Music educator with major score to settle

Zong Xiaojun, a veteran educator at the Central Conservatory of Music, launched his new book, Music: Powering the Creative Imagination, at a recent music education gala in Tianjin.

His courses, based on the book, are touted as one of the first attempts to nurture creative imagination by connecting music with painting. His first class was given to music teachers from poverty-stricken areas as part of the National Music Education Conference, held over July 16-19 in Tianjin.

The courses are scheduled to be offered to more than 6,000 music teachers in 20 cities, including Wuhan in Hubei province, Taiyuan in Shanxi province, Yancheng in Jiangsu province and Xiamen in Fujian province.

As to the reasons why he initiated the project, he says, "The nation's overall in-school music training tends to be 'boring' with the educational materials unchanged for decades."

On the other hand, numerous families spend hard-earned money on instrument trainings for their children to get them into prestigious conservatories of music either at home or abroad.

"When they learn the techniques of playing the instruments, in fact, they are losing their dream to master the art," Zong says in a criticism of music training in China.

As such, Zong says he began writing the book and initiating the course plan amid the pandemic in March last year and completed it six months later. He registered the work with the Copyright Protection Center of China in October.

His efforts were recognized by experts, including those from the China Music Instrument Association, the sponsor of the National Music Education Conference and the Tianjin Julliard School.

The book and the series of courses are not meant to impart any profound knowledge of music theory or painting technique. Instead, they try to connect or build a person's inner world by integrating the rich auditory feelings of the three elements of music－melody, rhythm and timbre－into the seven genres of visual art and 10 painting representation techniques. This helps enrich learners' minds and inspire his or her creative imagination, according to Zong.

The training can be offered to learners from ages 5 to 50, and doesn't require any basic skill in playing or drawing.

"I believe that the ultimate purpose of essential quality-oriented education in art is to extend general objective thinking to symbolic and abstract thinking, and convert it into creation and creative imagination," he says.

Before he proposed his latest course, Zong, 54, who was awarded a bachelor's degree from the Central Conservatory of Music with a major in cello performance and a master's degree in music management from the Frost School of Music, University of Miami, had given nearly 500 lectures on the popularization of music and art.

"The creative imagination is an important way for human society to advance and develop," Zong says. "Scientific and technological innovations are driven by the creative imagination."

He says he hopes that this imagination can help generate the power to promote scientific and technological innovation.

However, he says there are certain challenges in the implementation of his ideas. Overcoming secular concepts in music learning and training in China and people's thirst for grades in examinations are the major barriers on our way to the creative imagination.

"The impact of the secular society is extensive and far-reaching," he says.

Experts and teachers who joined the music gala shared their views on the new course.

Zhao Qian, president of Cathay Future Group, a big private art education group in China, says Zong is leading a "revolution" in the field.

Zhang Hongwei, a delegate from Chengde No 7 Middle School in Hebei province, agrees with Zong, saying that he finds the current music teaching lacking in theoretical support.

"Compared with performance technique, Zong emphasizes the essence of art, emotional power, creative imagination and aesthetic appreciation－these are what we are going to use to inspire students to understand art and explore the artistic world," says Zhang.

Dong Xiyan, a teacher from the Ethnic Middle School of Bairi Tibetan autonomous county in Gansu province, says the local students are in critical need of music knowledge.

"Zong stressed the importance of feeling, appreciating, expressing and yearning for the beauty," he says.

"Via Zong's concept, we are supposed to take advantage of music and aesthetic education to arouse students' vision of getting out of the small county and perceive the beauty of life."