Vocal Music Volume (1)

Author: Han Xunguo, edited by Mao Kai
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2004-09-01
Features: After six months of intensive discussion, writing, and compilation, the high school music teaching materials "Vocal Music" (Volume I) and (Volume II) are now officially published. This is the fruit of joint research and hard work by dozens of vocal music teachers from the School of Music at Central China Normal University and more than ten higher normal music schools. If it can contribute to the development of teaching materials for higher normal music education in our country, we will feel immensely gratified. Since the reform of higher normal music education in China was initiated in the 1980s, various versions of vocal music teaching materials have emerged domestically, including many valuable and high-quality ones. However, with the deepening of reform, the field of high school music education has shown new trends, giving rise to many new academic growth points and knowledge areas. New vocal music works of various themes have been continuously created. Therefore, updating teaching content has become an urgent task. Based on this understanding, in the writing of this textbook, we strive to break free from the shackles of stereotypical thinking such as "classicism" and "didacticism," replacing it with a selection philosophy of "new content" or "new faces": For contemporary excellent vocal music works, we will focus on their "teaching applicability"; for classic vocal music works, we will carefully select the most representative ones and emphasize the integration of "modern teaching concepts and methods." We also take into account the themes, genres, styles, cultural heritage value, aesthetic education value, and technical training value of the works. At the same time, combining the practical teaching experience and academic research accumulated by teachers over the years, we have written performance tips for the works to make them more relevant to the current state of high school vocal music teaching and learning.
We have also designed three sections—required repertoire, optional repertoire, and duet/part song repertoire—based on the characteristics of high school vocal music teaching, which includes various teaching formats such as segment-based instruction, individual lessons, and group lessons. The required repertoire is aimed at the vocal quality education of the majority of students; the optional repertoire is available for students with relatively stronger vocal abilities; and the duet/part song repertoire can be used in group lessons to cultivate students' musical collaboration skills. Teachers can select appropriate repertoire progressively according to the specific conditions of their students.
Textbook development is a highly rigorous and complex task. Due to professional limitations and the tight publishing schedule, we have not yet fully assimilated many new academic insights before putting them into writing. Therefore, there may still be many shortcomings in this textbook. We sincerely hope that our vocal music colleagues who use this textbook will kindly offer their advice and corrections.