Intra-school singing competition

It's that time of year again (or really the end of that time of year), when students practice singing before and after school, during lunch, and break times, and needless to mention, music class. It's time for the intra-school singing competition, known as gasshousai.

The competition is within the grades. Every class sings two songs, one that every class sings and one that they choose- both of which are judged and the best class for each category gets an award. The grade-songs are the same every year, so the 4th time around I know them all by heart- having heard them incessantly for a month, 4 times. While not everyone are good singers and the boys are consistently flat, one cool thing about this competition is that students conduct and play the piano accompaniment. The best conductor of each grade also gets an award at the end.

It always makes me sad that American schools not only have nothing like this, but after elementary school (or even in elementary school in some cases) there are no music classes. I think it's safe to say that almost all Japanese students can read music. I think it's also safe to say that most American students cannot. In their music classes they study music theory, history and of course learn to sing different songs. Maybe it's a useless skill, but I think it's nice that kids are exposed to a range of music.