The hallowed home of the erhu

art school's strict teaching of fundamentals brings ancient music to life

It is a common thing among Chinese parents these days to sending their children for piano or violin lessons.

In Jiangyin city, however, this trend comes with a slight twist - people are actually more interested in learning traditional Chinese instruments, particularly the two-stringed erhu, as compared to its Western counterparts.

Jiangyin is, after all, the hometown of Liu Tianhua (1895-1932), one of China's greatest erhu composers and performers. Liu died young at the age of 37, but he nevertheless left a great impact in the country's music and cultural scene. Throughout his life, Liu passionately advocated the popularization of traditional Chinese music in society.

Born to a cultured family, Liu had a younger brother named Liu Beimao who was a musician and an older brother, Liu Banning, who was a famous poet. The middle child started learning western music when he became a member of a band in a drama club in Shanghai in 1912. He later learned to play the erhu from folk musicians when the band split up before returning to Jiangyin to teach music in a middle school.

In 1927, Liu set up a traditional Chinese instrument orchestra with a group of like-minded musicians who possessed a passion in promoting the craft. He was well known for introducing modifications to the erhu to improve its sound quality, broadening the playing techniques for the instrument, as well as enhancing the teaching methods of traditional Chinese music by using methods used in the western musical education system.

Today, the Tianhua Art School, which is named after Liu, is well-known in Jiangyin for incorporating Chinese music education with the education curriculum for children ranging from kindergarten pupils to 12th grade students.

"Chinese traditional music has always been popular in our city, but there was no formal school for it back in early 1980s. People used to learn it through apprenticeship only," said Shi Xiaoye, the vice principal of the school.

The desire to promote traditional music among young people was what motivated Shi's father, Shi Ying, to set up Tianhua Art School in 1985. In the beginning, the school only provided musical training, but later adopted a more holistic approach in 1995 by turning the place into a full-time boarding school with a special focus on music education.

"We realized that without having a good foundation in all aspects, one can at most become a good performer, never a great musician," said Shi.

Besides the regular subjects such as Chinese, English and mathematics, every student in first grade will choose one instrument to specialize in. They can also choose to learn another instrument when they are older.

"The school offers courses on a dozen Chinese traditional instruments and the erhu is among the most popular," says Liu Lanjun, 34, who has been teaching erhu in the school for 10 years. She and two other teachers are responsible for teaching about 60 students how to play the erhu.

Liu, who played the erhu from first grade till she graduated from the music education department at Yangzhou University, had taught in Guangdong province for a year but left for Jiangyin after realizing that not many people in that region were interested in learning the instrument.

Last year, as part of celebratory events for the 65th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between China and Switzerland, the traditional Chinese music orchestra from Tianhua Art School held a concert in Switzerland.

"During the concert, the orchestra played Swiss folk music with Chinese instruments and received the warmest applause from the audience. Some of the people even started dancing with the music," recalled Liu.

"At that moment, we felt that our music had indeed transcended borders."

xingyi@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 07/15/2016 page43)