Hochschule für Musik, Theater und Medien

Luo Shengying, Prof. Dr. Franz Riemer

Music classes give pupils the opportunity to develop their sensory abilities. It is
one of the concerns of schools to foster children's individual expression and
their communication with others. In music-related tasks, the pupils are both
the objects who perceive the expression of the musical work and the subjects
who express their feelings and thoughts through the music.

Building on this basis, the project compares the German and Chinese understanding of teaching music and the actual conditions in music classes. Some preliminary results of the project are:

• The core of the Chinese music curriculum is aesthetic instruction

• The core of the Lower Saxony curriculum is training competence

• The average number of pupils in a music class in China is 33, in Germany 23
  

• Teachers in Germany see discipline in class, the goals of the class, and the number of pupils in a class as less of an obstacle to fostering expressive and communicative abilities than do teachers in China

• German teachers who were asked emphasize pupil's individuality and self-confidence, as well as the diversity of behaviors
  

• The emphasis in Chinese music classes is on teaching the contents of the textbook
  

The working title of the study is: Fostering expressive and communicative
abilities in primary school music classes. A comparative study between China
and Germany, using the example of Peking and Hanover.
Completion of the project is planned for 2012. The results will be summarised in a dissertation.