Source
r/musictheory•
pixiepiper

50-minute music fundamentals class for 14 to 19-year olds from China

Our university is hosting a small music festival next week in which several students have been invited from China. I have been asked to teach a 50-minute music fundamentals class to them. The problem is that they speak very little English, and I speak no Chinese. (and this was only revealed to us within the last week). The purpose of the festival is to establish a relationship between their school and ours to offer an exchange program in which they would complete their last two years of college at our institution and receive a degree from the U.S.

I have no idea what to do with this class. A colleague suggested I teach it like our intro to music theory class (overview of major/minor scales, major/minor 2nds and 3rds, triad construction, etc.), but that seems like way too much to cover in a 50-minute session, especially with a language barrier.

Honestly, I believe their time would be better spent in free time or an introductory English class, but our non-music administration designed the schedule to include examples of our classroom-based courses. In addition to this class, I’m supposed to lead a “music jeopardy” session. I think I’ll probably just design some sight-singing and rhythmic sight-reading slides for that so the language barrier is avoided completely.

Do any of you have any ideas? I’m at a total loss here.

Posted Jul 25, 2018, 1:29 PM UTC

26
LiamGaughanrock/pop/jazz/production•

Group activities to do with rhythm I would go for. See if you can grab some simple percussion instruments, split them into groups and get a little groove going with 3 or 4 groups.

Another good game is to play 'pass the rhythm' and have a steady beat while you clap a simple 1 bar phrase and see if the class can copy it. Once they get the idea, let them pick some rhythms for you to copy. It really opens up the students when they are the ones in control of playing the rhythms.

If you have to get tonal, I would start with instrumentation. 'What instrument is this?' and if they're into pop music then use pop instruments. If they are classical then use forces of the orchestra maybe?

2
pixiepiperOP•

This is great and requires little explanation! We have boomwhackers. I’m sure they would have fun with that.

1
jazzadellic•

Tell the administrator or whoever assigned this task to you they need to provide a translator.

2
pixiepiperOP•

One of my colleagues is Malaysian and can speak a few things, but it’s still going to be difficult.

1
gtfo_mailman•

I just want to say that there is such a thing as "chinese notation" which is very different from the western notation system. It's mainly used for traditional instruments so chances are there is going to be one or two of these teenagers who don't know how to read western notation. Perhaps not, but I'd advise you to have an easy explanation at hand.

1
pixiepiperOP•

Thank you...we’re doing some combined pieces for the concerts, and they all read Western notation. Unfortunately, they didn’t bring their traditional Chinese flute students. (My flute students were really looking forward to that!)

1