Maybe you have an experience: when we recite something only, it is usually a little bit difficult; if we sing it as a song, the thing will be changed much easier. With this idea, I tried to create music for Chinese classical poems since 2005, until now, I have created more than 136 piece of music.
At the first, I just sang alone and publish what I had sung on my little web site.
Since Sep, 2009, at my first art exhibition in Springfield, MO, USA, I started to sang the poems on my paintings for my American audiences and students before I did some Chinese painting demonstrations. Until May, 2013, I just started to sing a Chinese poems for my American students, as a language teaching method in the classroom.
Sep, 2013, after my book and DVD on this project was published, I was lucky enough to have an opportunity to offer Chinese poetry classes 6 times at the R-II Seymour School. I tried to not only show the students how to read the Chinese characters, the lines and I tried to teach them to sing the poem and helped them to remember the lines naturally and easily.
If you have any questions, comments and suggestions, please write to
shirley@ebridge.cn . You are welcome to publish your opinions in
Message Board as well.
Shirley Yiping Zhang
Sep 23, 2013
