On the Road of Dream Seeking-- Shirley's 539th Friendly Greeting -Oct 15, 2016

Hi,Dear Friends

How are you? Is everything doing well on your side?

It has been the 15th day since I wrote to you last time. Several times, I would like to write, but I was too busy to do it.

On the next day I wrote to you, the publishing house of Jinan University called me and wrote me formally. They would like me to finish the second volume of our last publication series which had been listed into their publishing plan of 2017 and they would like to carry it to an International Book Fair in 2017. As far as to organize more people to join in our jobs, their advice is to do it and to accumulate data in my future teaching in the USA naturally...

Since the two Chinese national holidays in both of September and October had really delayed a lot of time, the publishing house gave me some more time before handing in the manuscript of my publication.

With a grateful heart. I tried to find a balance between music and painting since Chinese National Day's Holiday – every morning, I do the vocal exercises at the first and then I sing while painting, walking, cooking and doing every thing unless I eat or write calligraphy... with this way, every day I can sing at least for 8 hours...

Then we re-went back the recording jobs since Oct 10 and we will finish all of the record jobs next week.

In the past 15 days, I have done the jobs for about 30 days (I mean worked for about 15 hours each day, sometimes for 19 hours) and had much gain, mainly on three aspects:

-- Theoretically, it seems like I have found a new and strong argument to support my little cross-culture and comprehensive art dream via studying and analyzing the relationship between vocal music and Chinese language -- when we sing a Chinese song, the actions in our mouths and the moving direction of the air current is as same as we are speaking Chinese language (the difference is just the openning degree of the mandibular joint and the high degree of the air current in vocal music are bigger and higher than them in Chinese language and the formor is just a melodious language). So, when we do it opposite, to teach students to learn Chinese language beginning from singing a Chinese song, we will get twice the result with half the effort. The lucky thing is that original Chinese poetry could be sung, its oral expression is poem song. Therefore, to sing a Chinese poem on a Chinese painting, is one of the best methods to remember the poem and its language, especially its pronunciation of modern Chinese language, while helping learners to learn multi- Chinese culture and arts.

-- Practically, it seems like I have found a new way to resolve the problem that both of vocal music and painting need time at the same time. Therefore, at the same time as a candidate of MFA, I have had a new goal for my music study. I would also try to write some papers on music and language, music and poetry, music and painting at the same time to work on my dissertation.

-- As a lucky student, my supervisor of Chinese National Academy of Arts – Professor Mu Jiashan who just had an art exhibition which was sponsored by IMF (International Monetary Fund) Oct 3 to Oct 9 in Washington D. C. wrote to me that he would like to paint a few paintings for my new publication. And my music coacher – Professor Meng Weiye (he is on the photo 2, 4,5, 7) has sung a few Chinese poem songs for my new publications already. What they would like /have done will not only improve the quality of my publication, but also it will become a good beginning to get more talent people to join in my cross-culture and comprehensive art practice.

So, although I am quite busy, in my heart it is full of the appreciations to my tutors, work partners and all of the people who have helped me and are helping me at this time...

How about you? Do you have anything special to share?

Phone Notes:

No.2: My music tutor-- Professor Meng Weiye
No.3: My sound engineer -- Mr. Ou Dejian
No.4: Professor Meng Weiye and I
No.5: Prof. Meng, Mr. Ou and I
No.6: Music Director Zhang Hongyang of Shenzhen Red Culture & Art Communication Co. Ltd.
No.6: From right to left -- Director Zhang Hongyang, Prof. Meng, I, Mr. Ou and Ms. Man

I am just a student on Arts of Painting, Music, English and Management, to work on the web site in my free time. I would really like to do somethings with what I have learned to make this little web site to be an Electronic Bridge of Cross - Culture and Comprehensive Arts, Language & Friendship. To help the others and this world while improving myself and realizing my own value of life.

I would really like to appreciate you for your understanding, directions, supports and help.

If you have any questions, comments or suggestions, you are welcome to write to shirley@ebridge.cn or leave your message on Message Board.

Sincerely,

Shirley Yiping Zhang
Oct 15, 2016 (Beijing Time)