1 . A music festival is a community event focusing on live performances of singing and instrument playing that is often presented with a theme. On the list are the music festivals for fans around the world. Find your favorite now!

Field Day

January 1, 2023, Sydney

Field Day means New Year’s Day for young people in Sydney. Seen as the city’s original multi-stage party, it’s a gathering of friends coming together for a great fun-filled first day of the year. There’s an air of hope and positive energy on a perfect summer’s day.

The Envision Festival

February 27—March 6, 2023, Uvita

The Envision Festival is an annual gathering in Costa Rica that aims to provide an opportunity for different cultures to work with one another to create a better community. The festival encourages people to practice art, music, dance performances, and education. Meanwhile, our connection with nature is expected to be strengthened.

The McDowell Mountain Music Festival

March 2—4, 2023, Phoenix

The McDowell Mountain Music Festival is Phoenix’s musical celebration of community culture. Since its foundation in 2004, it has been the only 100% non-profit music festival designed to support, entertain and educate the community. The festival attracts thousands of visitors each year from around the country, and it is an opportunity to experience true culture.

The Old Settler’s Music Festival

April 20—23, 2023, Dale

The Old Settler’s Music Festival is a nationally known music festival for American music. The festival is held in the country of Texas at the height of the wild flower season. The Old Settler’s Music Festival offers great music and activities for the whole family.

2 . How similar are language and music?

Language is part of our daily lives, no matter where we live in the world.     1     Both language and music play a huge role in our culture and here are some of their similarities.

Both language and music have a writing system.

In English we record language using the alphabet, which is a collection of letters. Similarly, we use notes (音符) to keep a record of music. Musicians read notes and create meaning in the form of music.     2     By writing pieces of text or music, we are able to share experiences through time. We can read the ideas or hear the composition (作品) of someone who lived hundreds of years ago.

    3    

You can make a good guess at where someone is from by listening to the language he uses. In the same way, we know that styles of music are different around the world, giving us the opportunity to explore many different cultures through their music and providing us with music for every situation.

Both share emotion.

    4     Of course you may be able to see it in my face, but you will know for sure through my words. Similarly, music can sound angry, sad or happy. Music can show you exactly how the composer was or is feeling, and allows us to share that emotion. When you feel happy, you might want to sing and dance to a happy song to celebrate your happiness.     5     I think we have all used music to express or process our emotions, often combining it with language in the form of song lyrics (歌词).

3 . Rave-on!

How about learning new skills on the guitar, drums and keyboard by video? Follow the touch-screen instructions to find lessons on each instrument, or search for a song to practise playing along to. Try our Professional Selection, with video clips of band members who will explain the techniques that make their recordings so individual.

Show-in-a-day!

Be a star singer or dancer for the day in a one-time-only special performance! Experts in international music and dance styles will train you, and costumes provided for the performance help create a really special, individual show. Get your friends and family to come and see you perform, as no videoing or photography is allowed.

Archived Images

Want to find out about a new band, or just want more information about an old favourite? Visit our collection to find out facts and figures, or see the actual possessions of famous bands and musicians you are interested in. You can actually get to touch things worn on stage at major rock and pop events, and there are plenty of other concert souvenirs.

Rhythm-studio

Get your body moving in the studio and learn to move to rhythms and sounds from the past to now, including Soul and Disco. Learn your steps from our professional onscreen dance instructor, then watch your performance and become the star in your own video recording which you can take away!

4 . My name is Sara. When I was little, I played the drums. I also had a guitar. In fourth grade, I started playing the trombone (长号). I practiced about four hours a week. All of this might not seem like a big deal for a lot of kids, but there’s something about me that makes me a bit different from others. I was born without hands. Since I was about one year old, I’ve worn prosthetics (假手).

This year, I got an invitation to join the high school marching band (行进管乐队). I told my mom I wanted to do it. But I had an instructor who thought I would not be able to march in the band—not because it was a high school band and I’m only in seventh grade, but probably because my body is different. All I wanted was to show that I could do it, so I joined the band. And it paid off!

Music gives me energy. That happens sometimes. One time I was so down, I didn’t even want to get out of bed. Then I hit my mp3 player by accident. A song came on, and I got up and started dancing. It helped me say to myself, “OK, I can get through today.”

Around my musician friends, we all share the same problems, like working out how many beats there are to a measure. I have a hard time counting the beats, but so do a lot of the other kids. It’s a normal problem that we musicians share. When I’m with the band, I don’t feel as different as I do in other situations. It’s just another way that music makes me want to go on, and not to just sit down by myself and not care about life.

5 . It’s been five years since I came to America. The year before I arrived, every weekend I was woken up by “Spring River in the Flower Moon Night”, ________ by my mother on a zheng.

My mom was always enchanted（着迷）by the beauty of Chinese traditional music________she never had the chance to learn a(n)________. In 2009, she got a zheng from a friend and has been playing and ________ ever since. Sometimes when I miss her, I search for the songs she used to play on the Internet. I ________ expected to hear them here in Boston.

Earlier this year, as I________ a new apartment, I met Zhantao Lin, the director of the Boston Chinese Musicians Association. At Lin’s house, I heard the ________ of the erhu. Lin later________ me to his music team and I heard the rehearse（排练）for a ________this year. It was beautiful and powerful — it ________ brought me back to my hometown in China.

________is also part of Lin’s daily routine. Besides performing, he passed on his love of the erhu to his ________. I went to one of Lin’s classes and met 9-year-old London Turk. I asked him ________he chose to learn the erhu. “It’s much ________ to learn than the violin,” he said. Perhaps Turk hasn’t really started to________ the beauty of the erhu, but his mother has always loved the instrument. “There are so many beautiful things in Chinese________: the music, the language, and the art. So we just try our best to let him have the ________ to explore it,” she said.

I ________my mom for giving me a chance to immerse（使沉浸）myself in the Chinese musical world. The music makes me feel relaxed. It can also ________me of my homesickness. If you listen to one piece, you will ________its uniqueness, power, and beauty.

7 . Top Summer Music Festivals to Travel to

Summer is the best time of a year for music lovers, especially if you love the outdoor concert scene. The festival season is just kicking off, and there is a lot to look forward to in the upcoming months.

Primavera Sound

To kick off the summer, there's no better place than Barcelona. On the concert line-up, you'll find bands and singers like The Zombies, The Arcade Fire, and Bon Iver. Then spend some time tasting the local food and wine.

May 31—June 4; Barcelona, Spain

Music Type: Rock, hip hop

Price: $86—$323

Governors Ball

One of the great summer concerts in New York City is the Governors Ball Music Festival, which takes place in early June at Randall's Island Park. Some of the playing artists and bands include Tool, Phoenix, Lorde, Flume, and Wu-Tang Clan.

June 3—5; New York City, USA

Music Type: Rock, hip hop, pop

Price: $105—$405

Bonnaroo

Bonnaroo is another summer event that draws in crowds of around 60,000 each year. Some of the most well-known musicians and bands will be playing this year, including U2, Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Weeknd, and Chance The Rapper.

June 8—11; Manchester, Tennessee, USA

Music Type: Rock, hip hop

Price: $210—$554

Firefly Music Festival

Many people haven't thought of going to Delaware for a summer vacation, but mid-June is a great time to plan this trip if you love music. Headliners for this year's show are The Weeknd, Muse, Twenty One Pilots, Chance The Rapper, and Bob Dylan.

June 15—18; Dover, Delaware, USA

Music Type: Blues, rock

Price: $179—$499

10 . In 1957, Max Vernon Mathews wrote the first computer program called Music, which enabled a computer to create sound and play it back. He was then working as an engineer at Bell Laboratories in New Jersey. It enabled a large IBM computer to play a seventeensecond piece of music he had written.

The computer was so slow that it took an hour to play the seventeensecond piece of music. So Mathews moved the work to a tape player to play the music at a normal speed. He later said that the sound quality of the musical notes was not great, but the technical importance of the music was huge.

The science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke visited Bell Laboratories in the 1960s. He heard a computer “sing” the song Daisy Bell on devices (设备) and learned about the programs developed by Mathews and other engineers. Clarke noted this technology in his book 2001: A Space Odyssey, which was later made into a movie.

Mathews continued creating other versions of the Music program. He became interested in how computers could help musicians outside recording studios. The Groove program he developed was the first computer program made for live performances.

He also developed an electronic device he called the Radio Baton, which looks like two drum sticks. It enables the user to control the speed and sound levels of orchestral music (管弦乐) played on a computer by moving the two sticks on a special electronic surface.

Mathews said he believed modern musicians were not making full use of the power of computer music. He said a violin always sounds like a violin. But with his Music, the way a violin sounds is unlimited. He did not want computer sounds to replace live music, but he hoped computers would one day be considered serious instruments.