Reflection Journal 4 (3/9/12)

Group lesson on Practical lesson

I think it is good that we had group practices before every theory class so that the teacher can gauge our playing skills and how much we know about the Gu Zheng. At the same time, it is easier for her to teach us in smaller groups so that her attention on us will be more focused. She gave us reasonable number of songs to practice for today. Only two simple songs. She allowed us to play by ourselves for the first songs then she will ask everyone to play in unison. She would even play with us so that she can guide us. It is the same for piano. If the piano teacher plays with the student, the student becomes encouraged to move on.

Theory Lesson
She gave us a score to read. Similar to the Japanese score from the Japanese elective that we took last year (Prof Ueno), the chinese text becomes a notation for the chinese instrument. Each chinese character represents a pitch, which we play on the Gu Zheng. She then introduces more Chinese songs that are of different types.

Narrative singing (show) - Narrating a story through singing. The performer may be solo where he or she plays, sings and performs on stage all at the same time. Because there was no tv or radio to rely messages, they narrate through these performances. These types of singing started from Buddhism in the Tang Dynasty.

Story telling (ping shu) - telling a story without any singing.

One thing we can be sure of in most Chinese music. It is the repetition of melody. It is interesting in how they can keep going on for an hour or two just repeating the melody. Wouldn't it bore the audience? But on the other hand, the audience might just be interested in the news or messages they convey.

Reflection Journal 3 (27/8/12)

1st week - Intro and allocating practice groups
2nd week - Hari Raya

3rd week
Practice was at 3 pm. lecturer described the Gu Zheng. It has strings that are coloured to indicate a certain number. Strings were made of twisted silk and had polyester wrapped around it. She gave clear instructions on how to wrap the plectra around our fingertips and how to play the strings using the plectra. She also gave us scores and instructions about how to read the scores, which does not have notation but numbers and symbols on it. They represent different things through the symbol. While she goes around to tune the Gu Zheng, we tried out the scores and played some songs. It was a good time spent on trying to play the instrument. She gave help whenever we need and teaches us along the way.

During theory class, she showed alot of interesting audio tracks and videos about traditional Chinese folk tunes. These Chinese songs were not composed by a composer eg. the Chinese opera, work songs, etc. Songs were spontaneous and were used for communication purposes, such as question and answer, call and response. The way Chinese people sing are different from the western style, where it is fueled by financial needs.

Overall I learnt alot from this lesson, but if I were to just show recordings and videos on the screen in secondary schools, the students may not be able to appreciate because they might think it is funny and try to imitate. But on the other hand, the students must be exposed to these musical scene so that it increases their musical knowledge. Probably, I might show one or two videos. But the interesting facts were about the origin and purpose of these songs that captured my attention. It was interesting.