Ancient poems hit right note at school
Print Edition
Setting ancient poetry to music is the Jiading Education Bureau’s latest effort to teach local students traditional Chinese culture.
“Dream in spring morning never breaks, but birds twitter around my place.” The lines from Tang Dynasty (618-907 AD) poet Meng Haoran’s “Spring Dawn” are now the lyrics of a song.
It, along with 15 other examples, now features in songbooks which will be used by every student at public elementary schools in Jiading.
Wang Wei’er, a researcher of the district education bureau’s research and development center, picked the poems while Yi Fenglin, head of the bureau’s arts education office, wrote the music.
“Recitation is a way for students to learn the poems but singing may have a better effect,” Wang said. “Picking the right poems is key.”
The pair follow two rules when they pick poems — they need to be catchy and espouse traditional values.
“‘A Traveler’s Song’ is about filial piety; ‘Commiseration for Peasants’ is about frugality; ‘Plum blossom’ reflects strength,” said Wang, expressing the hope that students will understand the meaning behind when they sing the poems.
Write music for the poems is a challenge to Yi. Although most of the assignments involve only 5 minutes of music for four short lines, “melodies could be very complicated as it is not easy to explain the poems with music,” Yi said.
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