success of his song Happy, which received little fanfare upon its release but has turned into an international hit. Countless videos populate sites like YouTube with people from Portugal and China to Abu Dhabi and Iran singing and dancing along to the song.

After seeing how far his song travelled, the singer broke down in tears during a televised interview with the famous talk show host Oprah Winfrey.

“It’s just encouraging to people who have something to say, something to express,” he said.

The success has made Pharrell realize that people are searching for personal and emotional links(情感纽带), perhaps as a means of getting away from the modern technological world we’re living in today.

“People want to feel. There’s too much thinking to deal with,” the singer said. “We’re different from what we were 15 years ago. The only thing that reminds(提醒) us we are humans is feeling. It’s the most important thing ever.”