Content summary: This article reviews ancient Chinese music education and the origin of music education after the Opium War, combines reality and practice, looks at the development of things from a historical perspective, and thinks about the development and development of music classes in primary and secondary schools. The historical responsibility and mission of inheriting Chinese classical culture and learning Western music.
1. The Origin of Chinese Music Education
The origin of Chinese music can be traced back to ancient times. "Lu's Spring and Autumn Annals" has recorded the earliest origin of music. For example, "Lu's Spring and Autumn Annals, Zhongxia Ji, Ancient Music Chapter" records: "Zhu Xiang's family... used Yin Qi to calm the living beings." There is a saying: "In the past, the Yellow Emperor ordered Linglun to compose the rhythm... Under the Kunlun Mountains, listen to the cry of the phoenix to distinguish the twelve rhythms." This is the earliest origin of music. According to the historical development line, the development of music also has a history of thousands of years with the development of society. We can regard its development over thousands of years as a kind of inheritance.
If there is inheritance, then the emergence of music education is inevitable.
Long before the establishment of my country’s first feudal dynasty, music education had already played an extremely important role. In the early years of the Western Zhou Dynasty, a fairly complete set of rules and regulations - the ritual and music system - was formulated by the Duke of Zhou. Music occupied an extremely important position in the rule of that time, which can be clearly discovered from this system. It is recorded and stipulated in "Zhou Li Chunguan" that all children of aristocrats, that is, princes and princes, must accept the study of "music, virtue, music, language, music and dance". At that time, this kind of music education was limited to children of aristocrats. But what can still be understood is that from this period onwards, music education took shape.
Later, during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, a great thinker appeared. He founded the Confucian school and occupied an important position in the ideological trend of contending among a hundred schools of thought. He is the famous thinker, educator, and musician-Confucius. His great contribution was to pioneer "private learning", liberating "Poetry", "Books", "Li" and "Music" from the hands of the government, and turning them into textbooks widely circulated in society, laying the foundation for ancient education in our country. Base. It was from this beginning that music education, along with the development of music, moved forward in the trend of history.
Among them, one of the most core ideas put forward in Confucianism is that music has a teaching effect. In the later Western music culture, philosophers such as Plato also put forward similar views. Looking at Go on, whether it is the West or China, there are always some similarities in how they treat the topic of music education. It is said in "The Analects of Confucius Taibo" that "prosperous in poetry, established in rituals, and successful in music." Confucius also once put forward the view that "no one is good at music when changing customs", which shows that music has an educational role, so we must pay attention to music education .
Chinese culture is extensive, profound and has a long history. If we want to divide the development of music education in China into a time node, I would prefer to divide it into two parts using 1840 as the boundary. Part of it is before 1840, and part of it is after 1840.
Earlier in the article, the origins of music and education were mentioned. If we were to elaborate on the development of music education in the following thousands of years, I would probably never finish it. Of course, the core of this article is not to describe the development of music education in China over the past several thousand years. It is a thought and reflection on the current music education we generally accept. As we all know, most of the music theory, piano performance and other aspects we accept now are derived from the Western music education system.
The reason starts with the history of 1840. Facts tell us that only by understanding the development of history can we better grasp the future.
The year 1840, that is, the days since the Opium War, is usually defined as the beginning of modern times in academic circles, and the development of music education has also begun a major turning point since then. A large number of people were sent to learn their technology, knowledge, and systems from Western countries. In order to save the nation from dire straits, we learned everything from the West in an attempt to strengthen ourselves. At this time, two major systems of music began to appear. One is the music passed down from ancient times, which we call traditional music; the other is the music introduced from the West, which we call Western music. Since this period, the development of Western music has rapidly occupied a large part, so much so that today we can generally see pianos, violins, etc., learning Western staff music, learning Western bel canto, and even teaching in the classroom, mainly based on Western music. Mainly musical works.
This is a good thing, but it doesn't seem to be that good. There is actually nothing wrong with learning Western culture, but if we blindly study Western music, perhaps our excellent traditional music culture will fall into crisis or even perish. The result doesn't seem very good. As music educators who will be engaged in music education in the future, it is our urgent task to carry forward and inherit the music culture of our nation, and it is also the responsibility and mission of music educators.
2. The development of Western music in China
The School Music Movement is a major event in the history of Chinese music, and it is also an extremely important turning point.
School music and songs are a new singing culture that arose with the establishment of new-style schools. They generally refer to music classes offered in schools (called singing or music classes at the time), or songs composed for school singing. The movement of school music and songs is an important symbol of the initial stage of the development of my country's new music culture. It introduced a large number of music, Western instruments, and singing of songs, systematically introduced Western music knowledge, and introduced five-line notation and simplified musical notation, creating The first batch of music educators in the history of modern music, they made great contributions to the development of Chinese music education. This was the beginning of the introduction of Western music into China.
? Later, during the Anti-Japanese Revolutionary War, the music of that era had distinctive characteristics, and music education also developed in this context. Music academies, mainly the National Music Academy founded by Xiao Youmei, The school has developed one after another and cultivated many talents for the development of music education in our country. At the same time, musicians who have returned from studying abroad have also devoted themselves to the cause of music education, and the development of music education can be said to be prosperous.
In the course of decades of development, we have learned a lot from Western music teaching systems. Especially since the 1980s, we have achieved great success in both piano technology and music teaching methods. With the introduction of various music teaching methods such as the German Orff teaching method, the increase in the number of music learning talents, the improvement of people's living standards and the attention of the Ministry of Education, music education has become a hot topic.
There was a time when Lang Lang, a talented pianist known as the Chinese Mozart, sparked a piano craze. Today, there are still many children learning piano in our country. Of course, there are still many students studying traditional Chinese instrumental music, although the proportion is far less than that of students studying Western music.
Regarding this situation, I gained a profound experience during my recent internship. The school where I practiced is an ordinary full-time municipal model middle school in the urban area. During the two-month class and rehearsal process, I found that there are two common problems among students:
1. I don’t know enough about music and it’s not comprehensive enough.
2. Some students have mastered some music, but what they know are still Western musicians and Western works.
At the same time, during the internship process, I went to a remote mountainous area for a week-long teaching activity. The reality we face is that this school is fully equipped with music teaching aids, multimedia, pianos, electric pianos, electronic keyboards, etc., but the real dilemma is that there are no music teachers. And I am a music teacher sent by the internship unit to provide assistance in order to cope with an inspection of this local school by the Ministry of Education.
During the week of teaching, I tried to introduce as much music knowledge to the students as possible. When I carefully reviewed the teaching results of that week, I found that I couldn't help but explain to them more knowledge about Western music. For example, introduce the staff to them, introduce the simplified music to them, and introduce some common sense to them. The slightly mentioned content about traditional music is probably the source of some musical instruments, but this is not very useful. Because I was reviewing to prepare for the postgraduate entrance examination, my basic music literacy should be good. However, when I faced this group of primary and secondary schools, I actually felt a sense of frustration that "there is no place for heroes". Whether it was facing high school students in urban areas or For middle school students who support teaching, not much of the theoretical knowledge learned in college can be used in actual classroom teaching. A large part of the teaching content basically revolves around music appreciation. Regarding this course, first of all, the basic theoretical quality of the teacher must be high. In addition, in daily music teaching, I am also responsible for rehearsing choruses, organizing competitions, and rehearsing instrumental music. ensemble. The comprehensive ability test for a teacher is very strict. At that time, I couldn’t help but think, it’s a good thing that I played piano from elementary school, a good thing that I majored in vocal music, a good thing that I took the postgraduate entrance examination and mastered a lot of knowledge about the history of Chinese and Western music. There are enough concerts.
However, in the whole of China, especially in such remote areas, there are not many students with conditions and environment like mine. So, I was thinking, is it completely promoting our Western music? So what is the role of our traditional music in education? It seems that these are not quite right and are not the essence and core of music education. Why do we have music classes? Why music education?
What is the original intention of our music education?
3. Thoughts on the current music education
What is music education? I once saw such a simple but profound sentence, which said: "Education through music" and "Mastering music through education."
Education through music shows that music indeed plays an extremely important role in education. Among the "six arts" admired by Confucius - "ritual", "music", "shooting", "royalty", "calligraphy" and "numerology", "music" ranks second, which shows its importance. Music has an educational role. This point of view has been mentioned before. Music and virtue are a fine tradition in China. Judging from the development history of thousands of years, although there are certain limitations, it still has a great positive impact. , really good music is educational.
"Every sound originates from the human heart." This sentence comes from "Yue Ji" written by Xunzi.
What is music? Music should be the most authentic reflection from our hearts. Similarly, the German musician Orff also proposed that "music begins with itself." Although their living environments are different, their views on music are always similar. It is from this point of view that we can realize that the so-called music education is not a rigid system or model.
To master music through education, I believe that only by using it correctly can we better convey the content that music wants to express to more people. Especially as a music teacher, I am both a teacher and a scholar. We cannot blindly praise Western music, nor can we completely deny Western music. We cannot be biased about our views and opinions on Chinese and Western music. This is particularly important in music education.
I believe that no matter what kind of music it is, it is a treasure of human art and culture. As long as there is music, there is hope. The successors of hope must rely on us "teachers" who are learning to work together, strive to carry forward traditional culture, and actively learn Western music culture. After all, Western music in China has only been introduced for more than a hundred years, and is far less than the Western music culture. A system of music developed over centuries.
In the work report of the 19th National Congress held not long ago, it was also pointed out that we literary and art workers must create works that are close to the people. Music is not a sacred object, it may be sacred, but its existence must be closely connected with people. Therefore, in music teaching, we should pay more attention to designing the form of classroom music narration, starting from the music itself, starting from the human heart, looking for the soul, inheriting music, and inheriting Chinese culture.
This is a historical mission and a responsibility.