6楼甜甜妈咪
(遁世之俗，惟有艺术。)
发表于 2009-7-10 14:09
只看此人
我的名片--The space in between(2009-07-09 14:58:56)标签：教育
On her name card she is presented as such: BA Music Education—Shanghai Normal University, space, Dip Piano Performance—ABRSM, space, MA Music Performance—Kingston University, UK.
These are the three concise phrases to summarize my 20 years of relationship with music (which in fact illegitimately started way earlier without legal documentation) that would comfortably suffice for anyone looking for a decent private tutor or music lecturer. Born in a family with a long history of being prone to this infection of Dionysus （noteworthy victims: my aunt, violinist 俞丽拿，who incarnated the butterfly love tragedy into her instrument, and her son, my dear cousin 李坚，the one and only true pianist in the whole world of my entire childhood plus adolescence ), I have, on the other hand, found myself entangled in a constant effort of capturing this most intangible and capricious form of art and most of all, of sharing the product of such with people, particularly my younger audience. My most intimate experience with music extends far beyond those hours spent in lectures. It is through my cross-border traveling, communicating, learning and self-reflecting during these past years in three vastly different countries that I have achieved the most critical discovery of my value as a musician and the potential contribution which I, as an educator and performer, could make to those around me and farther away.
I had no sooner gained my Bachelor’s than started my teaching career. During my years as a student, I could always prepare “just the right amount” for my own recitals and examinations as any smart kids would do at college. On the contrary, it is always essential for an educator to have his bucket filled even if it is but one drop that he has to give. To me, the urge of refilling my bucket did not occur, as most would think, some time into my teaching career, but at the very beginning of it. It was after teaching my self-designed music appreciation course to high school students not specializing in music, when I realized that I, as a teacher, could no longer rely on what my BA in Music Education had given me, despite the fact that my existing knowledge was more than enough for the eager students who were just starting to distinguish between a Baroque piece and a classical one. It was a deeper perception of music as a form of inspiration for the general population, which nobody could feel but myself, that I thought was lacking, and it was this conviction that had driven me to keep going, to Singapore, and then to England, to pursue a higher level of learning that would better qualify me as one who could not only make people know music, but also love it.
And with what I have learnt, I move on to the most painstaking but also the most gratifying process in music-education—the process of enabling my students to think and perceive musically. It is extremely disheartening to see that the disproportionate emphasis on performing techniques and militant training which are prent in today’s piano lessons have inevitably bred either a mechanical performing style or an irreversible hatred towards music. I can hardly picture a child being able to appreciate the beauty in the Bohemian-styled, rhythmically fluidly opening of Chopin’s Op. 64 No. 1, while trembling in fear of the needles pointing at his wrist to prevent it from falling lower than it should, or a child being able to recognize the contribution of major-minor contrast to For Elise’s dynamics when all his tutor cares is if he can fling his fingers as high as a Can-Can dancer her legs. My experiences of teaching a diverse student body have convinced me that it is much easier for a student genuinely fond of music to voluntarily adopt the appropriate techniques than for one rigidly trained for the techniques to later develop a genuine loving. For me, it is my job to first give them the most fundamental feel of music, and with that, the learning of techniques will come with greater ease.
Music becomes an even more powerful tool when served with a more specific purpose to a larger audience. The most recent years witnessed a delightful series of some of my students’ original concerts and musical productions of which I was the organizer and instructor. For one who had hardly left the realm of a classroom or lecture hall, it was a time of breakout, of leaving her comfort zone, of going the extra miles to convince people of the joy of music. Just like a missionary, I have found, through the tireless efforts of liaison and communication, a more effective medium through which music as an abstract form of art can be made more popular and welcomed to the general public. This has certainly given me a new direction in my musical career.
One of the things I am most frequently told by my students has been: “You enlighten.” While I take it more as an expectation for myself than an achievement, I undoubtedly take greater pleasure in the moments of seeing my students and audience being transformed to people with a more optimistic and holistic view of life by way of music. And while under most circumstances it will still be those three phrases on my name card which will eventually matter, to me, it is the spaces in between..
