The problems of professional piano education in China: description and summary

Abstract

The subject of this research is the problems of professional piano education outlined by the Chinese and Russian authors. The article features a level model for description and summarization of the following relevant problems of Chinese piano education:1) locally observed (isolated) problems; 2) problems of insufficient professional qualification of pedagogical personnel; 3) absence of universal theoretical-methodological framework for preparation of the highly qualified personnel; 4) theoretical-methodological problems of fusion of the European fundamentals of pianism with the peculiarities of Chinese traditional culture. The levels are discerned by gradation of the problems from evident and local, i.e. in the experience of students and educators, to more general (abstract) problems, which being theoretical and methodological, manifest as the sources of problems of the previous level. The author reveals the sublevels of the highlighted problematic areas and makes emphasis on interconnectedness of the indicated problems. This leads to the conclusion that the source of difficulties in Chinese piano education lies in the unresolved problem of integration of the international experience of piano education into the educational realities of China. The author believes that the conflict between the national and the European in Chinese pianism could have been overcome by getting rid of the idea of incompatibility of these piano cultures and creating an integrative model of theoretical-methodological fundamentals of professional musical education, which would combine the positions of Chinese and Russian scholars and pedagogues dealing with the theoretical-methodological problematic.