Journal of Music History Pedagogy

Teaching Beethoven in China as an American in Hong Kong

2024-12-30T09:30:07-07:00

“China Bans Beethoven’s Ode to Joy in teaching materials.” The unnerving headline, printed in the now shuttered Hong Kong newspaper, Apple Daily (2020), failed to make musicological news outside China, even though it appeared during a period of extraordinary Sino-Western frictions. Much has changed since the last report on China was issued in the Journal of Music History Pedagogy (2012). Whereas Craig Wright, Yang Yandi, and others were then optimistic about China-US relations, there are now sufficient reasons for both sides to tread carefully, including (among others): trade wars, charges of genocide and racism, national-security laws, and the CIA’s “China Initiative.”

Beethoven, as described in the pioneering work of Cai Jindong and Sheila Melvin, is a shared interest between China and the West, and, as such, the composer’s life and works have accompanied cultural-diplomatic missions since China’s Cultural Revolution. Political Beethoven, however, remains sensitive. As is well known, mention of the Tiananmen Square Massacre (1989), including the pro-democracy broadcasts of the “Ode to Joy,” is forbidden in China; that ban has expanded, according to Apple Daily. Real or fake news? In an era of red scares, music history teachers in the West must engage China effectively in the classroom. Like the provocative subject of Mao and Music, as expertly treated by Lei X. Ouyang, Beethoven in China requires a pedagogical plan. If my experience teaching that course at The Chinese University of Hong Kong is any guide, one can still teach the “Ode to Joy” in China, without being banned, as yet.

Engaging the Anthology

2024-12-30T09:30:07-07:00

In this essay, we discuss a pedagogical approach to the exploration and production of structures (designs, narrative frameworks) and ideas (assumptions, ideologies) that organize both large- and small-scale collections of sound recordings of Black music. The goal of our approach is to articulate, analyze, and either draw on or depart from the narrative assumptions that these structures’ selection, organization, and presentation convey. After exploring the ways that these elements create stories, we encouraged students to imagine the possibilities of new structures and ideas, laying the groundwork for producing historical collections that have the potential to upend, add to, or create alternatives to existing narratives.

Practicing What We Preach

2024-12-30T11:47:35-07:00

While the basic facts of Elise Hall’s life and career are known to many saxophonists, they are less well known to a broader public (for example, she is not mentioned in Oxford Music Online, and at the time of writing her Wikipedia entry in English consists of three lines and the names of five men). Additionally, she is primarily considered in reference to the (male) composers of the early twentieth century that she commissioned, rather than in her own right as a performer and commissioner of music for saxophone. Despite being musically and stylistically demanding, Hall’s commissions are sometimes regarded as having insufficient technical difficulty to showcase the instrument or the performer, thus minimizing both their perceived aesthetic value and Hall’s contributions to the repertoire.

By combining the perspectives of a student of saxophone performance and a music history professor, this article aims to analyze Hall and the repertoire that she commissioned through the lens of recent approaches to the decolonization of musicology and analysis. In this context, “decolonization” refers to the dismantling of outmoded aesthetic value systems that effectively marginalized Hall and the music that she performed, due to her gender. We challenge the attitudes that we have met through, on the one hand, finding and performing work that is regarded as “amateur,” and, on the other, putting forward a curriculum that moves beyond the dominant historical narrative of the (dead, white, male) “imaginary museum of musical works” (Goehr 1992). Through critical reflections on student-led artistic learning initiatives, we tackle the implicit and biased notions of “excellence” in higher music education, and examine the implications of a more diverse and balanced performance curriculum.

Let’s Talk About It

2024-12-30T09:30:08-07:00

Lynne Rogers, Karen M. Bottge, and Sara Haefeli, Writing in Music: A Brief Guide

2024-12-30T09:30:08-07:00

José Antonio Bowen and C. Edward Watson, Teaching with AI: A Practical Guide to a New Era of Human Learning

2024-12-30T09:30:08-07:00