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78 lines
7.8 KiB
HTML
78 lines
7.8 KiB
HTML
6 years ago
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<!doctype html>
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<html lang="en">
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<head>
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<meta charset="utf-8">
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<title>music academy</title>
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<meta name="author" content="Biyi Wen">
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<meta name="description" content="music academy">
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<link href="https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Margarine" rel="stylesheet">
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<link rel="stylesheet" href="template.css">
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<link rel="stylesheet" href="bg_2.css">
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</head>
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<body>
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<div id="container">
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<section id="text">
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<nav class="crumbs">
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<ol>
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<li class="crumb"><a href="index.html">Index</a></li>
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<li class="crumb"><a href="nanhai_library.html">Nanhai Library</a></li>
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<li class="crumb">Music Academy</li>
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</ol>
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</nav>
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<h1>Music Academy</h1>
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<p style="margin-top:60px;">The law of mixed business formats applied to the public Nanhai Library as well, since its storefront had been rented as a music academy and a bookstore for prep books. I had lessons at the music academy for one year, before it declared its closure. The teachers giving lessons there were young girls from the provincial conservatory. I disliked playing piano, at one lesson I finished early, the young teacher asked "Can I play for a while?" After my mother knew, she questioned her at the next lesson about the unlearned fifteen minutes and demanded that she would compensate the fifteen minutes accordingly.</p>
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<p>The music academy that occupied the Nanhai Library storefront came to place admist classical music trend in China since the 80s. Before taking piano lessons there, I learned electronic keyboard from a retired music teacher's home. He was my parents' colleague, at that time, all school teachers lived in the same compound.</p>
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<p>It was strange to think the first learning instrument being eletronic keyboard. It's more of a performative instrument than a classical, pedagogical model such as piano. I wondered, if that was because piano was expensive? My father's sister also lived in the same compound as us. Apart from the apartment provisioned by the school, she took the opportunity to buy an apartment in Panyu, formerly an independent city and now a suburb of Guangzhou. A piano came in with that apartment, as part of real estate marketing strategy. They transported the piano to their real home and my cousin started learning on that piano. The ever present script on the stand is from a pianist called Richard Clayderman. Records of his music could be heard all over restaurants and shopping malls during 90s and 00s. </p>
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<p>Few years ago I encountered a stories from a flute player. I found that her story is reflective of trajectories of music learning in China around that time. She was born in the early 80s, the same age as two other famed music prodigies Li Yundi and Lang Lang; in fact she studied with Lang Lang. Reaching her 30s, professional music performance became equivalent of washing dishes; she's fed up the routine. Professionalism no longer derived exploration in this art form for her.</p>
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<p>After music academy in the library closed, my parents subscribed me to another one that's opened in the shopping mall. It was founded by pianist Liu Shikun. Suffered greatly during the cultural revolution, he established branches of Liu Shikun music academies across the country since the 90s. A girl from my primary school also took lessons there. How I recognized her was by a yellow backpack printed with name of "Liu Shikun Music Academy", to put children's scripts in. The yellow backpack at the same time was also a mobile marketing device.</p>
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</section>
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<section id="gallery">
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<picture>
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<img srcset="img/music_academy/liu_academy_200w.png 200w,"
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sizes="(max-width: 2880px) 100px"
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src="img/music_academy/liu_academy.jpg"
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alt="liu_music_academy">
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<img srcset="img/music_academy/clayderman_200w.png 200w,"
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sizes="(max-width: 2880px) 100px"
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src="img/music_academy/clayderman.jpg"
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alt="richard_clayderman">
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</picture>
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<footer id="gallery">
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<p>Opening ceremony of Liu Shikun Music Academy, founded by the eponymous pianist. Along with the hit of classical music learning is popularisation of classical music, as seen in recording sales of pianist Richard Clayderman.</p>
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</footer>
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</section>
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<section id="network">
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<h1>Autonomy by Music</h1>
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<p>In <a class="external" href="http://ciao.urca.tv/#3/146.80/-529.36"><i>Music and Meaning</i>, </a> musicologist Lawrence Kramer discussed music as a autonomous expression. This following excerpt is particularly luminous at interpreting music as an expression that preserves an individual's autonomy</p>
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<p><i>"Experiencing music is an extremely intimate act because the sense of distance, typical of visual art, is collapsed in an immediate sense embodiment. The suspension of autonomy and contingency is shifted from outside to inside ourselves pointing at the core condition of our subjectivity. The subject is posed in a 'liminal' zone between autonomy and contingency, and has the power to set his own experience deciding where to put his boundries, what to incorporate or exclude."</i></p>
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<p>The concept of collapsable distance reminds me what the flutist have once mentioned. "The best intrument to learn is human voice, it's the most immediate". Compare it to other instruments which are extensions, the human voice is an intuitive gift. The comparison between human voice and intrumental music corresponds to the concept of extended sense of distance.</p>
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<p>However, I couldn't be convinced entirely. We have long lost the a priori innocence. In <a class="external" href="https://www.amazon.com/Log-Disorienting-Phenomenology-Joseph-Bedford/dp/0999237306"><i>Disorienting Phenomenology</i></a>, writers interprete a priori suspension as embedded in social realities after Phenomenologist Merleau-Ponty had founded this branch of philosophy.</p>
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<p>In <i>A Critical Phenomenology of Dwelling in Carceral Space</i>, Writer Lisa Guenther writes about her experience living in the gentrified, historically black and working class suburb of Nashville. Despite the fact that she enjoyed gestures of openness such as riding the bus with the rest of the residents, she found herself still instinctively protective of herself. "Late one night, I was riding in a friend's car and we stopped at a red light on Gallatin Road near a bench where a few people were waiting for the bus. Without thinking, I reached for the button to lock the door, then I stopped myself, too ashamed of my impulse to follow through with the action. After a short time in the neighborhood, I had incorporated the steel frame of a car that wasn't even mine into a kind of personal exoskeleton that made me feel vulnerable to the very people with whom I would be otherwise be sharing a seat on the bus."</p>
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<p>Extended criticism, such as <a class="external" href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/queer-phenomenology"><i>Queering Phenomenology</i></a> shows formerly undiscussed social realities to concept of a priori suspension.</p>
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<p>Looking back to my experience with learning music, I felt that the immediate experiences such as musical experience embedded many layers of social reality. Does it provide a sense of autonomy? Yes, it is an spiritual uplift, a peaceful seclusion. However, realities as recent as the music training industry are processes through which music is no longer an innocent medium of experience and expression. Learning and practice provides precision and skills however the same time it is an disciplined practice.</p>
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<p>Once, a very unorthodox orchestra existed. The Portsmouth Sinfonia. It is required that the member must be without musical training; if they had musical training before, they must choose another instrument. The orchestra ceased performing after the members become skilled at playing their instruments. </p>
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<p>Listen to a recording <a class="colleague" class="external" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpJ6anurfuw"> here</a>.</p>
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</section>
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</div>
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</body>
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</html>
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